Chapter VII: Weight Loss – End Success, Begin Fail

When we moved, most of the things with which I had been so comfortable no longer were: no job and little comfort about finding a new one, my home life was in turmoil and in boxes, finances were a huge question mark given the no job thing, and of course in leaving our home we were also leaving our church community. N remained a joy most of the time, but acted out from the stresses he felt at leaving behind friends from his preschool and adults that played a significant role in his young life. Life was definitely no longer comfortable.

We spent a bit more than a week driving two minivans halfway across the country to our new home. We took our time, stopping in several locations along the way to spend a day or two visiting with various family members. We were in no hurry to arrive in LOH because escrow on our house would not close until two weeks after we arrived even with our slow cross country journey. We would be living with my parents for those two weeks (yikes!) while we waited to get into our house. No need to prolong that living arrangement so we took our time getting there.

Amazingly enough, I was able to continue my WW success the first month or so after we arrived. I had not yet found a WW meeting to attend but had been doing it long enough that I knew what to do like the back of my hand. By the time I did return to a meeting I weighed in at 211 so I was still making progress. Over the next several months, I struggled to find a leader that I clicked with and never really did. For a while I did keep losing, and as earlier stated eventually hit 197, for one week. I really, really struggled right around the 200 lb. point. Under 200 lbs, the points allowed per day were significantly less than when I started. I struggled to stay within my points allowance and couldn’t bear to think of having to ratchet down again when I hit 175 and then 150. My focus shifted from health to the scale. It was a bad shift.

I don’t know if W and I were just incredibly busy and forgot about each other, or if we were struggling each in our own way to deal with the upheaval in our lives, but I do know that we were not as close as we had been in the past. There was very little physical affection between us, kisses were only light pecks on the cheek and sex occurred only when I would initiate it. I didn’t like the feeling that I was forcing myself on W so I would wait a long time from one time to the next, always hoping he would show some level of interest on his own. That didn’t happen. I started to feel that old urge to look for comfort in someone or something else.

My weight started to drift upward. I became sloppy about what I journalled. After our move, I had not continued my walking as I did not enjoy having to walk up and down the hills of our neighborhood (our old neighborhood had been flat and easy walking). I got one job where lunch was brought in for us from local restaurants every day sometimes, not always, making it difficult to find a low-point choice. Several months later, I left that job for a new job at a different company where I quickly learned that the stress was enormous, the CEO was (in my opinion) unethical, and the work hours completely outrageous (more than once I arrived home after 1:00 a.m. despite starting my day at 8:30 a.m.). I only lasted five months there and gained at least 30 lbs, an alarming rate of gain. I found a new job, again, and things leveled off for a while. The work was not demanding, and I could easily get it done with time left over. I didn’t gain, but also didn’t lose. I tried a new WW meeting, one that I liked okay, and I made a small amount of progress. I struggled to regain my old WW habits, and it wasn’t coming nearly as easily this time around. I started to see a therapist to discuss the issues that I have with eating, binging, weight, etc hoping that I could gain control before things got too far out of hand.

The next crisis hit. In the summer of 2005, W got sick, very sick, and spent a couple of weeks in the hospital. It was a scary time. I completely set aside all thoughts of weight control, and I lost control completely. Often I would leave the hospital only to hit the nearest drive-through on the way home. I binged on all manner of fast food, but my favorite was Long John Silvers fish, Steak ‘n’ Shake Onion Rings and Dairy Queen blizzards, not generally all in the same day though it wouldn’t completely surprise me if I did have all three of those things in one day a time or two that summer. I could barely drive by a fast food place without being tempted to pull through and get something, anything.

After W’s illness and surgery, I told him that I would wait for him to be ready to resume intimacy in the bedroom and would wait until he initiated something. He never did.

W healed, and things started to look better. Then in early autumn of that same year W fell, breaking his shoulder. We were back in crisis mode, and my eating was back in binge mode. By the time I made my way back to WW that November, I weighed 275 lbs. Over the holidays, I would lose a little one week, gain a little the next. By the time I left WW in February I still weighed 275 lbs. W finally healed from the fall and started feeling better. W still had made no moves toward me regarding intimacy. His coldness was too reminiscent of the coldness I felt from my parents in my childhood. I ached for some attention, some touch, some comfort. I feel fortunate I only gained 10 more lbs. during my most severe bout with depression in early 2006, bringing me to a hefty 285 lbs, wearing 26W again after having been in sizes as small as 16 (without the W) around the time I started this blog as J reentered my life, and as I’ve well documented in my archives here all manner of chaos ensued.

To be continued. . .

Next installment: My Weight the Last Couple of Years