Weight Watcher's Diaries Fifteen
By Carol Daelemans

Plateauville in my rearview mirror!

Whoo hoo! I've finally passed plateauville. I can still see it close on my heels but I'm determined to leave it in my dust. How did I do it? Don't ask me! The scale seemed like it would never leave the vicinity of the hated number it was stuck at. Some weeks I would be a tiny bit on the heavy side of "the number." The next week I would be a tiny bit on the lighter side. "The number" was starting to get to me. It was right at my 25-pounds-lost mark. If I could get past it then I could get ready to say that I had lost 30 pounds. Frankly, some days, because of the yo-yo plateau, I was lying when I said I'd lost 25 pounds.

Up until this point I was dropping 10 pounds in 3 weeks to a month. No more. Now I've been trying to lose 5 pounds for 6-8 weeks. I know that I should be grateful that I'm losing weight "at a healthy rate." Bleh. Who cares? I want to lose weight at break-neck-speed. Doesn't that sound better? Weight Watchers gets mad at me if I lose more than 2 pounds in a week. I rejoice. I understand the whole healthy-weight-loss thing. I also understand the human desire to reach the finish line. I've been starting to wonder if there really is a finish line or if I'm on a treadmill.

I needed to blast past Plateauville so I could collect on the promise from my trainer to buy me lunch when I hit 30 pounds lost. Little did he know I planned on ordering the "Shark fin" ice cream dessert he told me about when we go. It's a huge peanut butter chocolate triangle of ice cream covered in dark chocolate sauce.

My sister, Kathleen, the Cooking Thin (chocolate addict) Queen says, "If Todd told you about it then of course you can order it." Todd also told me he can drop four pounds in a single day of serious working out so I stopped listening to him. He orders the Shark fin dessert and shares it with someone which is fine. I can share. I love to share way too sweet desserts with my daughter because my husband has no interest in sweets and won't order them. It's a kind of portion control. I know I can't eat more than half because she'll whine until Hello Dolly won't have it. And I know that if I eat slow, I'll eat less than half. And if I don't like it or find my self control, I can stop early without wasting because she'll finish it.

Food will always motivate me. I worked hard and finally dropped 3 pounds below "the number." I held my breath for a whole week because I didn't feel it would count until I held onto the weight loss for a full week. When I went to Monday weigh in the three pounds were still gone. Good enough! Two weeks below the hated number and Plateauville was officially behind me! I realize that things can change but I plan on doing everything in my power to keep my eyes on the prize.

Now my next goal is to drop below 150 pounds. Not because it's a nice number. No. Those of you who weigh in at the gym or doctor's office will understand. I don't want to have to move the big weight over 3 spaces. On the fancy tall scales at the doctor's, you move over one large weight for every 50 pounds and then the little weights up to 49 pounds more, one at a time.

I've lived through the humiliation of nurses starting at the 100 mark like that was going to work. Ha! Try a little further down, sister! The dreaded third big weight gets moved over and then the nurse moves it up a little bit, a little bit more, and a little bit more. I hate standing there while the weight gets inched down almost all the way to the 200 mark. I just want to slap it over, push down the weight and be done with it.

Since I've been losing pounds, the little weight is creeping toward the zero mark. As soon as I get it close enough, I'm going to start out on the 100 mark just for fun. I don't care if I plateau around 150 for the entire winter. I just want to have the fun of being uncertain about where the big weight needs to land.

I've felt several times like the work was getting to be too much. Some days I feel like this is good enough. My husband likes the new body, my trainer likes the new body (and takes a lot credit for it) and I like the new body. Shouldn't this be enough? In a word: no. I have to keep telling myself that I did not start down this road so that I could stop half way.

It's really the starting that's the hardest part. Keeping it up is no small task either but getting off your butt in the first place is really the hardest. Now that I know how hard starting is, why would I want to start again? I'll just keep plugging away. I like to believe that at some point it will actually get easier.

When "all I have to do" is maintain, I hope that I'll get away with cheating better than I do now. My skinny sister tells me this is true but some days I wish she would just quit giving me pep talks. I guess maybe she will when neither of us needs them anymore. And that day is likely never to come because we both love food too much and will always have to make "choices" as she likes to preach. In the meantime, someone owes me lunch and (a Shark-fin dessert)!