Enough.

Two years and two months ago I did a weight loss competition.  For 10 weeks, my female coworkers and I competed to become the biggest loser.  Each week we weighed in, keeping the weight anonomous but publicizing the losses, and sharing tips and tricks for both diet and excersise.  We helped each other make better lunch choices, and we confessed to each other when we splurged.  Some ladies even worked out together. 

In the end, I was the winner.

It was shocking for me.  I had never paid attention to my weight as a numeric value, and I rarely considered my fitness at all. I felt empowered by my success, but I didn't want to become fixated on a scale or a calorie counter app.  I have too many friends with eating disorders and I carry enough self doubt and stress as it is. 

26 months later, and I'm far heavier than I was even before that competition.  This is probably the heaviest or second heaviest I've been in my life.  I have to buy new clothes every few weeks as I gain more.  I don't want to look at myself in the shower.  I'm scared about my future. 

I've made sporadic attempts at diet and exercise over the past two years, but nothing which was backed by will power.  But two weeks ago, the day after my 26th birthday, as I attended by boyfriend's friend's wedding, I knew I needed to do something.

Even in a flattering dress with a new pair of heels and fashion forward up-do, I found myself hoping eyes would slide over me, remembering my personality but not my looks.  I wanted to hide.  I had enough.

Three days after the wedding, I started a trial membership at a local gym.  In the past 11 days I've gone 10 times.  I stopped going to Dunkin Donuts for a latte/muffin/bagel work day food fix. I stopped suggesting my boyfriend and I order pizza, instead suggesting we roast vegetables.  I can't tell if it's working.  11 days isn't 10 weeks, but I hope that I can achieve the kind of loss I saw before, and then keep it going. 

I have a hard time imagining myself still keeping up this pace in the cold, dark days of January, but I can see myself through to the end of the summer, maybe the end of the fall.  Perhaps by that point it will be habit.

I recently read Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card.  He introduces an eastern philosophy where in a life of perfect simplicity is achieved not though a continuous monitoring of balance and harmony, but by recognizing the end of endurance and saying, "enough."  A practitioner stays a given course till he or she can take no more, and then shifts directions.  I think of it a bit like a Roomba, waiting until hitting a wall before adjusting course, but in the end, getting the whole room clean. 

That's what happened to me at the end of June.  Enough. I had traveled farther and farther into lethargy until I could take no more. And now I've changed direction.

I plan to take this as far as I can.  To the end of the summer? Until I fit into my clothes from two years ago?  Until I'm at a healthy BMI?  Until I feel comfortable in a two piece bathing suit?  Until I can run a marathon?  I don't know what my cut point will be.  I don't know when I will have had enough.

I'm at the beginning of this process.  With the full range of potential in front of me, I feel optimistic.