"Do you think you'll ever put the weight back on?"

"Not a chance, not after everything I went though to loose it. At the very least if I start gaining weight again I'll recognise it and stop it this time," Kristy replies with confidence. Well at least part of it is true. I have recognised that I am gaining weight again. But why am I not stopping it?

So this is how it has gone down so far...From my early teens up until I was about 19 I gained weight at steady rate. I didn't really mind or notice until I was about 16 at which point I was too unmotivated to do anything. When New Year came around I would think 'if only I had done something about my weight a year ago, if I had done something then I wouldn't be over weight now!' I would feel down about it but never motivated myself to do anything and instead gain more weight. And every New Year I would think the same thing. Finally after 3 or 4 years of thinking this way and continuing to gain weight my thinking changed (probably coinciding with coming out of my depression). My new thinking was 'if I start loosing weight now, then this time next year I won't be as big!' And that was it, from that moment I would only ever get smaller and healthier! It was literally a moment in time where something switched inside me and that was it, the weight was going to be lost no question. At this point I was 104.7 kilos and morbidly obese.

From the get go I had the right attitude and the right approach, right down to the language. I wasn't dieting I was eating responsibly I wasn't trying to loose weight I was loosing weight! I knew it would take time, although I had my moments of frustration wanting it now or faster, I knew it was unhealthy and unrealistic for it to happen too fast. I made sure I was gentle and loving to myself. And most of all I knew it was (or is) a lifestyle change that would benefit me for the rest of my life.

Being as big as I was it didn't take much to get the weight loss started. I began by choosing 1 diet related bad habit and 1 exercise related bad habit to change. I gave myself 2 weeks where I focused only on those 2 things and turned them into permanent healthy habits for life. I had a poster on my wall called 'My Healthy Habit Friends!' So the weight came off. The more I lost the more things I changed in my life to encourage more weight loss and a healthy body.

About 2 years later I weighed about 72 kilos. I decided to take a break from the weight loss here, not be so strict on my exercising and controlled eating and just maintain my weight. So I drank a bit more, ate more oreos and soy icecream and didn't always get up super early to get myself to the gym! Not only did I manage to maintain my weight with this lifestyle, but in the 9 months I did this for I actually lost 9 kilos! Not so surprising because I was still responsible. After all, my healthy habit friends were designed exactly for that reason, making mainting my weight an easy and mostly unconscious effort!

I decided to loose the remaining weight, and have spent the last 5 or so months attempting to get back into it. And one would think after loosing 40ish kilos that loosing a measly 5-8 wouldn't be too difficult. Boy-howdy! Somehow, as previously mentioned, I am managing to gain weight! Which just isn't right, especially since I was able to loose 1 kilo a month when I was being a lot more chill than I am now. I am finding myself exercising 4 or 5 times a week, barely drinking and not eating much crap...something else is in play here.

So instead of continuing the way I am; pushing myself too hard at the gym and cutting out all excess kjs for about 3 weeks until I snap when it all gets too much and then binge and not exercise for a week...lather, rinse, repeat...I am going to really step back and look at me, motivations, attitudes, feelings, lifestyle, emotions, etc. and work out what is going on here and the best approach.