How I Lost 75 Pounds

Setting the Stage:
In high school, at around 155 pounds, I was at a healthy weight for my body-type , but was convinced that I was five pounds overweight.  I was equally convinced that my five extra pounds made me hopelessly fat and repulsive to boys.

Fulfilling My Own Prophecy and Becoming Obese:
 There's nothing like believing oneself to be fat to set oneself up for actually becoming fat.  By the time I was married at age 23, I weighed about 200 pounds and used food as glue to hold my life together.  I ate when I was sad, anxious, bored, frustrated, happy, celebrating, for any and every emotion.  When I became pregnant with my second child at age 29, I weighed 235 pounds.

My Depression Crisis Point:
 At the beginning of the second trimester of this second pregnancy,  I become suddenly and severely depressed.  I had struggled with depression much of my adult life, so this was not unprecedented, but it was dramatic and frightening in its onset.  Desperate to avoid medication and desperate to regain sanity, I decided to join a local gym, hoping that the exercise would offer some natural relief as it had at times in the past.

I began working out 5-6 days a week, very moderate, low-impact exercise.  I either used an elliptical machine or attended a Healthy Hearts group fitness class targeted for senior citizens.  This was the first time I had pursued exercise with the exclusive goal of feeling better mentally.  Exercise attempts before had always been loathsome burdens tied to beating my body into a more desirable size and shape.  Being pregnant, I knew such an approach would be unsafe, so everything I did was gentle and gradual.   The exercise helped my mental state tremendously and by the time my baby was born, my depression was at bay. 

My Turning Point:
I gained very little weight through my pregnancy and when I stepped on the scale when my baby was two weeks old, I was shocked to find that it read 210:  I was 25lb less than I had been at the beginning of the pregnancy.  This weight was less than I had weighed at anytime since my marriage.  My many attempts at dieting in recent years had never managed to budge more than a pound or two.  I felt like some sort of miraculous window had opened--that I had actually lost weight effortlessly and that I couldn't lose this momentum.

Becoming an Intuitive Eater of Real Food:
Eager to preserve my good mental state and my weight loss, I began to seriously address my emotional eating issues.  Geneen Roth's book Breaking Free from Emotional Eating transformed my relationship with food.  Simultaneously, I began to discover a new nutritional perspective:  real food, whole foods, traditional foods.  I found joy, peace and satisfaction in my relationship with food.

And I melted.  Amidst continued steady exercise, breastfeeding, carefully tuning into my hunger and satiety cues, and exploring fabulous real foods I melted--seemingly effortlessly--down to a healthy 160ish pounds by the time my baby was 10 months old. 

When my baby was just 14 months old, I became pregnant with my third child, gained a sensible amount of weight, and again drifted back to a healthy weight post-baby--this time slightly lower in the 155-160ish range.

My Challenge Today:
 And then, when baby number three was 14 months old, my menstrual cycle--kept away by round-the-clock breastfeeding--returned and it's thrown me for a loop.   The added variable of hormonal shifts is challenging my ability to tune in to my hunger and satiety cues and making my relationship with food something to which I must once again turn my focus and attention in order to maintain health and balance.  These changes (plus a a nasty ankle sprain that has hampered my activity) have resulted in a little weight gain (5-10 pounds).

I've come to realize that the breastfeeding hormones (hurrah for oxytocin!) promoted a steady sense of well-being, while the shifting hormones of my menstrual cycle are promoting feelings of unrest.

I've come to realize that at this time in my life, weight gain is much less a reflection of what I am eating, but is rather a reflection of why I am eating.  This external weight gain is a reflection of an unhealthy inner life.    My inner unrest is challenging me to learn new strategies to identify and care for the needs of my body and soul so that I can enjoy a healthy heart, mind, body and weight.