I am 201 pounds. I hate being 201 pounds. I feel big. I have no energy. None of my clothes fit. I just want to hibernate and binge Netflix and eat jelly-filled donuts and Ben and Jerry's Americone Deam and wear mummus and pretend this is not my life.
But there inevitably comes a time when I have to drag my fat butt off the couch and engage with the real world. And by real world I mean my kids. And husband. And other moms. And friends. And at those times, my reality comes crashing back down on me, and I am in pain.
Five years ago I weighed 150 pounds, give or take. It was the thinnest I'd been in years after coming down from a high of 242 pounds. The last 40 pounds of that 242 pounds came after taking an antidepressant and gaining a shocking amount of weight in a short 6 month period. I'd worked hard to get there and had lost the weight over the course of nearly 10 years.
But then, as inevitably happens, the weight started creeping on. I got up to around 170 pounds and then I made a mistake. I decided to try a different antidepressant (which supposedly does not cause weight gain (!). Three months and 30 pounds later, here I am at just over 200 pounds, and I'm even more depressed than I was before.
I am not in the category of person who experiences a slow creep of weight gain on antidepressants. I am one of the folks in the outlying categories who gain weight incredibly rapidly on these drugs.
So now I have to figure out how to lose the weight again. But it's been 15 years since I last had to face such a monumental task, and my life is in a completely different place than it was back then. The challenges, nuances, and habits are not the same.
It's time to do a total, mid-life reset. I turn 45 in 4 months. I am going to spend the next 4 months doing everything I can to create the life I want. It's going to involve some tears, many bad days, hopefully just as many good days, and a lot of work.
