Question: What do weight loss and a bowl of spaghetti have in common?
Many years ago when I was in college, I attempted to lose weight for the first time in my life. I was overweight most of my childhood and that was all I knew. I also grew up during the time when diet pills were sold over the counter and everything was about eating low-fat food. Fat was supposed to be making you fat, so you weren’t supposed to eat fat. I heard this information and thought to myself, I’ll just keep eating what I want to and look the way I do.
When I did decide to lose some weight, I assumed every week when I weighed myself the scale would show I had lost weight. Simple, right? I would stick to my plan I had, which was only eating a certain number of calories and fat grams a day, and each week I would see progress. I did see a lot of progress. I think the reason I had such rapid weight loss was I overhauled me eating habits. My goal was to lose 100 pounds in one year and I did it! There wasn’t much room in my food plan though to live. I pretty much isolated myself from people and social situations. When I did this, I didn’t have to worry about being tempted to eat the food around me. It also made me even more lonely as I was trying to lose the weight without any support. I didn’t tell anyone I was going to do this because I was afraid if I told someone and failed, I would just be so ashamed. I did gain all the weight back a few years later. I felt like a failure not just because I gained the weight again. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t lose weight while still living my life. I thought something must be wrong with me. Why can’t I go out with my friends and still enjoy myself? Why am I so scared to be around food? Why am I letting it control me so much?
In 2011 when I decided enough is enough, I didn’t want to isolate myself from people or situations where there would be food. I wanted to have a life! My plan this time was to lose 100 pounds in a year. Why 100 pounds and why a year, I really don’t know. Maybe because I had done it before. Anyway, I started like I had done years earlier, I was going to only eat a certain number of calories and watch the pounds come off. Well after a few weeks the pounds weren’t falling off. Some other things that happened were, I would have to work late, I had to figure out meals, I had to make sure bills were paid, I had to make sure car and house maintenance was done. What was happening was this thing called life. I would plan meals and exercise and sometimes they didn’t happen as planned. There were some weeks the scale went down, sometimes it went up and sometimes it went nowhere. The process of losing weight is not a straight line. I have read articles that said the goal is to lose a pound a week. What if you are sick or dealing with a sick family member and you can’t get in as many workouts as usual? You may not lose anything or the scale may go up a little. Then you get to a place you can focus on trying to balance things in your life and all is well with the world again. This is why losing weight is like a bowl of spaghetti, it’s all over the place. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to stay on track with your food and exercise program. It just means it’ll be an exciting journey to see where you end up in your bowl of spaghetti.