Last year was really difficult for me. New job (Alex), new city, new baby - BAM! Just like that. We moved to Melbourne from Tallahassee within the same week of coming home from the hospital with Kendall. Anticipating all of these major changes and aware of the hormonal and emotional mess that I knew I was going to be post-baby, I tried to remind myself to just take it all in stride and that eventually I'll make new friends and fall into a groove here with my two babies under 2, but it wasn't easy for me. At all.
Despite my husband being here and my parents just a short two and a half hour drive away, ready to be there for me at the drop of a hat if I needed them to be, I still felt terribly alone. So sad deep down no matter how hard I tried - or didn't try sometimes - to smile and act like I had it all under control. Of course I adored my new baby, was endlessly entertained by my precocious toddler and had a husband willing to do whatever it took to help out with the kids, but the emptiness lingered. It became so easy to turn to food for comfort, for happiness! I didn't have the energy to workout or even the strength to muster up the courage to put myself out there and make some new friends. It was so much easier to just open up the refrigerator during nap time on an especially difficult day with the kids, hit up the drive-thrus (yes, plural) after a little tift with my mother-in-law, or order way more than my fair share of take-out while Alex was out of town for work or at the dog track playing poker all night and I REALLY had no adult interaction. Emotional eating at its finest.
Quite the oxymoron.
"I just had a baby, I still have nine months to drop the weight."
"I'll start eating healthy on Monday."
"I need a gym membership so I can workout, but we really don't have the extra money for that right now, so there goes exercising."
"Okay, starting March (April, May, June, July,...) 1st, I'll __________."
Sadness, anger, exhaustion, frustration, loneliness - food was my only remedy. I don't think I stepped onto the scale even once last year and I convinced myself that I only needed larger-sized clothing so that I could be more comfortable getting down and dirty with the kids.
It wasn't until October that the reality of my weight gain slapped me hard in the face. One of my best friends from high school was getting married and I couldn't find anything to wear to her wedding, even in the plus size section. I was in tears because I really didn't want to go to the wedding at all; I just wanted to stay at home hiding in my sweat pants so that nobody from high school could see how fat I had gotten. For months I had been avoiding hanging out with old friends, sex with my husband was pretty much nonexistent and I couldn't even read a book to my kids without becoming short of breath. Then, while celebrating Christmas at my mother-in-law's, I didn't even recognize myself in the picture that she had taken of all of us just seconds before.
I braved the scale when we arrived home after the holidays, guessing that I was 170, maybe 180 lbs at the most...
190.2.
...190.2! That's far above the healthy weight range for someone who is 5'3"! I needed to do something, make some changes, and do so immediately; if not for my husband and for my kids, but for me.
So at the beginning of the year, with a lump in my throat and desperately trying to choke back the tears, I went and signed up for Weight Watchers and made a vow to suck it up and get myself and the kids involved around the community and finally make some friends. While the latter part of my New Year's resolution has been hugely successful - the girls and I have made some great lifelong pals here - the former has been a little rocky lately.
In four months after joining, I had lost 22 pounds and was really feeling great about myself. I had more energy, didn't squirm at the thought of my husband seeing me naked, and loved having my picture taken with the kids! I was always either behind the camera or dodging it before, so there weren't many photos of myself with the girls which was incredibly depressing. Around April, however, we encountered one expensive problem after another with my car. I'm not sure if it was the stress of how we were going to come up with the money to fix the car or being stuck at home completely car-less with two kids for an entire month that sucked the most, but, hey! Domino's delivers, baby. Since then, I've been on and off the saddle, skipping meetings and throwing money down the toilet for it.
I am so done with that. I felt so much better, so much healthier when I was on track and I really want that back... So let's do this, Weight Watchers!
