What makes weight loss so hard? Part 2

Yesterday I told you that I would continue evaluating why it seems to hard for me to lose weight this time around.  If you haven't read yesterday's blog yet, you might want to do that first.

The second reason I think it's so hard to lose the weight since Samuel's pregnancy is that it's not new this time.  When I lost my weight back in 2007, it was something new.  There is something to be said about the automatic motivation that we get when we join Weight Watchers and follow the program with "newbie vigor."  2007 wasn't the first time I had joined Weight Watchers but it was the first time I had joined it seriously.  The other times I had joined Weight Watchers I was young and not serious about following the program.  I was old enough to understand how much I wanted to lose the weight.  I had done my research about following other plans and knew that Weight Watchers was the one for me.  I had been following the plan on my own at home and had lost some of the weight already.  I knew I had liked the plan.  I knew that it was just a plan that taught me how to eat right and exercise. It didn't have any foods that were forbidden.  I didn't have to give up desert for the rest of my life.  That's what I needed, something to teach me how to live a healthy life

Since I had been following the plan on my own at home for a while, I had already lost about 30 pounds.  The problem with following it by myself was.............well, I was by myself.  I needed support.  I needed the meetings.  I needed to hear some tips.  Yes, I could read the materials that I had at home but I knew it wasn't the same as being in the meeting room and having someone else weigh me in each week.  The "newness" of following the program on my own had worn off. I was struggling and needed something to trigger steady weight loss again.  When I joined the meeting room in 2007 I found the new feeling that I needed again.  The newness of the meetings gave me the extra "umph" I needed to lose the weight.  By the end of 2007 I had made my goal.  It wasn't all smooth.  I had my gains.  I had my stumbles.  But I made my goal.

As many of you know I stayed at or under my goal until 2009 when I got pregnant with Samuel.  It was a true blessing to have another child so I really wasn't concerned with how to get the weight back off. I was actually excited to get through a pregnancy without gaining 60 pounds because I now knew the secret of living a healthy lifestyle.  I was proud to have gotten through my pregnancy with about a 40 pound gain.  That was 10-20 pounds less than each of my other 4 pregnancies! That was success!!  After his birth I got back to following WW because I know it is a fabulous plan and works well.  The tricky part is that it is not new any longer.  Not only have I been a WW member for many years now, but I have already achieved the status of Lifetime Member so the "newness" has long wore off.  That has surely made losing the weight a bit tricky this time.  A new thing is always exciting.  Sometimes it's a little nerve wracking but exciting also.  That excitement is not nearly as strong this time.  Especially since Samuel is now 14 months and I am still not back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  I am back to my WW goal but my pre-pregnancy weight was under that.

It seems that there are actually a number of reasons tied into my second reason for weight loss for being harder this time.  I am already a Lifetime Member so that is one goal that I had before that I no longer have to motivate me.  I am already at my WW goal weight so I'm not motivated to get to the point where I don't have to pay anymore.  I'm not at my highest weight ever this time.  Although I am incredibly uncomfortable at times, I am within my healthy weight range for my height so many times I am the only person who thinks I need to lose weight.  Many people look at me and think I have already lost all of the baby weight.  They can't see those hidden pounds that I know are there and the elastic in my pants know is there.

Wow, as I write this I think I could keep writing more and more reasons that this is so hard.  Let's see, now I am a mother of 5, I have no time for myself, I get less sleep than I have in a long time, as the kids get older home schooling is getting more time consuming.......would you like me to continue?  I don't think so.  I don't think I can listen to myself whine any longer.  As I tell my children when the complaints and whines start coming, "What are you going to do about it?  Is the whining fixing it?  Is it helping?"  That would be a big, fat no!  So tomorrow instead of checking back for "What makes weight loss so hard?", check back for "What are you going to do to make it easier?".  It's time for some uplifting ideas and answers to our problems.

Have a great day,
Corinna

"We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come." -1 Corinthians 10:9-11