Weighing the Options

This morning I found myself terribly distressed when I stood upon the bathroom scale and discovered that it had leaped over another ten marker. How can a person gain six pounds in 10 days! I started the day hating who I am. My self esteem has plummeted and I am discouraged with all the effort I feel I have done to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
My journey began 6 years ago. At that time, the office sponsored a Weight Watchers at Work program. I joined the program and in eighteen months lost 68 pounds. My self esteem climbed to new levels and I felt better than I had in years. When I reached my goal, it was at the very top of the weight range Weight Watchers uses for age, height and gender. I soon climbed 3 pounds and stayed there for some time. This did not bother me because I felt that my body was comfortable at this weight range.
In October of 2004, my dear friend was a victim of a motorcycle accident that upset me terribly. To keep my mind occupied, I joined the workout routine with the girls at work. This video is as a power workout and for 45 minutes of every day, I joined the group at lunch. Although the comments from my colleagues were favorable concerning how I looked, I jumped up six pounds. I read article upon article on the web trying to understand and eventually decided that muscle was the cause of my weight gain. The mirror, if not the scale was favorable. I enjoyed feeling strong and having muscle tone, probably for the first time in my life. I joined a gym and began in earnest to work out regularly. For me that means three times a week. My routine consists of a 30-minute cardio routine with 20 to 25 minutes of weight training.
The scale continued to climb. I returned to journaling all I ate. In addition to this, I kept an online calorie journal to track my intake and compare it with the Weight Watchers program. Surprisingly, I was well within the food limit and often below the daily requirement for my age rage. For weight loss, below is where I should stay. After a month of this, I had not loss one single pound. I put aside the journal and decided that sensible eating and continued exercise would sustain me. I stabilized just over a 10 marker and was able to maintain this for 2 years. Still this is about 12 pounds over the Weight watchers limit.
Despite standing on the scale daily, am still climbing. I am now twenty-two pounds over the Weigh Watcher limit by my morning scale. My inner voice said, “journal.” At first, I interpreted this as the food journal. I haven’t kept one lately. This is possibly the true problem, but in considering the food journal again, I felt that honest dialog with myself about where it is I am going wrong is what I need most. For this reason, I am posting this today. I am not interested in the support groups again, so I will keep two journals. One that tells me what I eat, and another that talks to me honestly. There is after all, power in words that statistics can’t tell me. I have tried all else.