I had brie and FiCoCo for lunch today. If you don’t know what FiCoCo is, it’s a delicious concoction of fig and cocoa and, along with brie, is a little slice of heaven on a bagel chip. Lest you judge me too harshly, I did NOT have wine with my cheese. Or, wait, maybe I should be judged for NOT having wine with such a wonderful lunch!

Right now, I weigh 152.5 pounds. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO POINT FIVE POUNDS. Since I’m only 5’2”, that puts me squarely in the “overweight” category per that wonderful table known as the BMI. It’s also the most I have EVER weighed in my life, and I’d just decided to start Weight Watchers, again. I’ve lost thirty pounds before and, while it wasn’t my favorite, I’d done it.

I’m used to being “little Jenny Lou”. You know, short and small. Only right now I’m not so small. And when you’ve lived the vast majority of your life as one thing, it’s rather jarring to suddenly (okay, not so “suddenly”!) be something else. When I was younger, I could lose weight in a snap. Once you hit forty, it’s not so snappy. The last time I weighed this much, it was after being on an antidepressant that caused me to be ravenously hungry ALL OF THE TIME. Seriously, my stomach would growl so loud that everyone around me could hear it. Through Tae-bo and basically fasting, I lost it.

Post divorce, I lost a ton of weight and ended up sick-skinny (as in, the doctor told me to gain weight). However, as I journeyed through nursing school and quit my job of serving on an outside deck (running around in 90 degree weather), I started gaining, little by little, until I found myself where I am today. And have been for maybe 9 months or so. And so I’ve bought new jeans and new scrubs and moaned and complained about my weight and cut out soda and tried chicken breast and veggies for lunch …. Only to lose and then gain back the same 5-7 pounds time and time again.

So when I saw Oprah bought stock in Weight Watchers, I figured I’d try that again b/c I’d had some success with it before. I also have been telling myself since December that I need to be doing yoga every day. So naturally, on the second day of February, I actually started yoga again.

Today, the YouTube yoga video I picked was by Adrienne (love her!) and the mantra for today was “I ACCEPT” and immediately after that, she followed up with “And I show up for myself.” And I started crying. I just freaking started crying. AND I SHOW UP FOR MYSELF. You know what, guys? I haven’t been showing up for myself. And by not showing up for myself, I’ve been teaching my girls—my TEEN girls—to not show up for themselves.

Let me let you in on a little secret: The ONLY way I ever had the courage/guts to end my marriage were my two girls. You won’t hear me bad mouth their dad because he’s a great dad to them, but suffice it to say our relationship was toxic, and I knew it; however, KNOWING it and DOING something about it are two entirely different things. The tipping point came with the realization that by accepting the way he treated me, I was modeling to my daughters what a relationship should look like. And I NEVER wanted them to think that they should be treated the way I was treated.

So this morning, as I said out loud, “and I show up for myself,” I felt like a liar. And I knew: it’s time to start showing up. Not just for me (although in a perfect world that would be enough motivation for me), but because it is my job as a mother to SHOW my daughters what being a woman means. I don’t want them to hate their bodies the way I hated my body in that moment. I don’t want them to constantly analyze their thighs or double chin or fat upper arms the way I do. I don’t want them to view some foods as “bad” and some foods as “good”. I don’t want them to define their essence of being by the tag in their jeans. I don’t want a scale to have power over their mood.

As I researched Weight Watchers this time around to refresh my memory, I stumbled upon reviews of a book called Secrets from the Eating Lab by Traci Mann, PhD. I bought it because it’s written by psychologist/scientist who has studied eating for twenty plus years. This book is changing the way I view food, dieting, obesity, and my relationship to all of those things. In the preface, she states,

“Much to my surprise, I’ve learned that nearly everything I thought was true about eating was false, including the three pillars of the commercial industry: that diets work, that dieting is good for you, and that obesity is deadly. The truth is that diets do not work and may be bad for you, and obesity is not going to kill you. I also learned that despite what most people assume, a lack of self-control is not why people become fat and “harnessing” willpower is not the way to become thin.”

I can’t get into all the details of the book, but it is exceedingly well-researched and this author has no dog in the fight, so to speak. She is not hawking a diet or any secrets: she is a scientist and she is sharing what she has learned over the years—and she herself has felt the backlash from the dieting/obesity industry wishing to keep her quiet.

All of a sudden, today on my yoga mat, with this book in the back of my mind and my belly sitting on my thighs, I just gave up. I gave up hating my body, hating my weight, hating dieting, hating my confusing relationship with food, hating the example I’ve become to my daughters. It’s enough. It’s time for me to show up for my girls and for myself. It’s time to ACCEPT exactly where I’m at in this moment without judgement or condemnation. I desperately want my girls to live their lives without those ugly things and the only way I can hope for that is if I model it first.

I’m only now to the chapters in the book that talk about “How to Reach Your Leanest Livable Weight”. You see, the author isn’t advocating eating any/everything that you can. Throughout the book, she talks about how we are created as human beings and the physiological and psychological reasons why diets fail and aren’t good for us; at the same time, she gently encourages a healthy relationship with food and exercise. I’m ready for that. I may never be a size six again. That may not be the weight my body naturally feels comfortable with, but I can begin to eat to take care of this wonderful body I’ve been given stewardship over for the past forty-three years. I can view food with pleasure and not guilt. I can love these thighs that touch and belly that is soft. I never thought I could, before …. But I’d also never considered what message I was sending my daughters by mourning the loss of my “before” body.

On Facebook, I constantly see people hawking their diet/”lifestyle” change shakes and pills and supplements. Praising the weight loss and perpetuating the idea that if only we can lose another pound or ten or fifty … that THEN we will be worthy and finally feel happy and satisfied. I’m not buying what they’re selling. I’m choosing to be happy TODAY, NOW. I’m choosing to accept myself, exactly as I am, TODAY, NOW. I’m choosing to show my daughters that our bodies are wonderfully created and deserve attention without shame or guilt or ‘shoulds’, TODAY, NOW. I don’t need a twenty-one day fix to get there. I don’t need shakes for breakfast and lunch.  I don’t need points, and I don’t need supplements.  I need just two things.

On the thirty-third day of this year, I have my resolution: I will accept, and I will show up.

My girls deserve nothing less. Nor do I.