I had this entry all planned this afternoon, after I returned from working out. It was going to be a happy bubbly entry all about how I've started actually looking forward to working out each day; how I'm actually having fun when I'm there and how six weeks of going to Curves every weekday during lunch time has had the benefit of improving my cycling skills, to the point that when we went riding on Saturday for the first time in months, I could actually maintain a faster speed for a longer distance than I ever could before.

Yay exercise and better muscle tone. Blah fucking blah. That was before I went to the Weight Watchers meeting this evening and saw, once again, just exactly how I am going absolutely nowhere.

I've been going back to Curves now for about six weeks. I expected to gain weight because unlike apparently the rest of the world, when I exercise, I gain weight. Lots of it. This time a whole whopping 4 pounds of it. Go me. Way to really make a girl feel like she's accomplishing something. The fact that my BMI dropped a miniscule amount (0.2%. Whee.) did little to make up for the fact that that stupid scale showed a number higher than when I'd started after the first month's measure day.

For the past four weeks I have also dutifully recorded my Points and followed the Weight Watchers eating plan and done my best to drink enough water and eat enough vegetables and fruits. And yes I may not always get the full 5 servings of veggies per day, but I never did back when we were on the plan before. And back then, when I was actually being diligent about the diet (because it *is* a diet, people, no matter what they try to say to pretty it up with words and call it a 'lifestyle change'), I would actually see a weight loss over time. It was slow coming off but at least it came off, and gave me enough incentive to keep on trying.

Well. After four weeks of weigh-ins I've managed to officially keep off a whole whopping 0.6 pounds. Yes folks, you read that right. Just a hair over half a pound. After four stinking weeks of being on Weight Watchers and six weeks of Curves.

And I am tired of it. I am so incredibly tired and frustrated that I don't even know what to do anymore. Every time I get off that scale I feel this close to bursting into tears. The rational part of my brain can natter all it wants about muscle weighing more than fat, and how it's more important to focus on the fact that eating healthier and exercising is really good for me in the long run, and how studies have shown that people who are overweight can be just as healthy as skinny people if they work at it. None of that matters a damn when I'm standing on the scale. None of that changes the fact that the scale reads a number that, according to those wretched weight tables, puts me in the dangerously overweight category. 50 pounds overweight, and it isn't budging at all.

If I was suddenly losing massive inches around my body maybe I wouldn't be so frustrated by this whole thing, but I don't even have that to console myself with. A few paltry quarter-inch losses here and there make no noticeable difference in how my clothes feel, or how I feel when I look in a mirror. And they certainly don't make one damn bit of difference to how I feel when I step on that blasted scale every week and face the glaringly obvious reiteration of how much of a failure I am, yet again. I am surrounded by people who can manage to lose weight – yes, even with a bit of a struggle and sometimes a few steps backwards, but overall they succeed. Yet here I am, following the rules and even exercising regularly – 30 minutes a day just like I'm supposed to – and what do I get? Nothing. A big fat nothing. Just the overwhelming sense of failure, week after week.

You know, I joke occasionally that if I'm destined to be a fat chick, at least I can be a fit fat chick, but that joke is only to make other people laugh – to cover up the fact that I am hurting inside with each passing week where I see no signs of success. It's not like I'm trying to be model-thin. It's not like I'm one of those perky little women who comes skipping into Weight Watchers and loses her 10% body weight, which also conveniently puts her at her lifetime weight because she only had 10 pounds to lose anyway, all in less than three months, and somehow we are all supposed to applaud her as if she had even one idea of how much the rest of us have to struggle. I *am* fat. I am 5'3" and right now I weigh 185 pounds and no amount of massaging of the data can ever make that a healthy weight for me.

Right now I don't know what to do. I do know that I cannot keep putting myself through this every week because it is sucking every bit of my self-esteem away. I know that the modern independent woman should never be so wrapped up in a number on a scale, but knowing and feeling are two different things.

I'm so tired of spinning in circles and going nowhere. I have avoided (mostly) talking about this here, so this might come as a little bit of a surprise to my readers, but for the past few months I have been struggling with issues of depression and low self-image about practically everything outside of my job and my marriage. So the last thing I need is another glaring reminder (at least to me) of how worthless I am. Lately it doesn't take much to send me spiraling down into the 'woe is me' cesspool, so this weekly reminder of failure is not helpful.

I'm not looking for pity. I'm certainly not looking for ways to accept my fat and flabby body and embrace my unhealthy weight. I am not looking for platitudes of 'oh it will get better', because in my more rational moments I do realize that eventually it has to get better, some day, some year, some millenium. I'm just venting because I am tired of feeling this way and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to fix this. I don't know how to make myself not care so much about what the scale says. I don't know how to go in every week and get on that scale and not come home and cry. I don't know how to look at myself in the mirror without feeling disgust. I don't know how to make myself feel better about myself again.