Twenty-eight years. That's how long I've been battling body image, weight, health, strength, eating habits, numbers on the scale, jeans size, and waistline measurements. I've analyzed their tactics, their manuevers, their statistics trying to find the strategy that will breach their defenses with minimal collateral damage.

I've fallen back to a safe, neutral zone. Retreated, as it were. I am tired of fighting. I told myself that two years ago and I decided I didn't want to fight with myself anymore. Yet I persist. Or maybe insist.

But instead of an all out battle, it's now guerrilla warfare. Waiting until I'm confident, certain of myself, or just not paying attention...then.....they confront me with temptations, rationalizations, frustrations, and depression.

And sometimes, there's a black ops team that sneaks in, blows up something and leaves me to pick up the debris. They have broken toes, twisted knees, messed up my thyroid to the point it had to be put out of its misery, and short circuited my brain.

I have patched, stitched, medicated, adjusted, cried, raged, adjusted again, fought, and most of all, persisted.

As with any war, if it lasts long enough people forget how it started, when it started, or why the war continues. What was the goal again? Fitting into a size 10? Having a 29" waistline? Being the one who does everything best? Capturing admiring glances? Was that before or after having children? Before or after the thyroid crash? Before or after the oral contraceptives and the anti-seizure medication that drained my energy and left me feeling useless and depressed? Did the battle start when my mother took me to a Weight Watchers-type group when I was 14 because she thought I was overweight, when I had never given two thoughts as to the size of anyone's clothes? Did it start during my second year of college when my boyfriend of three years dumped me and I tried to fill the void with food because I couldn't buy alcohol and M&Ms were cheaper than marijuana? Did I start to lose ground when my father died and I couldn't cope with the grieving process, and I sought solace in home cooking?

I retook the hill that was my health in my early thirties and lost 50 pounds but the casualty was my family because I was living to work out instead of working out to have a good, long life.

So I'm sitting in a foxhole, ten years later, looking at the weapons I have available. It's painfully quiet and I'm waiting for the next round of artillery. I'm losing ground again. I've regained 20 pounds over the last four years. The troops are getting tired and need to be rotated out. But is spite of losing ground, I'm managing to hold the territory...all tests and blood work and other intel have come back favorable to excellent.  So is the rest just propaganda?

I have three advisors. Two have said being perimenopausal and on meds that can cause weight gain are going to make losing weight difficult. An uphill battle that requires not only healthy eating (which, by and large, I do) but nearly an hour of cardio 7 days a week...not to mention strength training. But I have a finite amount of time each day, and minimal financial resources. And I won't sell out my family to gain two inches of ground.

What if the war isn't winable? What if it's just obsession? What if legendary warrior Geneen Roth is right - obsession just distracts from truth? Maybe there's a bigger battle to be won, and the last 28 years have been skirmishes.

Once more....into the breach. Lock and load.