Intro: After a long, long hiatus (or period of forgetfulness, or distractions, or what have you), I am revisiting this project. My original topic (fitness trackers) has long been abandoned. New theme to be determined…soon.

It’s been one hell of a year. Emphasis on hell. Maybe I’ll delve into the hell part at a later time, but today’s focus is on weight and emotional eating and the fallout from terrible grief.

Last year, I embarked on a significant weight loss journey with great success. I mean, really great success. (I did Ideal Protein, which is a fantastic program. You should try it!) I never felt deprived, I was in control, I was powerful. I looked pretty good, too, which is something I haven’t been able to say about myself in, oh, well, over 20 years. Control over what I chose to eat. Control over emotions (hence, emotional eating.) It felt awesome, and boy, was I smug.

The first two months of 2016 weren’t bad. There was promise. New job, big plans for the year. Started the year thin(ish) for the first time in…anyway. Then, I lost my Dad. My brother and I lost our Dad and my mom lost her husband and my kids lost their grandfather and it was sudden and painful and to say that it is sad is understating it immensely and it’s been seven months and it still hurts and sucks and I miss my Daddy so much and I can’t process it and YES, that was the worst run-on sentence ever and it still is, but I don’t care because it is still so painful and raw and I don’t see how I am ever going to be the same. Oh, and that’s the hell part of the year.

But this is about weight and how I absolutely fell apart – or, more accurately, blew up. It shouldn’t matter so much, but we all know it does, and it’s talked about every day in some way or another in some media outlet or another. The mirror doesn’t lie. I now have to face the fact that, aside from a few days or weeks here and there over the past seven months, I channeled my grief into a smorgasbord of carbohydrates. I know better. I’ve done better. If you look at me, though, you don’t see a grieving person. You see Jabba the Hutt.

I started Weight Watchers in August, and had a tiny bit of success for a few weeks. It’s a great program, and I am not here to put it down, but it’s not for me. Too permissive. Too slow. (One week, I lost 0.2 pounds, which I attributed to the fact that I went home and changed into leggings before weigh-in.) What turned me away for good, though, was the first meeting in which I spoke out loud, about six weeks in. I opened up and shared my loss and my struggle with emotional eating and even that I had lost a pound that week despite thinking I’d fallen hard off the wagon. Silence. OK, let’s move on. Then someone announced that they only gained 1/2 a pound that week, but they tracked every day, and the room erupted in applause and I am pretty sure that person got a sticker. That was also my last meeting.

I guess I am saying all this because I have to face it head on and course correct and all sorts of other clichéd expressions. I also need to put it out there because I have been avoiding people like the plague, people I love and care about and miss terribly and need desperately but I don’t want you to see me like this.

Now it’s out there.

We get to erase the slate and reboot soon, and I plan on taking every advantage of that. Stay tuned.