Foodie, Formerly Fat

Ok, so it’s confession time… I gained about 12 pounds this summer. I know, some of you will read that and think to yourself, “How the hell can someone gain 12 pounds in 3 months?” Perhaps, others of you will think, “Well, remember all the crumb cake and danishes you were making? No duh you gained weight!” But maybe, just maybe, some of you out there will think, “Wow, you must have had a miserable summer to have gained 12 pounds.” It’s to the last group that I write this post.

Remember, the name of this blog is Foodie, Formerly Fat. And I was fat. For those of you who haven’t looked at my “about” page you should check out my before and after pictures. See after my daughter was born I got fed up with it. I was holding her and realized that in a few short months she was going to be crawling, walking, running, and expecting me to crawl around on the floor with her, to run after her, and to generally be able to keep up. Frankly, at that point, I couldn’t. Getting down onto the floor and then getting up again was possible, but not very easy and I felt terrible about it.

All my life I thought that I was fat. But here’s the kicker, I wasn’t. I wasn’t skinny like a model, and my doctors usually told me I could stand to lose 10 pounds but I wasn’t actually fat. Inside my head though, I was fat and all I wanted was to be skinny. Not thin. Skinny. Like Courtney Cox when she was on Friends. So, periodically, I’d try really hard to be skinny, and in the end wind up 10 pounds heavier than when I started. 15 years into that cycle and a baby landed me legitimately fat.

I’m not sure there was some magical change in my outlook that made me finally ready to fix things. But I know there was one thing that was different: I didn’t want to be skinny anymore, I just wanted not to be fat anymore. Hopefully you know what I mean. I no longer fantasized about being able to wear some sexy dress to some imaginary party. I just wanted to not always be the fattest girl in the room. I no longer fantasized about looking awesome in a swimsuit. I just wanted to be able to carry my kid up the stairs without getting winded. It’s amazing how motivating reality can be because reality is achievable.

I lost 90 pounds in a little over a year, and I honestly believed I was done worrying about my weight forever.

Here’s the catch: After I’d finally gotten to a healthy weight, I had another kid. Sleep deprivation, depression, elevated cortisol levels, and general life stress meant that I never got all the weight back off after he was born. And I’ve been walking around for the past three years secretly blaming my last pregnancy for the 12-15 “extra” pounds I’ve had stuck on me. But the truth is that I just got sloppy and “good enough” became the enemy of me achieving my goal.

I was close there for a while. By this time last year I was only 6 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight. A stressful school year and a nearly unbearable summer followed and at the end of August 2011 I got up the guts to weigh in again and there I was, up 21 pounds from last year, putting me 27 pounds from my goal and scared.

I know enough about dieting and exercise to write a book. Actually, to write several books. I just doesn’t do any good when you don’t have the emotional resources to do what you know you have to do. That’s where I found myself a few weeks ago. So, I decided to give up control. To stop trying to be the one to make the choices. I decided to stop doing it my way, which clearly wasn’t working. So, I turned to something I thought I’d never do again: a diet.

I bought the book The alli Diet Plan. And guess what? It’s kind of great. 2/3 of the book are recipes, real recipes. By real recipes I mean things like grilled swordfish with citrus and ginger; spaghetti with cherry tomatoes; cranberry muffins; creamed spinach. These recipes call for whole foods, nothing processed, and they taste good. Really. Best of all you don’t have to think about it or count calories.  They give you menus for whole days and all you have to do is follow the menu plans and you’re set. Of course, once you figure out how it all really works and get comfortable you can make your own menus for yourself following three very basic rules: your calories limits, your fat gram limits, and not eating more than 30% of your calories from fat in any meal.

I figured that it was time to share this with you because in the past 4 weeks I’ve lost 8 pounds. During those 4 weeks I haven’t been hungry between meals. I haven’t felt dissatisfied after eating. I haven’t sat down and thought, “Ugh, I have to eat that?” It’s been… well, hard, yes, but easy too. Most importantly, it’s been working. So, now I’m sharing it with you. The recipes for the next long while might surprise you: tasty, filling, low calorie, low fat, and simply good.

Of course, now that I’ve confessed all this I’m afraid the success will all fall apart. The light of day shining on this process tends to scare me more than my motivation has traditionally been able to withstand. So far this blog has been mostly recipes. I think we’re at a turning point and while I’m going to post just as many recipes, it’s going to also be more about my journey. If I know anything it’s that I’m not alone in this and I’m looking forward to this blog pulling together some of the community of folks like me that I know is out there.