At the beginning of 2018, I weighed in at 235 pounds. Given my height (5’5″) and body type, I should weigh closer to 135. That means that in order to get back to a healthy body, I have to lose 100 pounds. I lost the first 35 pounds in 2018, and I have already lost 4 more pounds in 2019. As of today, I have approximately 61 pounds to lose.

And I feel lucky.

In the not so distant past, I felt a lot of things about my weight – annoyance, disappointment, shame, despair- and none of those feelings were positive. Today, though, I have gotten to a place where I can look at the numbers on the scale and feel lucky.

I am overweight because I ate too many of the wrong things and did not exercise enough. But I knew what I was doing wrong and kept doing it anyway. I kept looking for a magic bullet. Maybe if I added cucumber to my water… or gave up carbs … or tried Zumba … but I could not find a magic bullet.

That’s because for me and my body, there is no magic bullet. I’m overweight because I eat too much and I eat too much because I am burying my issues. That’s it.

Now I am addressing my issues and lo, I have suddenly found that I actually want to give up sugar and take longer walks.

I’m not trying to gloss over my issues by calling them “issues.” I want to write about all of this. I wrote a memoir about postpartum depression. There’s a very strong possibility that before this weight loss adventure is over, I’ll write a memoir about losing 100 pounds. But I can’t begin to summarize my feelings, thoughts and ideas about my various issues in a single blog post. I’ll have to write another post. And another and another, until the weight has been lost and I have gotten a handle on taking care of my magnificent body. And then I’ll keep writing until I have feel I have written everything I need to write about my weight.

For now, I just want to say this: I feel lucky. I am overweight and it’s hard to ignore that reality when I look in the mirror. The weight is the physical manifestation of my emotional, spiritual and psychological issues. It serves as a reminder that I still have work to do.

I think many (if not most) (or all) of us have issues that need to be addressed. That’s part of the human experience. But we handle our issues in different ways. That’s why I feel lucky: because I have numbed my issues in a way that has become impossible to ignore. My body is there in the mirror, and I have felt the self-loathing, and I have heard the call to action to adventure.

But other people numb their issues in different ways. I’m sure you can think of a few (alcohol, cigarettes, sex, work) but I want to focus on food. There are people who use food to numb their issues but in ways that appear healthy. Just because a person has a beautiful body does not mean she has a good relationship with food. She might spend her entire day agonizing over her caloric intake. Or she might be this close to an eating disorder. The point is: my issues with food are easy to see because I am obviously overweight; but someone else’s issues with food might not be so easy to see because her body fits society’s beauty standards; and that is why I feel lucky.

I feel lucky that I am overweight.

I feel lucky that I can see that I am overweight because I have been numbing my feelings and avoiding my issues.

I feel lucky that I have made the connection between my weight-issues and soul-issues.

And I feel lucky that I can see that even though I have conquered postpartum depression, I still have work to do.