Forgiven

For the longest time, I’ve been angry with myself for gaining weight, for being out of shape, for being the kind of person who doesn’t like to exercise because I don’t like to hear myself breathe. Take a moment to let that one sink in. How sick is that?

Anyway, as I’ve lost weight, I realize that I need to forgive that woman over ten years ago who was eating the cream out of double stuf Oreos and throwing the cookies out the window into fields for lucky animals to find (or to rot into the ditch). That woman was doing the best she could. She was so tired. She was driving 65 miles one way to work every day, she was learning to mother a child who wouldn’t or couldn’t sleep through the night. She was so very tired. And she was doing what it took to stay safe while on the road. It took food. Lots and lots of food. It also took caffeine in the form of full sugar Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. I love those drinks.

I’m not drinking them these days because yes, so very bad for me. But I to so love them.

I need to forgive the me of seven years ago who repeated the pattern as she figured out how to parent two children, one a rambunctious four year old who still needed her mom and the other a sick little infant who cried. She cried all. The. Time. Poor baby. Again, food was the way to maintain sanity.

I’m in a place right now where losing weight is easy. I don’t say that lightly. I have wanted to lose weight for years and I’ve said more time than I can count that I know how to lose weight, I just have to get to a place where I CAN lose weight.

When it’s hard for me, well, I don’t really do it. Duh, huh? But right now, for whatever reason, the stars have aligned, the full moon shines brightly on me (I know there isn’t a full moon anywhere near this time of this month) or I’m just lucky enough to not be nearly as tired as I was several years ago.

Whatever it is, I’m so, so grateful that it’s working this time. I have high hopes of it continuing and that at some point, I’ll learn to maintain and moderate my eating while being a normal, non-dieting person.

We’ll see. For now, I’m celebrating being a person who has lost 31 pounds in 10 weeks. I think those are pretty awesome numbers. They’re awesome enough that they give me the strength to forgive the me of eleven weeks ago who gorged right before starting the diet, the one who ate as much junk as possible at the very idea of ‘depriving’ herself in the months to come.

Right this second? I don’t feel deprived and that’s pretty amazing itself.