I’ve been here more times than I can count with my weight.
Until I was about thirty six or thirty seven, my weight barely changed. I could eat whatever I wanted, and if I gained five or ten pounds, exercise took care of it in a few weeks. My body felt predictable. Responsive. Cooperative.
Then in 2015, something shifted. I started gaining twenty five to thirty pounds a year, every year, until 2020. Over those five years, I tried everything I could think of to fight it. Every diet. Every exercise program. Every reset, plan, or promise.
I could do a Whole30 successfully. I’d lose twenty pounds, feel hopeful again, and then on day thirty one I’d go right back to eating the way I always had. And every time, I’d gain back more than I lost. The cycle repeated until I was up almost one hundred pounds.
I was desperate. And I was defeated.
I was also getting blood work and labs done, trying to find a reason. Every doctor told me the same thing. I was perfectly healthy, except for being obese. That word landed hard. Before this point in my life, if I wanted something or wanted to be good at something, I did it. I worked three jobs while getting my master’s degree. I pushed through hard things. I figured things out.
Not being able to lose the weight broke something in me.
I didn’t love myself anymore. I beat myself up constantly. Every failed attempt fed a shame spiral. I would try a new fad, hope this one would be different, and when it wasn’t, I blamed myself. I was embarrassed by how I looked. I didn’t want old friends to see me. I didn’t want to meet new people. I stopped dating. I stopped putting myself out there.
The pattern kept returning, no matter how badly I wanted it to change.
When I moved back to New Hampshire from Tennessee in 2021, something shifted, but not in the way I expected. I decided I was done making my weight the problem I was trying to solve. I hired a life coach. I read The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins. And I started doing something that felt almost ridiculous at first.
Every morning, I told myself I loved me.
I stood in the mirror and pointed out things I liked about my body. I started to accept a body I didn’t recognize as my own. Slowly, I began to love it, not for how it looked, but for everything it carried me through. Everything it did for me without complaint.
And something surprising happened.
I stopped gaining weight.
I want to be really clear here, because this part matters. I still want to lose weight. I want to feel healthier. I want to feel more comfortable in my body. That desire didn’t disappear. It hasn’t resolved itself.
What changed is my relationship to trying.
Trying now feels dangerous. It feels like opening the door back into that same shame spiral. It feels like inviting failure in before I even begin. Wanting to try and being scared to try now exist at the same time.
So when the pattern comes back, it isn’t because I haven’t tried enough. It’s because I’ve tried so many times that my system remembers what it cost me. The familiar isn’t just easy. It’s safer than risking another collapse into self-blame.
This is where I’m still standing. Wanting change. Knowing I want it. And also knowing how much it hurt the last time I reached for it.
That’s the in-between I’m living in now. Not apathy. Not avoidance. Not ignorance. Just a very real hesitation shaped by experience.
Today’s prompt:
What pattern do I keep returning to, even after I try to change it?
I’m not trying to resolve that immediately.
I’m just learning to notice what the return might be protecting me from.