Part III The Friend

I am warning you....this seems to ramble on, so my here are my best wishes for understanding what is coming out of my fingers tonight.

So, there I was, sitting in the WW meeting feeling so totally sorry for poor Brenda and her lack of progress (so the lobster says) and my friend turns to lambaste me with all of her wisdom. (Actually, I probably needed slapped like the nun in that 70’s movie Airplane). She made me look at my weigh in record and really see what had happened the last few weeks. Okay, so this doesn’t look as bad as I am imagining. In 3 weeks I’ve lost 3 pounds. Still though, overall since the week of Christmas, I’ve only lost a total of 2 pounds. It is amazing how even though we’ve only been friends for a few months, how much she can push my buttons. I really look up to her and am so awed with how she has changed her life. Then she gets out her own books with all of its losses, maintains, and slight gains. She asked me….”Would you berate me for not making more progress or having great losses every week?” Of course I wouldn’t.

This brings us to the million dollar question. Why would I treat her better than I treat myself? Why do I hold myself to an impossible standard that I wouldn’t expect of someone else? Why don’t I love and respect myself enough to cut myself some slack? I know I am following plan. I know I am training hard. I know I’ve gone from a size 26 to a size 16. (Just bought a couple more pair of 16s that fit great!! That must mean that the first pair I bought wasn’t the result of a disgruntled worker in Taiwan or a figment of my imagination.)

I called another friend later in the afternoon and she knew exactly what I was talking about. This holding everyone else to a different standard than ourselves. When a friend has a gain or even maintains it's not like we think to ourselves "Huh, she didn't lose anything this week, she must be hittin the chips hard...." yet we really think we need to beat ourselves up for not being successful each week? Or is it more that we worry other people are judging us by the scale? I hate the idea that when my coworkers ask on Monday how weigh in was, I have to admit that I am only down .2 again. It's this need to be able to show measureable progress. This just doesn't make sense. Is this a woman thing or just a human nature thing?

The cold hard fact remains. Even if I were never to lose another pound, (god forbid!!!) Every single minute of my day is better by leaps and bounds than the life I was living seven months ago. I was miserable, I was depressed, and I was too heavy to do anything other than the minimum to get through my day. I was 35 going on 70. Today I did a 5K! Hello,……a 5K! I actually feel like I am living my life each day instead of sitting on the couch watching other people have exciting lives on TV. So would I throw away everything I have worked for just because the scale isn’t baking me up? Absolutely not. I will not go back to that existence. This is me snapping out of it.