owning up (m)

I was going to title this blog "stalled" because I haven't lost weight in a couple of weeks.  I'm stuck at minus 55 pounds.  I also haven't gone to a WW meeting for the same period of time. 

This morning,  I took Harrison to school, came home, did laundry, put the dishes in the dishwasher, made the beds, checked my email.  All the while, I was debating whether or not to go to the meeting.   I stepped on the scale.  Same as yesterday.  What the hell, I'll go to the meeting.

Got there and saw Elaine for the first time in weeks.  She hadn't been there the last few times I went, but I assumed she was in Florida.  She gave me a weary smile and took my weight.  "You have done an amazing job, I'm really proud of you," she said.  I asked her if she had been in Florida.  "No...I had knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus and there were complications," she said.

I could feel my heart start to pound.  Complications.  My worst fear.

What kind of complications? I asked, a little too anxiously.

"I had a cyst the size of a baseball on the back of my knee shortly after the surgery.  I couldn't even walk."  I grilled her: Where did she have the surgery, who was the surgeon, why do they think the cyst appeared, etc.  The line behind me was a mile long.  I was not budging until I got the answers. 

"I just pushed myself too hard too soon after the surgery.  You'll be fine," she said.  Yeah, right.

I took my seat and ate a WW "Sweet and Salty" bar for breakfast (they have been out of the chocolate pretzel bars for weeks...who is the idiot doing the ordering?  Why can't they get this simple thing right?).  I looked around.  Pretty much the same crowd.  Except one new woman...about 115 pounds.  I wanted to kick her.

Karen, the leader, asks if we have any issues.  One woman speaks.  She is very heavy and talks alot at every meeting. She's a tad self-righteous and self-absorbed.  She makes me crazy.  She says her issue is that she loses weight s-l-o-w-l-y (her dramatization).  "I do everything right, but it just doesn't come off."   I think she's lost ten pounds in 6 months.  Karen nods but doesn't say anything. 

Then Karen looks to us and says: Any thoughts?  Anyone have any suggestions for N?

I don't know what possessed me to talk.  Usually I sit through these meetings and observe.  Something inside me snapped. Maybe it was Elaine's knee debacle or it could have been the backordered chocolate pretzels.  "I don't buy it," I said.

Karen smiled.  "Go on."

"Speaking for myself.  I haven't lost a pound in two weeks.  I thought I was doing everything right but then I realized I stopped weighing and measuring my food and I stopped keeping a food diary and I stopped coming to the meetings.  When I do all that, I lose weight.  When I don't, I don't lose weight.  So if someone is losing weight that slowly, I'd ask them to examine their behavior and look themselves in the mirror and come clean.  They can't be following the program."

Karen looks at me like a proud mother, "Exactly."

N throws daggers in my direction.  I don't care.  Where I come from, you take responsibility for your actions.

I got myself in this predicament.  Years of neglecting myself and/or taking the easy way out.  This is the hardest thing I've ever done and I will get myself back to where I want to be.  It will take alot of hard work but I've met every other challenge in my life. 

And I will meet this one.  Even if it takes two years.