“Listening to your body” is a phrase that’s wholly overused in the blog world for myriad reasons: not eating much, eating too much, not exercising enough, exercising too much.

I’m sure I’ve been guilty of it a few times myself, but I try not to use this phrase. Why? If I listened to my body, it would tell me to sit on the couch and order Chinese food and drink a glass (or three) of wine.

Four years ago, I decided to change my life for the healthier. That meant more exercise, and less takeout. That went well, and I lost 50 pounds.

Since reaching my goal weight three years ago, every single day is a fight to make the healthier choice. Most of the times I do, but not always. I really like wine, bagels and French fries and never want to cut any of those things out of my diet 100%.

There’s been a lot going on the past few months, and you could say I’ve been “listening to my body.” My body said “drink more wine, eat more crap, exercise less.” I listened to my body.

I went on two awesome trips in the past few months, and I brought back some more weight from both of them, and then there’s some of the life baggage that is currently taking up residence on my stomach and thighs.

I stepped on the scale on Monday morning, and it said a higher number than I’ve seen in a longer time: 148. That’s 9 pounds higher than what my original goal weight was, and about 13 pounds higher than my ultimate lowest weight. I generally don’t freak out about my weight much (oh hai gaining 50 pounds between 2001-2009), but seeing a 9-pound weight gain made me a bit nervous. Nervous that it would be a slow slide back to where I came from. That I would be one of those statistics of people who lost a lot of weight and gained it all back.

Let’s just say I’ve been very social lately, and that I love wine. Well, that loving wine has led to, quite honestly, a lot of poor food choices, on top of wine not being the healthiest choice in the world.

I know that alcohol (and certainly wine, with lots of sugar) can contribute to bloat, so I’ve been trying to eat as many whole foods and few processed foods this week and stay away from the wine.

This morning I got on the scale, and it read 143. HOLY BLOAT. I was holding on to at least 5 pounds of water weight from poor food choices. I’d still like to lose a few more pounds, because I also just feel mushy around the edges. I’m not going to do anything crazy, but just continue to be cognizant of making healthy decisions and taking care of myself

Moral of the story: weight maintenance ain’t always easy, wine bloats you like crazy, I cannot actually “listen to my body,” because my natural inclinations are not to be healthy, and it is a battle I fight every day. Some days I lose the battle, but I won’t lose the war.