My Honeymoon Phase

You may have all heard about a “honeymoon phase” in regards to a diet or weight loss.  Many of us who have been there know that it can definitely be a real thing.  I’m one of those and this is my experience.

I didn’t start blogging until after I had already lost well over 140 pounds.  I had already been on Weight Watchers for a year and a half.  That is also about how long my honeymoon phase lasted.

As I mentioned the other day, I was hyper-vigilant during that period of time.  I was so strict with myself and what I ate that I would have put the military to shame.  Fortunately, that vigilance paid off each week (almost every week) with a decrease in the number on the scale.  I looked forward to weighing in each week.  It was fun feeling lighter and buying smaller clothes and seeing the reactions of friends and family.

I also spent most of my day thinking about what I ate, what I was eating, or what I was going to eat.  It’s almost all I thought about.  Definitely an obsession.  And I thought it was pretty easy.  Of course, I still weighed a lot, so I got a lot of points and never really felt deprived.  I said things to myself like “This is so easy!  I can stick with this for the rest of my life!  It’s a lifestyle change, not a diet!”

I spent a lot of time on the Weight Watchers message boards, learning all that I could and picked up a lot of tips from the wonderful people I met there.  But because things were going so easy for me at the time, I didn’t really understand how some of the others could be struggling.  That’s really hard for me to admit.  I sympathized, because I had obviously never been able to lose weight in my life and was extremely overweight.  I’d been where these people had been.  But at that point, I was still eating a lot, eating things I liked, and was losing weight every week.  What was the problem?  You just do it.  Uh, yeah.

But then the gloss faded.  Losing weight got harder each week.  My points dropped.  I got bored.  I got tired of having to be so careful all of the time when I watched so many people around me seemingly eating without care.  I started to feel deprived.  It started to feel like a diet instead of a lifestyle change.  I also became complacent; more and more content with where I was.  Life intervened.  Work stress interfered.  Home stress interfered.  Vacations interfered.  Old issues arose.  So many reasons, so many excuses.  So much life.

But it happens to so many of us.  Losing weight is hard.  And while anything worth having is worth working for, it can still be a vicious struggle.

Now this is all not to say that it won’t be smooth sailing for some, or for even you, dear reader.  Some people feel that click one day and zoom they’re off.  They eat perfect portion sizes for the rest of their lives.  They eat *cleanly* for the rest of their lives.  It can happen.  And if this describes you, then I envy you.

But for many of us it might not be that perfect.  It might not go that smoothly.  We might struggle a bit more with cravings and portion sizes.  We might not lose as fast.  And I’m here to say that’s okay.  I’m here to say that we can survive the honeymoon phase, hit a rocky spot, and keep on.  The end of the honeymoon phase doesn’t have to be the end of our weight loss journey.  Wherever you’re at on your journey, if you’re still in the honeymoon phase, if you’re in a rocky spot past the honeymoon phase, or if you’ve passed the honeymoon phase and are in a good spot, keep on.  Just don’t give up.  Whatever you do, don’t give up.

I firmly believe that for a lot of us there’s so much more to this journey than just making a decision to eat healthier or to have the right amount of willpower.  If that were all that it took, so many of us would never have become as overweight as we did or would have lost the weight and kept it off years ago.  If you have any doubt, look at the emotion that comes out on The Biggest Loser.  Sure they bust their asses and the weight comes off while they’re there, but there are so many emotions and issues that need to be worked through in order for them to keep it off when they leave the house and the real world forces its way in.

So many of us dreamed of that quick weight loss, that sudden realization that “oh my gosh, I have no desire to eat anything other than raw fruits and vegetables ever again,” but for so many of us, it just isn’t like that.  I don’t have all the answers.  I don’t know that magic formula that’s going to make it click in your head and body so that you can lose your weight really fast and keep it off forever.  All I know is what has worked so far for me.  All I know is what my experience has been.  And if I’m proof to no one but myself that you can still make it through struggle without giving up, that you don’t have to be perfect on this journey, or that you can give in once in a while and enjoy that piece of cake, or heaven forbid that Big Mac, without gaining all of your weight back, then I’m okay with that.

I still feel doubts, but I work my way through them.  And while many may have seen my last year as a waste of time – I should be at my goal weight by now – and while I may have gained six pounds this week, I still consider myself to be a success in my heart.  I’m not eating perfectly healthy, but I am eating healthier.  I am so much more active than I ever was (at least in the last 25 years).  I’ve maintained a 140+ pound weight loss for well over a year.  And on top of it all, I’ve learned so much about who I am as a person and who I want to be.

Over the past year that I’ve been blogging, I’ve met a lot of truly wonderful people.  Many of whom I now consider friends.  At times it’s hard not to feel like just another face in the crowd and it’s hard to feel that’s there anything else I could possibly add.  But one of the most important things I’ve learned is that while we all want to lose weight and get healthier, we each have a different journey.  Our struggles are not exactly the same.  Our goals are not exactly the same.  Our successes are not exactly the same.  We come from different walks of life, different families, different cities, different jobs.  We each have different starting weights and different goal weights.  And even though we may have started at the same weight, are the same height, and the same gender, I may have a goal weight in mind.  You may have a different goal weight in mind.  You may have a clothing size in mind.  You may just want to avoid processed foods.

But regardless of our differences, we can learn something unique from each person we meet on this road.  Through each encounter, we grow, we expand as human beings.  And that’s in the good way, not the way that got us all in this mess to begin with.   I may learn something different from Hanlie than I do from Diana or from Skye or Tony or the other Tony or Carlos or Christina or Ron or any of the other wonderful people I’ve come to care about (you know who you are!).

So just because your journey may be different, don’t assume it’s not as worthy or as good (or that it is better, for that matter).  Don’t give up if it doesn’t meet your initial expectations or get overconfident (like I did) if it does.  None of us knows what life has in store for us, but we each have something to contribute and there just might be someone else out there that is in a similar situation.

Take care, my friends.