Watching Our Weight Diaries
By Carol Gorelick with Kathleen Daelemans

My sister and I are "up a few." We've decided to re-commit ourselves to eating right and exercising regularly but since she cheats and I can't be trusted we decided to keep each other accountable by editing each other's Weight Loss Journals. 

Carol, April 2007
My Second Olympics
If I'd been keeping a weight loss journal the last several pages would be blank, blank, blank.  I have done n-o-t-h-i-n-g.  Our family sort of took the summer off.  Did I say summer?  I guess I mean the whole year.  I had surgery at the very beginning of Spring last year and was told to look forward to a good 6-8 months before I felt mostly like my old self again and boy do I feel like my old self.  My "very old" self that is. 

Talk about fat and lazy.  That plateau that I complained about so long ago? Not a problem!  I'm 10 pounds heavier than that.  Now I need to work my way back down to that weight.  Doing nothing achieves nothing.  It's sort of nice for a summer but, man, do I need to get back in gear!

Hindsight is 20/20
My poor trainer could see it coming.  I'd been really dedicated and putting forth a considerable effort to break through my plateau.  I wanted to be in top shape before I went in for surgery so I could recover quickly. I possessed the same kind of commitment, discipline and determination I had at the beginning of this journey.  I even bought a treadmill just before I went in for surgery.  My trainer and my husband picked it up for me and set it up in the basement.  There it sat all last summer.  I had a good excuse.  I had had surgery, remember?  That is a license to sit around and "heal," right? 

Well, maybe I could use that excuse for the summer but what can I say about this past winter?  Nothing good.  There is one good thing about the past winter: I didn't gain any more weight over the holiday season.  Joy.  Unfortunately, since January the pounds have been sneaking back on.  One pound here, another pound there.  Nothing to worry about, right?  We all know not to beat ourselves up about gaining back a pound or two.  The part of that sentence that I left out was, "as long as we get back to work and take it back off again."  Oops.  I didn't do that.  I only did the part about gaining a pound or two.  And I did it half a dozen times.

So this leaves me ten pounds heavier and on a new, higher plateau.  I don't like it here.  The view is bad.  Now I have to start my 2nd Olympics.  I have to find a way to get up the same enthusiasm and commitment that I had on the first go-round so looooong ago.  I'm calling it the 2nd Olympics because I imagine that the first time an athlete goes to the Olympics they are excited, thrilled, a little frightened but ready to literally conquer the world.  That's how I felt as I started my first real diet and lost that huge chunk of weight.  I did conquer it!  I truly worked and dieted my rear end off as well as my extra chins, some thighs and several other body parts.  Now I have to do it again. Ugh.

The 2nd time around is not as thrilling.  The first time, people cheered you on.  They were patient while you weighed your bread slices.  You could call every week and say, "I lost a pound! (or hopefully three)."  But now they can't keep up that level of enthusiasm and neither can I.  Now everyone, myself included, thinks I should know better.  I did it before, I can do it again.  Sure.  Right.

Well, I did do it before and I can do it again and no one but me is really going to cheer me on.  This time won't be as exciting but it will be just as challenging.  I will refrain from weighing my bread in front of my mother.  But I will try to grab the smallest slice available (while not picking through the whole loaf like my much older, way more neurotic sister Kathleen until she finds the smallest slice of bread in the bag.)

I will get back on the wagon or get off the wagon and even pull the wagon for a while. My kids would like that.  I will rededicate myself to exercise and eating in a responsible and well thought out way.  I will lose weight.  I will eat right. I will be healthier. I will fit into my smaller jeans again.  I can. I did. I will.

Kathleen, April 2007
Week "Once Again"
My winter weight doesn't fit into my skinny jeans and there's no room for it in my fat pants either. I have a perfectly legitimate excuse of course. I broke my back last summer and milked it for all I could. 

I was bedridden all winter. Hold the Kleenex. I loved every minute of it. I wasn't "allowed" to exercise so I didn't. I read books I've been meaning to read for years. I wrote a book and a half. I wrote 16 episodes of a new show. I watched garbage television. I became a connoisseur of loungewear.

I have new hips to prove it and under arm flab that's going to win me a heavy weight title if I don't do something about it. So, I am. It's either lose this weight or suffer the consequences. I could lie and tell you I'm inspired to get rid of my new gut for health reasons but the fear of becoming a size 22 again is what's driving me at the moment.

