You have to start somewhere. I'm hemming and hawing, teetering and tottering, playing with the same 10 pounds for the past three years. I'm a 42, almost 43- years-young woman defined by many wonderful qualities...but for this blog, however, I am an in process of being a reformed Fat Girl. I started my serious life-changing weight loss journey in September of 2000 at 346.8 pounds. I am currently at about 213, having lost nearly 135 pounds. That is, in tangible terms, 27 5 pound bags of sugar. Put that in your shopping cart and push it around.

Now, I don't discount that removing the 135 pound person who used to be attached to my body is a huge accomplishment. I've done it through the sensible Weight Watchers plan which suits my mind and personality, coupled with exercise. Since joining in 2000, I've gone from being unable to walk to the corner to walking 1-2 miles several times a week, working out with weight resistance/Pilates for 5 days a week. I lost most of the weight in 18 months-2 years. I hit a roadblock to loss when I had a cancer scare in 2002 and had an ovary removed (it was blessedly benign), lost a very dear friend in 2003 to a viciously aggressive bout of Breast Cancer, kicked a pot habit & stopped drinking in 2004 (clean and sober for almost 16 months now!) and became a vegetarian in 2005. So the reformation of my life has been moving right along thankyouverymuch. Still, harshly severe self-critic that I am, I can't help but feel stagnant in my weight loss efforts.

So as they say in my favorite episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer...Where do we go from here?

I am not without ideas. I have said it out loud many a time, but still haven't taken it quite to heart yet...the more weight you lose, the less you get to eat and the more you have to exercise. As many changes as I have made, I have to stop pussyfooting around. I haven't even talked about my relationship with food yet! The mechanics of eating and weight loss are easy to discuss. What can I say about my old buddy, my old pal who has been there for me for the ups, downs, ins and outs of my life? Food has been my comfort, my go-to guy, my friend, my party favor, my refuge...as far as I've come, I STILL find myself using food for all those things. I'm not entirely sure I know how to stop that behavior. I know I have it IN ME to stop, I just need to learn it.

It's not as though my life is lacking love and friendship. I have rich personal relationships...an incredibly suppportive husband of nearly 19 years, dear friends known for various lengths of time who have become my Family Of Choice who have seen me through all the changes I've made. I run my own business. I love music (rather obsessively, actually) and travel extensively to see the band I love (that would be Pearl Jam...97 shows since 1992,and counting). I am organized, fun-loving, silly, a decent writer and a pretty good singer. I have the foundation of a great life.

So WHY do I abuse food? And why is it so freaking hard to stop? How will I get off the hamster wheel and start getting somewhere?

I guess I'll use this forum to figure it all out. It's Saturday night, I'm just battling the last of a small bug (fever, sore throat, congestion) that I allowed to play havoc with my eating behavior. At first I was STOKED because my fever was so high and I was so wiped out I couldn't get out of bed to eat. That's kinda twisted that I was happy I had no appetite. Then, dear hubby came home wanting to be the fantastic human being that he is and went and bought me coconut sorbet bars (DAMN those were soothing comforting goodness) and soy chips (DAMN those...well, ditto)...and I was just too tired to fix food so I've been grazing since Wednesday. Finally spent my first whole day sitting up and semi-active, and just feel too lazy to do anything other than eat raisins, almonds, cereal with soy milk, and popcorn. Orville Redenbachers Mini Bags of Kettle Corn to be exact. And it's not as good unless it has a whole mess of Smart Spray Soy butter substitute on it. Buttery goodness. I mean HEY, none of those foods are too damaging in and of themselves, it's just the quantities I find myself consuming. I can binge on just about anything given the chance, and I was over my points for the day a few pags of Kettle Corn ago. I know over-indulging doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It is what it is. I just wish it wasn't, and not so often.

Oh yeah, and about the title of my blog....I have a twisted sense of humor, and I like it that way. When sharing my 135 pound weight loss, I usually say I'm a big loser...I've lost XXX pounds (varies between 130-135 for the past couple of years)...and I just saw 3 Beck shows, so it seemed appropriate. Soy Un Perdedor. And the url....well, Soundgarden fans will get it. Alright. Thus endeth Weight Loss Mind Spew #1.