Losing It, then Finding It--a Sequel

I said in the last post of my Losing It blog that if I gained the weight back, hit me upside the head. (See: http://jacci-clark.blogspot.com/2011/06/thats-all-ive-got.html.) I was fairly confident I'd keep it off. Which I did. For two years.

After I lost the weight.

But here I am. Ten pounds heavier and my underwear's getting tight. I call it the underwear test. Gain and you'll notice it first in the underwear.

I still eat fairly healthy--real food. And I work out pretty intensely. I'm at an okay weight, but the warning signs are there. I'll be on my way to getting fluffy again if I don't watch it.

Keeping the weight off had been fairly easy since I hadn't dieted in the first place. My downfall was going back to my first love...dessert. My family started lobbying for me to bake goodies again at Christmas. I felt bad depriving them. I'm prone to mother guilt, so I caved. Problem was I kept right on baking--and eating--after the holidays. Then I started avoiding the scale.

So now I'm back to the basics of what I did to lose and maintain the weight loss. It's pretty simple, common sense really. Here's what it takes:

• Eating real food. Meaning food pulled from the ground, plucked from a tree, shot or milked. I don't eat very much processed food. But I'm not legalistic about it either. I love ripple potato chips and eat them every day, only just a small handful. (Besides the only ingredients listed on the bag are potatoes, oil and salt--that could be classified as real food.) I eat dessert too but only a few bites. Then I either give the rest away, stick it in the fridge for later, or crumple it up in a napkin and throw it away. I know. A shame. But a greater shame is having cheesecake thighs.
• Being honest with myself. If I think I'm doing well but still not losing, I'm eating too much, real food or not. You can eat your way through any amount of exercise and still remain heavy. Not rocket science (although I always say those rocket scientists are probably fat sitting behind a desk somewhere).
• Going to bed just a little on the empty side. Tough at first. But I tell myself not to be a baby. I won't die, and in fact I get to eat again--in the morning. I am hungrier throughout the day, eating more frequently. But I stick to a light supper and then not eat again before bed.

• Becoming intensely uncomfortable for half an hour to an hour most days of the week. That means exercising hard enough to have sweat rolling down the back and being almost to the point of throwing up, or at least cussing. Seriously. To make a real change in the way you look, especially if you're a woman reaching 50, you need to get over it and work out hard and throw in some strength training. Yeah, it's agonizing, but you can do anything for 45 minutes. You got the rest of the day to be relatively comfortable.

• Getting on the scale daily. Some say you should only weigh once a week. I'm better off weighing every day. It keeps me from panicking. If I have a bad day and weigh myself the next morning, I usually weigh the same. At most I'll be up a pound. But if I avoid the scale for a whole week, I'm scared to get on the thing. So I keep avoiding it, and then when I finally hop on it...surprise! I've gained. Losing one pound is easy. A five-pound gain? Those are the pounds that like to stick.

After two years of staying the same weight, I gained after just a few weeks of inattention.
It's time to pay attention. I don't want to get hit upside the head. Blogging keeps me honest. I'll keep you posted.