I don’t want to think of my weight loss journey as being something separate from my life. What I mean is, I don’t want to say, “Well I’m on vacation so I will just have fun, and forget about following my Weight Watchers plan.” There is a subtle but destructive message in that thinking. This kind of thinking assigns something punitive to being on a weight loss journey. As if I cannot have all the fun I want and still be cognizant of how many points I’m consuming. This is a false narrative because I can be on vacation, be on plan, and have a great time.

Some might be thinking, “She has gone off the rails! Don’t drink the Kool-Aid!” I think, what I’m doing is, finally coming to my senses. I don’t want to be a prisoner of weight loss. That sounds hyperbolic but if I look back, I see that it was always black-or-white thinking. I was either good or bad; on or off and in that way, the prison I found myself in was by my own design.

A vacation would become a tripwire; after eating and drinking freely coming home to stringent routines would marginalize a personal sense of power. “See I gained ‘x’ amount of pounds, I can’t be trusted with my own decision-making.” A weight loss journey comes down to making choices. I am learning how to trust myself to make choices that will allow me to live a full life and improve my health not just when I’m in my controlled environment of home but anyplace.