Weighing on My Mind

Lately, my weight's really been getting me down. Oh, I gained a little of the weight back during the summer-- maybe about 10lbs. But it wasn't until I went back to work that it really flew back on. I felt so powerless, walking by that mirror each morning, avoiding my eyes as I brushed my teeth. I didn't want to actually see what I was feeling, what I knew was happening.

First, it was the suspicion that my stomach was rounding out. I took a pregnancy test, hoping that that would be the easy answer (not that I wanted a baby--that would have presented a whole other bucket o' problems for me). With the negative reading, I had to admit that I was just plain gaining weight and, for some reason, just in my stomach. My pants were still fitting around my legs but the waist band was marking up my belly. My bras did the same under my breasts and around my back, even the bras I still had from my heavier days.

One day, after lunch with some coworkers, I went to the bathroom and I finally saw it. My stomach round and firm like a 6-month pregnant belly. When did that happen? How did that happen? It just didn't make sense and it scared me.

But, on Friday, while brushing my teeth, I allowed my eyes to run over my face. The cause for the pull that I'd been feeling stared back at me. My double chin had returned nearly two-fold. My beauty became buried in the bulge at the bottom of my face. That gorgeous woman, the one from just 5 months ago, no longer exists. She's floundering in the fat pool and she doesn't know how to get out.

It's depressing me. Even with all my other problems-- money, house, family, son, work, stress, dreams, etc, nothing is making me feel worse than the reflection in the mirror, the vanishment of my accomplishment. I have fallen waaaaaaaay off, not just a little but a lot. I've fallen down the chute, back to the beginning, and I'm looking for the ladder. No, not true. I'm not looking. I guess, I'm afraid of even trying again, of getting so far in the game and enjoying myself, only to fall back down to start. This is my second time in 6 years getting down to 228lbs then gaining back the weight. When will I see the 100s? When will I learn how to take off the weight and to keep it off? Why do I keep doing this to myself?

I hate this cycle.