This is a difficult post to write, but write it I must. It’s a matter of honesty and integrity. It’s a matter of openness and transparency; a coming out of hiding. Over the last few months my weight loss journey has been challenged … or stalled … or stopped. Well, actually, it hasn’t been a weight LOSS journey at all. It’s been a weight GAIN journey. After several months of the weight coming off relatively easily, in the Spring after my hysterectomy I hit a plateau. I struggled, week after week, faithfully tracking my food intake, walking every day, but not seeing the scale budge very much. I finally hit my 90-pound goal in May, but in the few weeks following that, my weight yo-yoed, gaining 2 pounds, losing a pound, gaining a pound and so forth. Frustrated, I decided to take a break. I told myself and everyone around me that this was just a break. I was feeling good and rewarding myself for my hard work by taking some well-deserved time off from the discipline of tracking. I was giving my body a rest; time to adjust to all the changes it had endured in the last year. I creatively crafted and spun that story in a variety of ways, but to be blunt, I simply gave up. I didn’t realize it at the time … or perhaps I just didn’t want to ADMIT it at the time, but I gave up. And it’s had disastrous results. I could lie to myself and the people around me for a time, but the popping buttons on my pants and shirts would eventually spill their guts, quite literally.
Over the summer I knew that I was gaining weight. I was eating poorly. The stress surrounding the closing of one of the churches I serve gave me permission to eat all manner of things that I wouldn’t have dared eat in the preceding months. I told myself that I would get back on track this Fall. Since yesterday was the first full day of Autumn, I knew it was time. Yesterday was also my birthday and I realized that if I want to celebrate many more of these, I simply HAD to get back on track. So this morning I stood on the scale. The moment of truth. The day of reckoning. Name it whatever idiom or cliché you choose. It was time to face reality. I stared at the number for quite some time and then I walked away, attempting to block it from my mind. I did a variety of other tasks, and vacillated between berating myself and trying to spin another story. I even considered trying to determine a more acceptable number to enter on my weight tracker. And then I cried. I cried over the weight I’d gained and I cried over the fact that I am still healthier than when I started this journey. I cried for the ways in which I felt like a failure and a disappointment to the people who have supported me and I cried for the internal critic whose wounds are exposed through harsh language. I cried for the ways I extend love and mercy to others, yet have difficulty accepting it myself and I cried at the realization that even in the midst of this struggle, God is at work within me, still calling me into being and transforming me into my full created potential.
Then I took a deep breath and plunged forward, entering into my weight tracker that number on the scale. It was 21 pounds higher than my last entry in June and 29 pounds higher than that beautiful May day when I celebrated 90. And so I begin again, grateful for second chances, claiming my new favorite number – 61.
Until next time, peace …
Robin's Ramblings 
Robin, You are a great inspiration to so many people!! (Especially me!!!!) Grace and peace my friend and know that I am pulling for you. And oh by the way…. Happy Birthday 🙂
Robin, you are an amazing person. Life is full of second chances. Thank God!
You know you will always have my support when needed. You are a blessing in my life.
Don’t think you are a failure….that isn’t possible. Love, Alice
Again you are an inspiration. Our struggle with weight is a life long battle. You are healthier and that is why you have made the decision to get back on track. I look forward to your new numbers! Hugs and prayers.
PS isn’t maddening how easy the weight comes back. 😦
Robin, don’t beat yourself up, most of us have gone thru this, and I have the pictures to prove it. I am so proud of you for just facing up to it. Please give yourself grace, just as God gives us His.
Robin you are such an inspiration. .i understand the madness of the ups and downs and so admire you for facing it and starting over. Love you! Connie
You are a courageous woman who understands what it means to walk through life’s dark valleys and trek up to appreciate the view from life’s mountain tops. It doesn’t matter your number, what matters is how you choose to deal with it. I look forward to celebrating with you on your forward motion. Grace, peace and abundant blessings as you journey forward!
You had the courage to take an honest look at where you are and to begin again. You still have lost a hell of a lot of weight and have much healthier habits. This is a life long journey of falling and picking ourselves up. I struggle with a number of compulsive eating issues . I cannot keep nuts in the house (I keep trying) or ice cream or chips or cookies or candy. My goal more than weight is to be able to have a relationship with food such that I can simply eat normally – have cookies in the house and eat ..one.. when I feel like it.. have a few nuts not eat the whole stinking bag. Sometimes I have good months and then a really bad month or two.
You are engaging in the hard and worthwhile struggle of learning how to love and respect yourself as much as God and I do.Give yourself a break.
I am glad you posted it and had the courage to face it. It is hard to be that disciplined through everything you have been doing. I have almost cancelled WW every month because I haven’t been tracking and have some “let’s eat the whole container of nuts” nights. I haven’t had the courage to get on the scale and see but everytime I look at the scale I think of my friend Robin who loved me enough to send it because the scale reminds me that I can stop spinning in my head and find out the truth – by stepping on the scale – and then make a plan.
What incredible courage it had to have taken to expose yourself like this!! For that, and so many other reason, I have so much respect for you!! May you continue on your journey, not just with favorite numbers, but in life. You can – and will! – do it, Robin!! Love and hugs!
Progress not perfection. You are more than a number on a scale. Just do the best you can for one day at a time.
Love you.