Hmm. I just reread yesterday’s post, and I think I should clarify a few things. Starting with this: losing weight was not easy. At least not as easy as I might have implied. Yes, I signed up for Weight Watchers and yes, I followed it. But not always willingly. Some days were good, some days were not so good. Often, an entire week went by where I did not input a single item of food into the online food journal. There was a lot of cheating, a lot of hours logged in on my elliptical machine, a lot of nights that I went to bed starving and a lot of stressed-out afternoons spent in front of the pantry, shoving anything and everything into my mouth without actually chewing.

I am 5′4″ tall. For most of my life, I barely weighed in at 100 pounds. I’ve been thin all my life. Actually, skinny is the more accurate term. I was teased mercilessly as a child for being a “bag of bones.” When I ran track in school, it was often to the refrain of “go, daddy long legs, go!” I wore boy’s jeans and had to listen to people say things like “man, she can put it away like a truck driver but where’s it goin’?” Note: this is not cute or funny or charming. It is mean. I’ve found in life that people think that if you complain about being skinny, well, you’re just a bitch. Boo hoo, poor skinny girl doesn’t like to be teased. But you know what? It’s not any less painful than being teased for being overweight. It is still an assault on who you are, on your self-esteem and your confidence and it sucks.

But something happened when I got married and pregnant. I blossomed, and my little girl’s body morphed into a glorious woman’s body. At the end of my first pregnancy, I was 180 pounds. I had boobs and hips and really, I just went with it. I was not obsessed with the weight, assuming it would all come off on it’s own. You know, the whole 9 months up, 9 months down thing? But that didn’t happen. And still about 10 pounds from a “respectable” weight, I became pregnant again. While I didn’t creep back up to 180 with Coco, I did come pretty darn close. But I also promised myself when I was done with the pregnancy that I would take a few months to relish my new baby, not think about the weight, and just adjust to life as a mom of two girls. And I did that. And then one day, I woke up and said “that’s it, time to get the weight off.”

I worked out 6 days a week on the elliptical. But I was still eating for two. And that’s when I started on Weight Watchers. I just wasn’t committed to any crazy diet that was going to stifle my love of food. No pizza? No cookies? No queso and chips? No go. But I knew that even with all the exercise in the world, that unless I also worked on my diet, the needle on the scale was not going to budge, not by much, anyway.

I set a reasonable goal weight for myself based on my adult body, not the ideal I had when I was in my early 20s. That was a long time ago, and smoking and late night’s of drinking at NYC bars were probably most responsible for my svelte body back then. No, I am a busy mom now, running a lively household with two little girls who I really, really want to be a role model for. I don’t ever want them to obsess about their bodies, a number on a scale, what they’re eating. And that’s really why I turned to WW. I figured I could be “normal” on it. Eat the same foods the girls are eating – or at least that Pea is eating. I don’t want her (and Coco later on) to ever wonder why they are eating a piece of pizza but mommy has a giant plate of steamed broccoli. I wanted to enjoy the pizza, too, with my girls. And with WW, I can do that. It’s really just a wonderful tool for me to use to be accountable for what I’m taking in. Sure, I can eat a bag of cookies but then I can’t eat for the rest of the day. Is that really going to make me happy? Nope. I would rather have a cookie and still be able to eat meals.

And so, as my goal weight is now in my sights, I am remembering that it wasn’t all smooth sailing on my way to it. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of cheating, a lot of rationalizing and then a good deal of making a promise to myself: a promise that I was going to be all that I could be not just for my girls or my husband, but for me. I am not vain. I don’t strive to wear a bikini again or to run around in short shorts. Believe me, no one wants to see that: I have given birth to two children and will, no matter what I do short of surgery, always have that annoying “mummy tummy” and legs that aren’t what they were when I was younger. And I’m OK with that. I keep repeating the mantra that I have lived and loved and earned this body. It’s the only one I get and I’m really going to try my best to take care of it. I owe it that much.