Methafast Withdrawls

One thing I've always battled is my weight and my view of what my "ideal" weight should be. If you look at any height/weight chart, a 6'0" woman should be between 146-184. Well that's quite the range and could we be more vague!?! I'm at a healthy weight right now (184), but not as low as I had gotten with Medifast.  I've been feeling like "will I EVER get back to my lowest weight on my own?" The real question needs to be..."do I NEED to get back down to my lowest weight?" Maybe, maybe not --- jury's still out.

As we were on our way to my nephew's birthday party this weekend, I was feeling very jiggly, bloated and thunder-thigh-ish and Phil asked, "what's wrong?" Open flood gates!!  As I tried to explain to him how unsuccessful I was feeling he said, "ah, I see, you're having Methafast withdrawls." WHAT?!? Apparently, he compared Medifast to Meth since I lost so much weight so fast.  But he did follow that up with a lovely compliment, so I'll take it! :) I think he might be onto something however (don't tell him I said that). Since I did hit my goal weight and know what Medifast can do, I'm feeling like "why can't I do the same thing with real food and exercise. Maybe I should go back on the program?" But I'm certain I'd start this cycle all over again, like a real addiction.  As I'm trying to cope with this addiction to losing weight and finding a way to be "ok" in my own skin, here is the back story of why I'm in this place....

Before I got pregnant with X, I was nowhere near the "ideal" weight range and to be honest I hadn't seen a weight in this range since my Jr year in college.  After X was born, I lost what I put on during pregnancy (30 pounds), but was still 50-60 pounds away from "ideal".  I farted around with exercise and diet for a while and then got really serious. I bought Opraph's trainers' book (Bob Greene I believe) and used that to kick it into gear. I lost 20 pounds doing that and then switched to straight calorie counting and exercise. I lost another 12 pounds doing that. Then I hit the dreaded plateau.  I was beating my head against a wall trying to figure out why I couldn't get the last 25 pounds off.  That's when I was introduced to Take Shape for Life (aka Medifast). My mom was on the program and was seeing incredible success. I thought, "What the hell! I'll give it a go, get the weight off and then maintain that goal weight. Simple." Yeah right!! Getting it off with Take Shape for Life was simple. It was easy and fast, just like they said. I hit my goal of 170 --- for a day, but I was doing way more physical activity than I was fueling my body for. The 900 calories a day was far too little for all the Zumba I was doing (which was 3 days a week at that time). So I decided to transition from Take Shape for Life on my own (not how you should do it by the way) and that didn't work well...at all!  The weight quickly went back on (with the help of the holidays). 

As I saw the weight go back on I knew I needed to do something, something less expensive than Take Shape for Life and something that would allow me to eat normal food so I could enjoy meal times with X and my husband (which are rare times).  I joined Weight Watchers about a month ago. I haven't seen any real loss on the progam as of yet, but I think I'm still stuck in Methafast withdrawls and not taking it seriously. 

So here I am, proclaiming my full 110% dedication to Weight Watchers, kicking my Medifast addiction and being ok with where I am now and having a goal of getting back down closer to my goal and staying there ---- on my own.

Salud!
T