28 Weeks

I've been thinking about where I want to be. Late in the year 2006, I had a goal. That goal was to get down to a certain weight before my wedding in May 2008. What I really wanted more than anything was to look as good as I could on my wedding day and not have to feel regret when I looked at the wedding pictures. I didn't want the permanent physical memories of this very important day to be marred by how fat I looked. Of course, that's not what happened.

On my wedding day, I think I looked pretty darn good, and that's hard for me to say because my self-esteem isn't what you'd call great. I set the stage for everything to be perfect—the hair, the makeup, the nails, the dress—and all those things really helped. 

Most girls want to feel like princesses on their wedding day and I did feel that way. Still, all was not perfect. When I looked in the mirror, I saw that my dress was tighter than I wanted it to be and my upper body didn't look like it should be on display. Even though I tried to lose weight before the wedding (and I did lose 35 or so pounds), I started to gain it back before the actual wedding.

It didn't make my wedding any less beautiful or make me any less happy to be getting married, but it was a missed opportunity. Since that time, I've gained weight, lost weight and gained it back, but I never reached that goal I set for myself before the wedding. It seems like it's never-ending. I've seen all the statistics. I know that chances are the weight is going to return every time I lose it. I don't know what, if anything, is ever going to make it different for me. This has been happening my whole life.

What I do know is that I'm not going to give up. There are all kinds of reasons I want to lose this weight—some of them are good, valid, responsible reasons and some of them have more to do with vanity. I've been thinking lately about how much weight I should shoot for losing on this go round and I've decided I really need to keep the promise I made to myself in November 2006. I'm not going to share what that number is because I'm too embarassed and I'm not ready for full disclosure.

So what does that mean, in practical terms? It means that, according to my scale this morning, I have to lose 50.5 pounds. I have a decent start—I've lost 5 pounds in the last week and a half, so if I can keep those habits up, I'll hopefully keep that going.

One thing I have also learned in this process is that I have to be very specific about my goals, so I'm giving myself a time limit to lose the weight. (If I don't meet that, it doesn't mean I'll quit. It's just something to work toward.) I'm giving myself 28 weeks to lose the weight. It's a somewhat aggressive goal, but I think it's doable. By my calculations, that means I will reach my goal by August 9.

One more thing is that I know this weight thing gets boring to read about, particularly for people who don't have a problem with their weight. So, I'm going to try not to dwell on it too much or turn the blog into a weight loss blog. Still, I want to use this blog for some accountability, so I'll probably report once a week and keep a running total on the sidebar.