#1 Retirement Project DONE!

Seventy pounds gone, but not as easily as I'd hoped

When I retired, I’d been overweight for over twenty years. Sure, like most people I could take a little off, look a little better, then hit a crisis point and swim in Haagen Daz and fast food until I bounced right back to that same horrible place. Sadly, after a while, you don’t even notice. It’s just you in the mirror, you get used to it. And my sweet husband never beat me up about it, he knows my brittle ego well.

The week before I retired, I factored in how much I’d be paid for accrued vacation time. That block payment at the end was designated for me! I found a great health coach in Pasadena – the other side of the country, but Zoom makes everything possible these days, right? – and hired him for a whack of cash.

I started with his diet and exercise program and lost thirty pounds in three months. I looked BETTER, but still not at the desired weight. So I kept going without him. I lost another forty pounds. Note to anyone out there – if you are an overcompetitive person like me, be VERY, VERY careful with going it alone. I went a bit too far, whacked out my thyroid and came very close to being malnourished. My body was too thin and bony, my hair wiry and then I got either a REALLY bad cold and sinus infection or a medium case of COVID. Apparently, when you don’t eat enough and lose too much weight, you are more susceptible to illness. Who knew?

Because I’d just retired, when I described my anxiety, depression and boniness to my normal medical doctor and his PA, they just kept trying to give me antidepressants. (I’m not sure I really like this new medical practice of letting you keep your clothes on. It would have been nice if they’d CHECKED my bony sternum and ribs instead of prattling on about loose skin. Loose skin was the least of my problems.) I finally found an osteopath who realized I’d affected my thyroid. I will leave it at that, except to say I am feeling MUCH better and hopeful that the additional expensive functional medicine doctor will be able to get my microbiome back into shape. It’s scary how out of whack you can be when everyone keeps telling you how fabulous you look and asking how you lost the weight. Umm, the HARD way, for sure.

Figuring that the anxiety wasn’t all due to weight loss, I started therapy as well. Fortunately, my therapist also has a background in helping people with eating disorders, and can help me with the anxiety AND the body dysmorphia. I don’t miss being overweight, but I don’t recognize myself in the mirror.

The last time I was this weight I was 35 and on active duty with the Army. I have MOURNED those lost years and no one warned me about that part of it. Sure, you should be happy when you lose weight, but you also say to yourself, you stupid woman, you wasted 20 years! You could have hiked, biked, travelled. walked around naked in front of your husband, blah, blah, blah. The usual ruminating of my ever critical brain.

And then the kicker – you don’t look like you did at 35, which is, of course, what I subconsciously expected (Say what you will, a lot of extra weight has a certain timeless quality. You look like you’re 45 when you’re 35 and you look like you’re 45 when you’re 55.) Instead, for months I would get up and think who are YOU and why do you look so much older? Thin me has brown hair and firmer thighs. What the heck?

You also mourn other things. A LOT of other things. I never really bought into that book The Body Knows the Score, but maybe there’s something to it. I think about traumatic or troubling things that happened in my past, and it feels like losing the weight somehow uncovered stuff that was buried or brought it to the surface for me to re-examine. It’s been interesting. Well, really, weird would be more accurate.

It’s wearing off, but it took about six months. I still look at food sometimes and panic. It’s hard to eat enough maintenance calories a day now. My friend who had her stomach stapled said they had therapy DURING to help deal with the changes. Yeah, wish I’d known that a bit earlier in the process.

Anyway, thanks for reading this far. I’ve gained some weight back and look better for it. Sorry to whinge a bit, as the Brits say. Overall, it’s a healthy change. First picture is on the day I retired, second picture is me headed to the pool in my itsy bitsy polka dot bathing suit. Hence the sunblock. Oh, geez, now that I look at them side by side, DEFINITELY a healthy change. Hah!