Life lessons and a bit of humility

1. I'm not yet intuitive enough to maintain weight loss using intuitive eating as evidenced by the 12 pounds that have taken up residence on my ass again in the past year
2. Hard work and sacrifice really do payoff eventually
3. Stress is the devil

Those are the life lessons I've had to choke down along side a healthy serving of humble pie and egg in the face. Perhaps I'm being a bit over dramatic with it all because there have been some really amazing things happen in my life too.

Here's a recap.
Before the 2010 holidays, Accountabilibuddy and I decided that it would be a good idea to try the intuitive eating plan to see if she could continue her journey without WW and if I could continue mine without counting every single stinkin' little calorie. In hind sight, it wasn't such a good idea after all. Slowly but surely, the weight started to creep back on. I was still being mindful of what I was eating and I was still very active but I suppose I took in too many calories and burned fewer than I thought. After all, that's the basic math in losing weight. Or is it?

With every step on the scale, my stress level went up with my weight. Correlation or causation? That's another chicken and egg type of debate. In my opinion, weight gain and stress are not mutually exclusive. But I digress.

I was honored by a good friend to be asked to be maid of honor in her wedding. See? Good things happen too. Weddings are supposed to be fun and planning is supposed to be fun. Well, there were fun moments but if I'm totally honest here, wedding planning is mostly stress, stress, and more stress. I may have developed a phobic fear of dress shopping. Dress makers already can't seem to agree on a size template so one dress maker says size 10 equals such and such measurements where another one says those measurements are actually a size 16. That is NOT good for someone who has issues with weight and body image already which is, oh I don't know, the majority of the female population in the United States. Shouldn't there be some kind of quality assurance or regulatory board somewhere that sets the measurements for every size and that is the same for everyone, everywhere? I think so!

Another good thing....hubby got himself a fancy new job so that was a pleasant event in my year.

Skip to June 2011. Early one morning, I woke up to....um....nothing. Weird. I couldn't see anything in one eye. Yes. Blind in one eye for no particular reason. So, you can imagine that wasn't so great for the rising stress level. That's where a list of doctor appointments came in and have yet to disappear from my calendar reminders. Annoying little buggers. The good news is that the vision returned and better than when it left. I no longer need glasses to read distances. Brilliant!

I learned about a cool benefit offered by my hubby's fancy new company. It's a weight loss benefit. Actually, they call it a "weight management" benefit. Whatever flowery language they want to use is fine with me because I quickly figured out that I qualified for it. I promptly jumped through all the hoops and got started. It's a 1 year monitored relationship with a team of professionals all there to help me figure out what is broken in my weight loss journey and how to fix it. I have a physician, a nutritionist, a "life coach" which is just non threatening language for a therapist, and a personal trainer. I just started a couple weeks ago so I have yet to see any real results but I'm optimistic.

France! Oh hallelujah I love France. Yes, we finally did it. Hubby and I were planning our trip for over a year and it finally happened. We started French classes in January so we could hack our way through the language no matter what little nook of the country we found ourselves in. Three successful weeks of travelling around that beautiful country came to an end just last week and I can't wait to return.

Now that all the craziness of life seems to have settled down and I managed to get away from work and stress for 3 beautiful weeks, I stepped on the scale and guess what....a tiny bit of movement in the right direction. Voila! Let's see if this lesser stressed me with a team of babysitters can figure out how to shed the weight once and for all, shall we?

And how are you?