How I lost 100 pounds in one moment

If you follow this blog on how I lost 100 pounds, you know that I love to write intriguing titles. Today I'm going to share how I lost 100 pounds in one moment. Really. Not that I shed all the weight in 60 seconds with the wave of a wand. But it was kind of magical. What happened was that I experienced a surprise "aha moment" which flipped my entire thought process on it's head and set me off on a path to weight loss. How it happened was, if not easy, pretty simple. 

Backstory: over a period of 8 years or so, a series of unfortunate events had plunged me into morbid obesity. Menopause, the loss of two stillborn babies, depression, anxiety, the antidepressant Paxil had wreaked havoc on my impulse control and pushed me to (what I thought was) comfort eating. Once I started gaining weight, it just snowballed and I went from healthy to overweight to obesity in a scary short time. 

Paxil had a devastating effect on my self-control. It shut off all my limit switches. Paxil made me apathetic and even more depressed. I knew I was waaay overweight but I just didn't care. And worst of all, it seemed I couldn't stop it. I resigned myself to this new me and hated myself even more. But then, my higher power sent me a lifeline (AMDG) in the form of a wakeup call. 

Like Archimedes, the aha moment occurred in the bathtub. If I despised how I looked clothed, it was unbearable unclothed. All I saw was white, bulgy ugly fat. I began to hit my stomach, wishing I could just beat it off. I'd been reading about friends who were able to lose weight and I was so angry with myself that I couldn't. Why not me??

Then, something (Someone) stopped me (higher power). In the midst of this misery, I was blindsided, like St Paul on the road to Damascus, with a lightbulb flashing out "why not you?" Literally, why can't you lose weight? And immediately followed: Zoinks, Scoob!! I CAN!! It's not rocket science! I can practice calorie restricting. I can stop overeating. 

And so I could and so I did. That aha moment of realizing my own power and ability was absolutely revolutionary. Once you find your mojo, your Zen, your Tao, you can do anything. Once you flip the record to the B side, once you quit playing "can't" on autoloop, you discover a whole universe of new affirmations, wisdom and strength. It sounds so simple because it was. Is. It wasn't always easy, but it was easier than I thought it would be. 

Top photo is me in 2013 and bottom side is 2014 after weight loss. If you're interested in more on how I lost 100 pounds (without gastric bypass), stay tuned!