First post...last pretzel!

Just a little background on me. Over the course of the past year I have lost 165 pounds. I started off on March 10th of last year at 312 pounds. I woke up that morning and decided enough was enough, the fattening, cheesy, chocolately bits of heaven had to leave the building. I had to take control of my life and lose the extra poundage. I was 43 years old and living in the shadow of a father who died at 47 of a heart attack. I was afraid. I was tired and I was fat.
So here I am a year a 3 months later. The weight is gone and all should be right with the world right? Well sort of. Apparently when you lose a great deal of weight, the issues associated with food don't just disappear along with the melting blubber. Now after a year of deprivation, exercise and extreme weight loss I am faced with cravings, fear of re-gaining the weight and of course the ever present food addiction that led me to 312 pounds to begin with.

You read a lot about losing weight. Everywhere you look is a book, a website, or an instructional DVD, but nowhere is there information for the period AFTER the loss called "Maintenance".

This blog is my way to document my struggles, achievements, and daily battle to keep the weight off and keep my sanity at the same time.

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For the past month or so I have been having periods of binging. My friends laugh at me because my "binge" is basically foods I eat every day but in greater quantity. I am addicted to oatmeal, fat free cottage cheese, and natural peanut butter. So these are the materials of my weekly binges. I also manage to devour a tub or so of fat free cool whip during one of these orgies of eating. "That's not a binge" they laugh. "A binge is when you eat pizza and ice cream and candy bars and junk like that". Somehow my binges are not seen as serious lapses in their eyes. My binges are made up of "healthy foods" so they are not considered binges. However when I binge I feel bloated and miserable for days after. I generally gain about 10 pounds of water weight (which I lose just as quickly as I gain it in the days that follow). But the feelings of failure and self loathing that follow the binge make it a real honest to goodnes therapy deserving, prozac injesting eating disorder in my eyes. My binges are generally followed by days of calorie restriction, excessive exercise and the occasional fast to remove any bloat and water gain from sucking in a ton of artifical whipped topping and curdled cheese product. So don't tell me it's not a binge! I know a binge when I inhale one. So this past week I went a whole 6 days without a binge. I was so proud. I Made it all the way to day six and then something snapped in my brain and I decided I was so hungry that I was either gonna gnaw off my own foot or they were gonna find me face down in a vat of fat free yogurt. And so it began...a few spoonfuls of cottage cheese and 2 hours later I was sitting in my electric bar-co-lounger holding my stomach and swearing that I will never do this again. "As god is my witness, I'll never go hungry ag..." oh sorry..wrong movie. Anyway, that was yesterday. Today I swore I would behave and not eat anything..nothing...I was going to "cleanse" my body of the crap of yesterday. And now as I sit here wiping the remnants of Natural Peanut butter coated pretzels off my chin while I periodically evaluate my thighs to see if they seem "fatter then yesterday" I have decided this must stop. The madness has to end. Apparently I have issues with pretzels. So I am purging them from the house. Tomorrow I will get up early and take my bike out for a good fat reducing ride. I will walk on the treadmill and I will eat only enough to sustain life. The cycle continues. Will I ever be able to have a healthy relationship with food? Will I ever be able to get through a week without the lose of control that occurs over a jar of Natural Peanut Butter and tub of cottage cheese? Will I ever be able to avoid stepping on the scale every single morning and then beating myself up for the remainder of the day for every ounce over "ideal weight" that appears on its evil face? These are questions I will continue to ask and hopefully resolve some day, but until then...I have had my last pretzel!