About a year ago, Feb. 16, 2010 I started attending a weight loss clinic in my town. They offer the HMR diet plan. http://www.hmrprogram.com/ I lost just over 100 pounds in 188 days and I have kept that weight off for seven months now.
I lost the 100 pounds by eating only their food...that is considered "Phase 1" of their program.
In "Phase 2", real world food is gradually reintroduced along with weekly classes to help you transition back into the real eating world in a safe and sane manner in a concerted effort to be trained how to eat healthily and maintain your weight loss for the rest of your life.
In Phase 1, I had very few decisions about food to make. I simply ate their food...period. If I got hungry, I had another of their meals or shakes. Very simple, very easy a little boring but you cannot kick on the results!
Now after 7 months of eating more real world food and the accompanying decisions of "to eat or not to eat" gets me worn down. It is hard for me to start and stop in moderation!!
It gets old, and my attitude is less than "stellar" sometimes.
This is real life.
Messy. But doable.
To further complicate matters, I am a compulsive overeater. I tend to eat for many other reasons besides hunger. AND I also continue to eat after I feel full.
I eat my emotions. This is at the root of my lifelong struggle with food and being overweight.
Normal eaters lose interest in food when they feel full, and stop eating.
I am not a normal eater. I have and do sometimes yet eat beyond full into real painful overstuffed tummy time.
I am attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings in an attempt to learn the process of stopping to eat compulsively.
This is waaaaay out of my comfort zone. The reading I am doing, the attempts at permanent lifestyle change is damn hard work and gets discouraging.
Learning to deal with life on life's terms instead of eating myself into oblivion is a skill I am none too good at yet.
It is, or rather I am, a work in progress. Progress is what I'm hoping for, perfection perhaps will take a little longer! Ahem.
So I've been down in the dumps as I cannot use my lifelong coping mechanism of eating my feelings...so what do I do instead??
Eating my emotions was a false coping mechanism that proved I really wasn't coping at all.
So how will I cope now without food as my god??
The other lie I told myself was that losing weight would "magically" make the rest of my life better.
Funny thing is, the things that were problems in my life 100 pounds ago have not cooperated and "magically" disappeared!
There are many aspects of my life that are better...but there are still many layers of the onion to peel back and work on.
So, the first hundred years are the hardest!
I have many friends whose love, attention, prayers and suggestions are extremely valuable to me and I am so very thankful to God that they are in my life and cheering me on!!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Consistent weight management for me and the accompanying emotional highs and lows, tend to be up and down, (not unlike the elevator business come to think of it) and friends who have gotten to know me well enough can detect it, though I usually try to hide behind a smiling face, sarcasm and wit.
Thanks for caring!
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