Why Can I Still Get So Upset When I Gain Weight?

This past Tuesday night, I had a bad weigh in at Weight Watchers as I gained 2.4 pounds. While I try to approach the scale with zero expectations to prevent some kind of emotional boomerang, I do not always succeed. As I wait in line for my turn to get weighed, I can always come up with arguments as to why I might lose weight that week and why I might gain. I honestly could tell the Weight Watchers group leader that my gaining weight wasn't entirely a surprise, but I could not stop the total funk it sent me into that night.

Sitting through the meeting did not turn around my emotional downward spiral. All the way home, I tried to figure out why I had eaten so much the past week that I gained nearly two and a half pounds. My sister and parents had visited about a week for Easter. Did I just fall back into old, bad habits around them? Did I treat the holiday and visit as an excuse to eat more than I should and a break from my healthy eating lifestyle? I know my portion control was not as good as it could be, and I definitely ate a decent amount of "treat" foods several days in a row. Heck, one day I had the Baskin-Robbins equivalent of a Dairy Queen Heath Bar Blizzard for lunch. That was really going to help me lose weight.

My original plan for the week had been to not keep a food diary on Easter Sunday but to do so all the other days. Ha! I stopped writing down what I was eating the second my parents and sister arrived and did not restart until they left. I was not on my best "healthy writer" behavior.

I asked even tougher questions. Was I stressed out by sharing my one-bedroom apartment with 3 other adults for 6 days and that made me do some stress eating? Was the visit making me feel emotions I was unwilling to face? I know that unacknowledged emotions can make me overeat to try to avoid them. I also know people joke about how they revert back to old roles when they visit their family, and I do sometimes feel like I'm a different person around my parents and sister than I am in other environments. Did I not like the role I played in my family at times? Was I upset by other family dynamics?

Honestly, all of the above questions were possible, and I never really could come up with a definitive answer as to why I overate during their visit. I tried to throw off my gloom enough to enjoy the last night with my parents in town, but I was back in funk mode when I went to bed. Now, I could add feeling bad about not being in the best mood that night. It got to the point that my bad feelings from one area - the weight gain - seemed to bleed into other areas of my life until I was not happy about anything.

Luckily, Wednesday was such a busy day at work I could not waste time nurturing a funk about gaining weight. I made it a priority to go to a Zumba class that night, and it was the best hour of my day. I danced my bad mood away. I also realized that I had not tried to comfort or soothe my funk away with emotional eating and was very proud of that. In previous Weight Watchers attempts, a 2.4 pound gain would have sent me straight to a restaurant to get a burger, fries and soda or some other equally beloved but unhealthy meal and to start thinking about how impossible it was for me to lose weight. Why should I even bother? Soon, I could talk myself into quitting, but that old, bad road to self-sabotage has been pretty much destroyed by the power of promising myself I'd give it my all for a year to lose weight no matter what.

When I returned home from another Zumba class Thursday night, I started to wonder why I could still get so upset when I gain weight. I know better. (Yes, I have been accused of thinking too much several times, and I think analysis paralysis is a brilliant description of a state I know well.) In fact if I eliminated the weigh-in results, I could construct a triumphant narrative of the past week. My original intention for my April 12 blog post was to talk a bit about another bonus of spring - the change over of fall/winter clothes to spring/summer clothes and how that can be another wonderful way to show how much smaller you are getting.

We've had stretches of warm to very warm weather in the DC area in the past month, so I'd already started the clothing changeover. I had a lot of gaps in my wardrobe as most of the new clothes I bought last summer were too big and given away. My sister had informed me in late February when she had to make an unscheduled, last-minute business trip to DC that I had no cute tops. We were going through my clothes trying to find something she could wear to a business appointment the next day. She had not had the time to go back to her apartment to get some clean clothes before she had to hop on the train for DC. I'm finally reaching the size that I can lend her some of my clothes to wear, and that's another tangible sign of progress.

When my sister and I hit the outlet mall the Saturday before Easter, she reminded me I needed cute tops, and I knew I had other clothing items I needed to look for. I spent a couple of hours at the Ann Taylor outlet (yes, I realize I'm almost obsessed with all things Ann Taylor and can even explain why) and was absolutely thrilled to fit into a bunch of very cute medium or size 10 tops, jackets, pants, skirts and dresses. I even got into a couple of size 8 a-line skirts. This was more, very tangible proof that I'm continuing to get smaller, and I happily walked out of that store with several bags. I pretty much have a kick-butt spring/summer wardrobe now.

So, I had a lot of reasons to feel good about myself at Weight Watchers Tuesday night. I always dress up for the meeting, so I know I look good (even if I gain weight), and last week was no exception. I was wearing a wonderful Ann Taylor wrap-around dress that had been too small when I ordered it online last summer but fits beautifully now and a pair of sexy, hot, blue sandals. (I chose "sexy" and "hot" on purpose as those are two words people have started to use in reference to me to my surprise.) I'd gotten several compliments at work that day, and I was feeling darn good about myself until I read in my book how much I had gained. My group leader who had weighed me in had (wisely) not told me exactly how big of a gain it was. I shouldn't have looked to see how much it was until later that week when I was back practicing my healthy eating and exercise habits and more removed from the moment. But, I looked, I knew I had gained 2.4 pounds, and I wallowed.

Now, I have gained 24 times at my 61 Weight Watchers weigh ins since the beginning of 2009. My worst gain on this journey was 3.4 pounds on August 20, 2009, (business trip) followed by a gain of 3.2 pounds on Oct. 15, 2009, (also known as the night all hope was lost) after a visit to my parents. Five times my gain was in the two pound range (2 - 2.6). On six separate occasions, I gained for two weeks in a row. Gaining weight is no stranger to me on my journey to become and stay a healthy writer, and I've worked hard to learn how to take these temporary set backs in stride.

I know that these gains are eventually followed by losses if I just keep at it. The Aug. 20th gain was followed by weekly losses of 1.6, 1.4, 1.4 and 4.6. My Oct. 15th gain of 3.2 pounds was wiped out by a 3.2 pound loss on Oct. 21. I remember staring at the Weight Watchers receptionist as she gushed over the loss and I said that's exactly what I gained last week. The slate was wiped clean, and all that drama and emotional turmoil I went through on the 15th was a tempest in a teapot. It was a waste of energy.

The most important thing is that I've not allowed any of these gains to convince me to quit. Yes, some of them have been very tough to take emotionally (and hormones may have played a role in that at least twice), but I have tried to be patient and persevere. No matter what, I will keep working at it and not give up. I have lost more than 30 pounds that way and know that if I continue to do that, I will eventually reach a healthy weight and stay there.

How do you handle it when you gain weight? Do you have any advice for me for my next (inevitable) weight gain? How do you keep going? What's the secret to being patient and persevering?