Why now?

I spent a long time feeling perfectly content at my overweight weight. Ann, whose thoughtful blog everyone should read, got me wondering why I suddenly joined WW and embarked upon this Journey of Weight Loss.

There was one immediate reason: My new health insurance gave me coupons to go for free. There were other more superficial reasons, too, like the fact that all the MyPyramid effort left me feeling tired, hungry, and alone. Clearly I needed an established system, and WW has been around for 45 years. That's quite a bit longer than I've been around.

OK, fine, but why the decision to lose weight? I think it has to do with my Saturn return.

When I turned 30 last February, I examined my life carefully. I decided to make a complete career change, complete with graduate school and everything. I decided not to take crap from people anymore; I was too darn nice. I also decided to get a new, adult wardrobe.

In a sense, everything I've started since my 30th has been about becoming the shaper of my own life. I'm a go-with-the-flow gal, but I decided it was high time for ME to be the one in charge. Part of shaping my life, I decided, was shaping my own body, and with it my own health.

I've been proofreading an oncology nutrition textbook, and let me tell you: Obesity increases the risk of every single kind of cancer, and they don't even know why. Don't get me started on heart disease.

Actually, DO get me started, because all my grandparents save one have had major heart disease. Grandpa F., a foodie like me, was so obese by the end of his short life--I don't think he reached 70--that he could not walk. He could not leave the house. He had gigantic, edemic ankles that were always in pain. He slept with an oxygen mask because of the apnea. His world grew sad and insulated. Like me, he ate only fresh, nonprocessed food. He died and left Grandma F. to fend for herself with breast cancer. She was very thin, but if I have the gene and the extra fat, my risk is automatically increased.

Grandpa C., a living miracle at 81, has had several massive heart attacks. Grandma C.? Quadruple bypass surgery. Now, I'm not saying that all of these problems are caused by weight. What I am saying is that I have a tough genetic history that does not need to be encouraged by extra weight.

I have a tough genetic history, and two docs pointed out to me that a person in her 30s will gain weight eating the exact same food in the exact same amounts that she ate in her 20s. Because I had gained weight in my 20s, when youthful metabolism was still running high, I was likely to end my 30s even bigger. I decided not to test this out. I had a vision of becoming Grandpa F., spending life between bed and kitchen chair, painful purple ankles. I am most happy when I'm dancing to music I love, walking outdoors, canoeing. I have to move. I must go outside. It is my nature.

Melodramatic visions aside, this is really about being the one in charge of my life. I am lucky, in a sense, that I've never been on a traditional "diet." I am free of the diet mentality. The older women at WW are constantly being reminded to lose the notion of "diet;" I'm like, "What's a diet?"

On the other hand, I have always gained or lost weight without really knowing how or why. I mean, yes, caloric intake greater than caloric output = gaining weight. Caloric intake less than caloric expenditure = losing weight. I get that. But it would happen to me, randomly, without my conscious choice of gaining, losing, or maintaining my weight. I decided that this was not what I wanted. How could I be in charge of my life if I was not even in charge of my own fat cells? If I was not aware of how the food I ate was affecting them?

I think my mentality--I am doing WW to learn how to take care of myself and to be in charge of my own destiny-- is much of what is breeding my success. My weight loss of about 2 lb/week is exactly on target for what WW says to expect. Other people are not having as much success, and I suspect that they are coming at the program from a different angle. Their headspace is different.

So, to return to the beginning: This is all because of my Saturn return.