Mother's Day dinner, 2009

I’m at my daughter’s annual big crew race this weekend. I think about last year. I went running along the lake during down time at the races. Many people were beginning to remark about my lost weight, and I was wearing new shorts and tank tops for the first time. I was moving close towards my goal weight and really feeling like it was going to happen. (and it did: in June? July?) It was all so new then. I had completed my first 5k race and was feeling pretty giddy about the whole thing.

But also I had no belief it would last.

I feel like when I’ve said “a year ago…” it was a way of demonstrating how far I’d come. But now “a year ago” does not look dramatically different than where I’m at right now. So this must be maintenance! and in a way it’s even more stunning to realize that I’ve been in this place for almost a year, than the fact that I made the change(s) in the first place.

Recently in WW we had a meeting topic about habits.  There was a chart about the “Stages of Change” with a series of nested circles. On the outside was “Environment” which is the most superficial thing to change, and the first way we make a change. We clear out our cupboards, we start purchasing better foods. We join a gym. The next circle in is “behavior.” Because it’s one thing to change the food in our kitchen, and another thing to actually behave differently in relationship to it. In and in and in and in, and the innermost circle is “Identity.”

A year ago, I felt like my identity was A Person Who Had Lost Some Weight, for like a minute. I had NO experience or belief that it would endure. In fact I used to have feelings of deep sadness and grief/loss for that person, whom I was sure was going to vanish at any moment. Well, I’m amazed that I’m still here. But my identity is gelling, and I’m beginning to believe that it’s not as transient as I’d feared.

May I have another year like this. And another.

(photo above from last year’s Mother’s Day dinner – that’s my cute Mr. McBody!)