Fat Girl Moves to LA...

Here I am, all 164lbs of me, sitting in my hotel room, pondering what the future may hold for me in about eleventy billion ways, not the least of which is my weight.

When Husband told me in March that he had been given this opportunity with his career, honestly the first thing I thought of was, "I can NOT go to Los Angeles and live among the beautiful people. I will shrivel up and die of shame!" I'm embarrassed that I thought this before anything else--before the idea of leaving friends, family and the familiarity of a routine that created home for us.

I sat down with Husband and we agreed that before moving, we were each going to attempt to lose 10 lbs. Oh, the intentions could have lit up a room with how much emotional energy I poured into them. And we did do well for awhile. Frozen "steam in the bag" vegetables and roasted chicken became our meal of choice. We cut down on going out to dinner. We cut back on Starbucks. I started walking more, every day. I even jogged a couple of times. And, as usual, I saw no change on the scale.

As time went on and I thought more about the upcoming transition, thankfully my stress and emotions focused around the latter and I became, well, a bit depressed about saying goodbye to my best friend and her newly adopted son, our play group, and all the other bits and pieces of our life in Arlington.

And what does Sarah do when she's "a bit depressed"? She eats. a LOT. No, it's not like I started driving through Taco Bell @ 2am or filling my grocery cart with pint upon pint of Ben & Jerry's (although my gait always slows at the ice cream case as I fight the call of the Siren, Phish Food...). I didn't suddenly start binging on tons of crap food that I normally don't eat.

I just ate more.

Then, sadly, my cousin's little girl passed away after almost a year of battling a brain tumor. And how did I deal with that? I ate. a LOT.

Then, we the packers came. That was two weeks ago tomorrow. Since then I've been living in a hotel. And that means that for two weeks, Husband, Ethan and I have been eating at restaurants. For every meal.

I have truly tried not to take comfort in food every time my emotions welled up on me. But I can't lie; I have definitely used food in the past couple of months to assuage the anxiety and sadness of this huge transition. Not even the mortification of possibly gaining weight and looking freakishly huge when walking down Ventura Blvd next to every Paris Hilton wannabe in the city could deter me.

Now that I'm here, though, I see opportunities to live a healthier lifestyle all around me. We live a few blocks from a farmer's market. I've been to the hotel gym five out of the past seven days. I am thinking of converting our garage into a small exercise room. There are no fewer than four yoga studios within walking distance of our house. The park I take Ethan to is at least a 3 mile walk, round-trip.

It's interesting that I'm finding embarrassment and shame does not motivate me. What motivates me is the potential and the possibility of a new environment. If I can make this change in where I live, in giving up all the security I had with the old routine, surely I can make the changes I need to to lose the weight. To ensure that the next time I carry a baby, I don't completely wreck my body and set myself up for another 2.5 years of struggling to lose the weight.

So we'll see. Here I am with yet another renewed vow to myself that it's time to change. Life is a bit of a blank slate right now, so perhaps I'll find this time I have the motivation to make it work.