Start of Something New

Welcome to my new blog. I suppose I should start by saying a little bit about me and how this blog came to be. I'm in my mid-twenties and just about to get my master's degree in a social service field (huzzah!). I've been with my wonderful boyfriend J for over 3 years now, though we don' t live together...I'm old fashioned in that way, at least. One of our cats is staring at me right now, wishing I would leave her alone to sleep on my pants in peace.
Now, that brings me to the pants. They're big. Size 20. Not the biggest, mind you, but well within plus size territory. Now, I was never slender for long but was fortunate enough to be between sizes 7 and 11 through high school, and you better believe I thought I was huge then. Since then I've yo-yoed quite a bit. Up, down, up, down. Tried a few things, got frustrated at working very hard at diet and exercise and seeing no loss of inches or pounds for over a month, gave up.
Always knew what I should be eating. My mom is a dietician. I'm picky, though, and what my mom describes as "overly sensual". Sounds slutty, no? Turns out she means that I don't like anything but my favorite foods...either love it or hate it. Yes, I'm picky. Very picky. The list of foods I eat is shorter than the list of things I don't eat. I've been in a gradual process of changing this, little by little. A little spinich on a sandwich here, a little fresh fruit instead of canned there. Anyways, enough on that.
So, what brought me here? My last diet was with a commercial weight loss company that has since gone under. They wanted me to eat salad. I rebelled. I still lost 12 lbs. I got mad that they kept wanting me to buy more products. I stopped going and tried sparkpeople.com, lost 10 more pounds, started grad school and decided I was too stressed to watch what I was eating. Gained 10 lbs over Christmas break, and kept gaining until I did the couch to 5k program for a few months. Started grad school again, and have been gaining since.
At this point, I feel more out of control with my eating than I ever have. I go to the store with a list, and end up buying 3-4 kinds of snack foods that are not on my list, feeling bad about it the whole time. I reconsider and reconsider it, but feel out of control, come home, and eat the whole package in one night. I checked to make sure I don't meet the criteria for binge eating disorder. Apparently not.
As my weight crept up, I started feeling desperate. I found out people my weight and height would meet the basic requirements for bariatric surgery, which is crazy to me. At 10 lbs lighter I was able to jog for 40 minutes straight! But it did tell me that something's got to give. I started thinking about dieting constantly, but couldn't make myself lay off the sweets. So I did some more research, and found out about a local hospital's medically supervised weight loss plan and decided to look further into it.
The hospital offers a very low calorie diet (VLCD) that is not for the faint of heart. It involves putting the body into ketosis, where it metabolizes fat to produce energy, because only 800-1000 calories are consumed per day. Because of this, close medical monitoring is required to reduce health risks. For the plan I am starting, this will mean weekly meetings and medical monitoring. It also means giving up solid food for awhile, using only shakes or puddings.
I've encountered a lot of resistance to this diet, and I can see why. I would have shaken myself for it 35 lbs ago. But my reasons for going this direction are:
1. I can't trust myself in a grocery story
2. My taste for sweets has been such that I cannot be trusted if they are nearby. I feel like an addict.
3. I'm to the point where I am quite uncomfortable with daily tasks.
4. It is medically monitored, and I need now to pay more attention to my health and how I am affecting it with my habits
Basically, the drive comes from needing to "reset" my body and my hunger and relearn how to eat...try to get rid of more of my pickiness so I have the taste to succeed. Experience some success so I don't give up.
On that note, a note about comments. This is to be a positive place, not a place for hate. If you don't like what I'm writing, skip to another blog. I've enabled comments so that people with similar struggles can share their thoughts, not to allow a place for overt criticism of my life choices.