I Lost Ten Pounds
I’ve lost ten pounds since the beginning of the year. A little more, now, if we’re being technical, but it’s that ten pounds lost milestone I want to focus on.
If you’ve been following me long enough, you know that my weight has been a journey. My heaviest known weight was 245 lbs. Known because that was the first time I’d stepped on the scale in a very long time and I had lost a few pounds in the few weeks leading up to that moment, enough that I could already sense a difference in my waistband. I’d just moved to Knoxville to attend the University of Tennessee. I was walking almost everywhere and responsible for my own food for the first time in my adult life. I’d also started going to the gym for something to do since I didn’t know anyone at the time. By best guess, I was somewhere between 255-260 lbs at my heaviest.
From there, I spent a few years losing and gaining the same twenty or so pounds until I made a decision while in the shower one night to join Weight Watchers as a recent college grad with their first big girl job. Weight fell off and my motivation skyrocketed. I started taking barre classes, then teaching barre classes, then lifting weights. I reached my lowest weight and I was in the best shape of my life.
Enter, COVID.
No access to the gym, baking out of boredom, trying TikTok recipes… I gained a few pounds. Not many, but a few. I maintained those few pounds for a year or so, and then I moved to Los Angeles and gained around fifteen while navigating high functioning depression. Once I was back in Nashville, I needed to just be for a bit. I didn’t gain any additional weight, but I did little to lose it.
As cliche as it is, I committed to getting healthy again with the start of the new year. I’ve been eating well most of the time, moving my body more, and drinking more water. Doing all the things I coach clients to do. Walking the walk, if you will. When the app I use to track congratulated me on losing ten pounds, I cried. That ten pounds has been a long time coming.
In L.A., I would start a diet or a new exercise program or both, stick to it for a week, two, maybe even three, and then I’d have a “day” – you know, those “down” days where everything feels blah – and make myself feel better with food and sloth-like behavior. Rather than get right back into routine, I’d linger for an undetermined amount of time before the cycle would start all over.
Something about the new year flipped a switch in my brain.
I jump started things with a round of Whole30 and I’ve continued to eat largely Whole30 since finishing my strict thirty days. I started to move my body intentionally again, got back into a routine of taking midday walks and drinking lots of water. Yet despite doing the things to lose weight and even seeing the data week in and week out that said I was losing weight, something about seeing I lost ten pounds flash on my screen blindsided me.
I did it.
Losing ten pounds represented so much more to me than just weight loss. It represented shedding the last of the high functioning depression that had plagued me during my time in Los Angeles. It represented trying so hard to fit into a place, a mold, where I didn’t belong. It represented trying to tuck into myself, trying to hide, trying not to be seen.
Losing ten pounds isn’t where my health journey ends. I have more weight to lose, fitness goals to reach. But losing ten pounds represented a major moment for me. A moment of freedom.
I’m proud.
Proud of myself for sticking to my goal.
Proud of myself for recovering the discipline I’d let fall away.
Proud of myself for getting to a healthier place physically but especially mentally.
Mostly, I’m proud of myself for even trying.
All it takes is one more time. One more attempt. One more start.
As I continue forward to my goals, I know I’ll feel proud with each milestone I hit. But I don’t think any will quite compare to those first ten pounds.
