A Weighty Issue

Well…have you guessed from the title what this is about? Yep, I’m about to get real personal here at AOC. And I might as well tell you that I have sat down to write this series of posts on weight many times – only to have it languish in a folder on my desktop. It’s just not very easy for me, and without the push from my sister-in-law, I might not be doing it even now.

So why am I? Obviously, it’s not just to spill my guts to you all. {smile} But like everything I do here at AOC, I’m hoping to inspire, encourage, and show that if I can do something (without any special skills), then you can, too.

This time it just happens to be about losing weight. I am now 15 lbs. lighter than I’ve ever been in my entire adult life (and than includes high school). Ever. And I didn’t “diet” or eat weird foods. In fact, I’ve eaten all the regular, real, whole foods I write and picture here at AOC.

I plan to go into all the nitty-gritty details in a couple of future articles (update: you can find all the links to this series at the bottom), but first – a little background so you’ll understand why that 15 lbs that I’d never seen lost before (though my total lost since last summer is 25 lbs.) is such a big deal for me.

My Weight History

Like many of you, weight has been a background issue my whole life (I’m assuming here, but having lived for a number of years, *a-hem* I’m fairly certain I’m not alone in this). While I’ve never been huge, I’ve always carried 20 to 40 pounds more than I should.

Well, I suppose not always– I couldn’t have carried 20 extra pounds when I was two years old in the photo above, for example. But I have been told that I would get such terrible rashes where my thighs rubbed together that I needed to have Vaseline applied regularly in hot weather.

And when I look back at pictures like this one with my brother (I think I was in third grade), I think I look fairly normal. But that’s not how I felt then. What I remember are things like:

• Walking down the halls of a new school toward the first grade classroom with my mom and hoping I would be able to fit in the desks. I have no idea where this came from, but it was a real fear I never forgot.
• Gazing at my beautiful third grade teacher and thinking if my thighs just stayed the same, they’d look like hers when I grew up (this seems particularly crazy to me now- but it’s true).
• Shakily trying on a new pair of the latest, in-style jeans when I was twelve and being amazed that the size 13 fit me. Thirteen was the biggest junior sizes back then and my body image was so skewed that I didn’t think I’d fit junior sizes- before I was even a teenager.

But during my senior year of high school and then into college, I really did pile on the pounds – at one point 30 pounds over my “set point” – which was not an ideal weight, but just the weight I could get to with dieting.

And how did I gain the weight? The old fashioned way- I ate too much. And I was a “secret eater” eating junk food when I was alone – most times mindlessly from a bag while I read a good book. I wouldn’t realize how much until I started to feel sick…and the bag would be empty.

I got back to my “set point” for my wedding in 1988 – and kept my weight within a few pounds of it for four years, mainly by not eating mindlessly from bags or boxes anymore.

Until what I call my “childbearing years.” Ah…the pregnancy weight. Ugh. It came with the first, hung around for 3 years and stayed for the second.

It was actually hard to find a picture (in our photo albums – I’m sure our extended family has some “good” ones) of me where I wasn’t hiding behind people or children. Or that wasn’t just my face. I’m sure they existed- I just edited them out of the photo albums. Who wants to be reminded about extra weight?

But, oh my goodness, isn’t that little face just scrumptious? That little boy was the answer to my prayers – and his sister that followed. I don’t begrudge the weight at all.

I simply needed to find a way back to my set point.

And I did. When our daughter was preschool-age, I got a stomach bug that hung around for about a week. I got used to eating smaller portions, and I realized how big my portions had become.

That was the beginning of my emphasis on the amount of food I ate rather than always the type of food (which were typical of “diets”).

For the past 10 years, I’ve pretty much been within 5-10 pounds of my set point. When I’d get 10 pounds over, my clothes wouldn’t fit well and I’d start to think about portions again to get my weight back down. But I never managed to go below my body’s dumb set point. I assumed this was just the way I was made and I did feel OK when I was there.

Except last winter (a year ago). The pounds were creeping back up and I was having a hard time getting back to my set point. I had heard a lot about getting older and not being able to lose weight, and I started to get nervous – why wasn’t the weight coming off?

The Trick that Made the Difference

Then last June I got a stomach bug again (see a pattern here?) and couldn’t eat normally for a week. This time I determined that I was going to cut my normal amount of food in half.

Yes, almost everything. Half a sausage. Half a hamburger. Chicken leg instead of thigh. Smallest end piece of Easy Artisan Bread. A 1/4 cup of my favorite morning granola instead of 1/3. And here’s the clincher – at least for me – even salad and vegetables.

I just didn’t want my stomach to get used to large amounts of food again – any food.

But other than that, I ate whatever I wanted – butter, bacon, cheese, whole milk, roasted veggies, and even dark chocolate and our occasional desserts. Real food. Not much out of bags (and if there is a bag somewhere, I don’t eat out of it. I take a few and put them in a bowl – I have learned my lesson there).

And something amazing happened over the next six months.

I went below my set point for the first time since high school! First five pounds, then ten, and finally fifteen. I couldn’t believe it, and in fact, didn’t buy any new clothes or tell anyone for awhile ’cause I thought it would come back.

But it didn’t. And it hasn’t. And my sister-in-law thinks I should share what my “secret” is – and I think so, too, because I finally DIDN’T do all the things the medical establishment tells us to lose weight- low fat, no fat, high carb, and lots of fat substitutes.

And this time the weight literally fell off. I’ve gotten some comments over the years of this blog about “the way you eat” – bread, fat, sweets and eggs – that made me realize that I should go out on a limb and share my experience with you. One commenter even said she couldn’t “wrap my head around the way you eat – it goes against all we read and hear.”

And she’s right, sadly. I’m certainly not the only one, but I’m here to stand with the other “real food” advocates to tell you that if you feed your body real foods, amazing things can happen.

Stay tuned for more details, including what I eat in a typical day- And PLEASE chime in either in the comments or over on An Oregon Cottage’s Facebook page– I’d love to know I’m not alone with my weighty issues!

Read more of my series on Losing Weight with Real Foods:

• How I Lost Weight Eating Real Food {More Than Ever!}
• Tips, Tricks, and Techniques For Weight Loss
• More Tips, Tricks, and Techniques For Weight Loss
• Portion Control: Real Life, Real Food
• Is Exercise Necessary For Weight Loss?
• A Simple, Easy Workout {+ Printable}