My Happy Weight
I considered starving myself back down to my happy weight. But I don't have the discipline to do it. I know it's not safe and I wouldn't actually do it but I should be able to keep my trap shut by now but I've never been one to be able to just say no. So, thanks to my shortcomings and laziness, after enjoying my happy weight for more than a decade...poof! It's gone. Goodbye size six, hello tele-chef-tubby.

I'm not willing to accept my new size as my new happy weight. I'm not willing to accept being out of shape as being good enough. And I've run out of doctor's notes for time-off so it's time to get going.
I lost 75 pounds by making peace with my lousy habits and thank goodness for that because they're all still here. I was perfectly willing to change what I didn't want to accept about myself but never had the discipline to do it so instead I figured out ways to strategize around my tendencies to over eat and under exercise.

My Size 22 Bad Habits…
Articulating self-defeating habits is the first step towards positive change so here goes.

1. Underestimating how much I actually eat every day
2. Convincing myself that unlike all the rest of my start-stop false starts this time I really will start again tomorrow
3. Giving myself permission to indulge "just this once" several times a day
4. Indulging in decadent treats because I "deserve" them
5. Talking myself out of exercise

Identifying what it's going to take to navigate around your laundry list of lazy habits is key to losing weight. Giving yourself permission to custom create an eating and exercise program that's safe and healthy for you and your family and one that you can get behind is how you will keep the weight off long term.

This isn't as complicated as it sounds. Weight loss basics are pretty commonsensical—eat right, exercise and don't give up. Everyone can benefit from revisiting the basics especially anyone who swears they're eating right and exercising regularly but "can't get the weight off" (me).

This week I'm focusing on five weight loss basics. Five is my magic number. Studies show that when we take on too much or try to change over
our habits overnight we're more likely to quit. 

My New Size 8 Five Step Program

1. Measure, measure, measure—I'm dragging out my measuring spoons, measuring cups and my kitchen scale. I'm going to weigh and measure everything I eat for a week. Okay at least for an entire day. I'm going to reacquaint myself with what 4 ounces of meat looks like, what an ounce of nuts looks like, what a serving of vegetables looks like, how very miniscule a serving of pasta is, what a portion of beans looks like and how much rice makes up a serving.
   
   
2. 86 False Starts – I realize it's politically incorrect to be anti-journaling when it comes to safe weight loss, but I am. Oh I believe it works. I understand the data and science behind it. I just hate doing it. But I hate being fat more. So as I said, I'm penning a weight loss diary and posting it on the internet for the whole wide world to see and pretending that if I'm anything less than brutally honest I'll lose all of my worldly possessions. I have no intention of having to confess more false starts to you and I will not give myself the luxury of starting over. A slip-up isn't license to binge for the rest of the day and it's certainly not a reason to throw in the towel. I am re-embracing that idea that eating right is something I "get" to do for the rest of my life.
   
   
3. Silencing My Inner Dessert Goddess – Mine is a non-stop chatter box filling my head with visions of Dark Chocolate Molten Lava Cake and soft serve ice cream cones. I have to constantly remind myself that I'm in control. It's not easy and it takes effort but keeping a consistent, open, honest and conscious dialogue with myself over the food choices I need to make keeps me honest.
   
   
4. Ditching Deserving Servings – I no more deserve desserts, extra large portions or seconds than I do all expense paid vacations. If I want these things I have to earn these things. More of anything edible means less of something else and more exercise. I can't play unless I pay. I know this. It's not new. It's just painful.
   
   
5. Change your mindset, change your body. If your dialogue is constantly sabotaging your efforts how on earth can you expect to succeed? This week, I'm swapping out negative internal dialogue with positive internal dialogue. "I'm older, this is just the way it is now" and "I'll never be small like that again" has been officially deleted from my vocabulary. "The weight is coming off," "I can feel a positive change happening" and "I have the power, the means, the will and the want to be healthy and nothing is going to stop me" is headlining again.

Losing weight is a zillion little decisions a day. Mastering the art of positive change and never giving up at trying to master the art of positive change is how I've achieved everything positive in my life. I'm not giving up now. In fact, I'm off for a bike ride.