Step 2. Stop being in denial.

It seems kind of contradictory that this is step 2 and not step 1: "If I know I want to lose weight, how can I still be in denial?" Pretty dang easily, that's how. Again, most of us want to lose weight, but we don't want to confront the reasons why we put the weight on. We don't want to realize we've been making poor dietary decisions. We don't want to have to put the effort into changing and getting healthier. Vaguely knowing in the back of your mind that you need to lose weight requires much less internal confrontation than actually working to change your habits. Ouch. Realizing that you actually really do need to lose weight and making the decision to change hurts. You have to realize that you're not the best you that you should be.

I remained in step 1 for almost 12 months. I had superficial reasons for wanting to lose weight, but at the end of the day, I didn't really care whether I lost the weight or not. I just thought about it for a few minutes, and then let it flicker away. I'd think about losing the weight for my wedding and then say to myself "but I'd rather have this pizza. The pizza feels better right now." My weight wasn't having enough of a negative impact on my life for me to really try to change. I was blind to my weight problem. [I just deleted all the pictures from my wedding where I looked "too fat"- unfortunately, there were a lot of them. :-( ] Even after I got the pictures and was dissatisfied with how fat I was, I kept shoveling all that food into my mouth. I remember sitting at work eating yet another banana split and thinking "I can eat whatever I want." I honestly did not care. It disgusts me to look back at how I thought and how I ate. Wow.

There are lots of reasons why I gained the weight I did. (Peer pressure, stress caused by peers, never learning about proper nutrition, etc.) But really, who cares why I gained the weight? I cannot blame those situations and influences because ultimately, it's my hand moving to my mouth and my teeth doing the chewing.

Another easy way to stay in denial is to listen to others. Shut them up. They're not you. When I finally did start weight watchers, some of my overweight coworkers told me "Why are you doing Weight Watchers? You don't need to lose weight!" That wasn't true, and I knew it. I had done a really good job hiding my size/"problem areas" with the clothing that I wore. It was obvious that I was overweight. Especially when compared to other people. Hands down, I was the smallest person in the company. So compared to them, no I didn't have weight to lose, they'd all be lucky to be as small as I was at my biggest. Just because someone else's problem may be "bigger" than yours, doesn' t mean that your problem doesn't exist or need to be addressed.

One of the most important things to losing weight is honesty. If you're in denial, you're not being honest with yourself. To lose weight, you have to be honest.