Thursday, January 21, 2010

Once Upon a Time (A Guest Post)

Once upon a time I wore a size 4. Really, when I was in high school I was very slender. I wasn't an athlete, but I danced and did marching band and occasionally ran for exercise. I went up to a healthy and more realistic size 6 during college but didn't put on a bunch of weight then. It wasn't until after college that I picked up some bad eating habits and my exercise dropped off, and that's when the weight started to slowly creep on. It was a sneaky devil, only a pound here and there, until one morning I didn't recognize the person looking back at me in the mirror. Something had to go.

Amazingly the weight came off easier than I expected. I had a few starts and stops, but eventually lost 55 pounds and managed to keep it off with healthy eating and bicycle commuting.

Then I took a new job, one with long hours and a long commute, almost two hours each way. I loved the project I worked on but my body didn't love the demands and 15 pounds crept back on. About nine months after starting that job I got pregnant and my thyroid started misbehaving, and it was all downhill from there. During my last pregnancy in 2006 I was diagnosed with a nasty stomach disorder, and unfortunately the medication to treat it can cause weight gain, the absolute last thing I need. So I've been losing the same 10 pounds over and over and over for five years, and despite exercise and eating right, for the most part, I have not been able to get past that plateau to get back to a healthy weight.

Then last week in a completely unexpected development, I broke that through the plateau. As I stared at the scale I couldn't believe my eyes, and I stepped on and off about a dozen times to make sure it wasn't a mirage. Then I did a little happy dance. I've still got a ways to go before I reach my goal, but seeing that number on the scale gave me more hope than I've had in a long time.


Andrea is a forty-something mom to three young boys, and her favorite healthy activities are biking/spinning, yoga, and Pilates. She writes about cooking, edible gardening and occasional delicious travel stories at Andrea Meyers: cooking, gardening, & four hungry guys.

8 comments:

Liz Jimenez said...

Way to go for breaking through your plateau! I can feel how frustrating it is to just feel like you're going back and forth over the same few spots. Here's to an awesome step forward!

Kristie said...

How exciting to break through finally! Keep up the awesome work!

jackieblue said...

Good for you for continuing through that frustrating period. Plateaus can suck! Congrats on making to the other side.

Stimey said...

Andrea, that is awesome. Good for you!

Andrea Meyers said...

Thanks all! I hope there is more where that came from.

jackieblue said...

Saw a really interesting story on FitTV last night. A woman had hit a plateau for weeks. Her trainer added 2 hours a week to her workout schedule (for a total of 9 hours!) yet she was the exact same weight week after week. When she saw a nutritionist, he discovered that she was not eating enough! He gave her a great body-as-machine talk. Her body was holding on to every ounce as if it were starving. She added more food, and bye-bye plateau. I know if I skip/forget a protein or sometimes a carb at a mealtime, I get super hungry later. We need to do a good job figuring out how to fuel ourselves efficiently. It gave me more to think about, anyway.

Andrea Meyers said...

A friend told me the same thing. She and I were doing boot camp together this summer, and even with all the extra exercise we couldn't budge a pound. Her nutritionist told her she wasn't eating enough. I've tried so many different eating plans, and I've figured out what doesn't work, just hope I'm finally getting to what will work.

Karen Putz said...

I just finally broke through a plateau recently and it felt oh-so-good. I was frustrated for weeks before! Congrats on the weight loss!

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