Cara's Weightloss Journal

Okay, so maybe this “break” think wasn’t such a good idea.

I think I might have fallen back into my old eating habits.

The other day, I snuck a piece of cake. No one knew I bought it or ate it. I disposed of all evidence… including the receipt. I even buried the container it came in at the bottom of the trash bag. This is something I used to do very frequently “when I was fat”.

I’ve also been having monster size cravings. I know that was one of the hardest things for me when I first started losing weight. I would sit there all day long and dream of all the food I couldn’t eat. The problem is, I’ve been eating that food lately, though in moderation, but I’m thinking now I should be. It seems that if I eat whatever I want to, even in moderation, it’s only going to lead to wanting to eat more.

Whenever there’s a lull in my day, instead of daydreaming about things I want to do or places I want to go or accomplishments I want to happen, I start really visualizing all the cakes and pies and cookies and pastries and donuts and candies. With vivid detail. Enough so that I can even smell them.

So I’m thinking that this is going to take me a bit longer to come back to my proper eating habits. It’s also made me think… I always thought that one day, after I’d reached goal and had my weight under control, I’d be able to return to the foods I used to eat, but just eat them in smaller quantities, reasonable quantities. Now, I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I don’t want to have to fight these urges for the rest of my life.

I think I’m going to have to stick to indulging “on occasion” and definitely not with any regularity. Ever!

But you know what, I think I’m okay with that. Sure, I’m sure I’ll still think about and dream about all the yummies that I can’t have, but I think it’s a fair trade. I mean, what’s the alternative?

Eat what I want, whether it’s large or small portions, and continue to gain all my weight back?

Or eat what I want on occasion and keep the weight off.

I think I’d much rather choose the latter. I don’t ever want to be fat again!!! Never!!!

So now I just need to change my mindset back to focusing in on eating healthy and staying thin (or rather, getting down to thin, I’m still in the “overweight” category right now).

Get focused back on my overall goals and be happy with the process along the way.

Man, this is so hard.

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So yesterday was weigh in, but I didn’t… weigh in, that is. I took a “no weigh in pass”. Which basically means, I gained but I’m trying to fool myself into thinking that I didn’t so I can make it through another week. Hehe.

Realistically (according to my home scales), I’m about 7 pounds over my 100 pound loss. So “technically”, I haven’t lost the 100 pounds, but I’m still wearing the trophy and I’ll still tell anyone who asks that I’ve lost 100 pounds. I don’t see these 7 pounds a permanent and they’re not intimidating me WHAT SO EVER!

Here’s what has happened over the past month… I’ve stayed on plan (still counting everything I eat), I haven’t exercised, and I’ve indulged whenever I wanted to but not to excess. Well, okay, to excess once.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the past month… I really needed this past month to take a deep breath and get some perspective.

I was so ecstatic that I finally hit my 100 pound goal that I wanted to relish in it for a while. Nothing wrong with that at all, right? Right! I didn’t go on an eating binge. I didn’t change my thoughts towards food or weight loss. I didn’t give in and go back to the way I was before.

This was a great learning experience for me. I learned that I will be able to keep this weigh off for life. I was so petrified of that before but it no longer intimidates me. I may gain a pound or two (or even 10), but I will never go back to being 130 pounds over weight. Ever!

This past month has been thoroughly enjoyable.

I ran another 5K on the 4th of July. Yay!!

Didn’t do so great so far as time, but that was because it’s been maybe 2 months since I’ve done any serious exercise or running. But it was still fun. I only ran about a mile and a half then walked the rest of the way.

But then last Sunday, I started back on plan—the serious way. I’m back to 21 points a day (rather than just tracking whatever I put in my mouth and not setting a limit on how many points I eat a day). And I’m back go exercising on a regular basis.

I started something really fun. Some of you may know that my daughter moved out this past Spring. She’s 20 and in college but had been at home with us until this past May. When she moved out it was devastating for me. But I made it. Still working through some things, but for the most part, it’s going great. Anyway, last week, for my morning cardio, I would ride my bike to her house which is 15 minutes on a bike (5 minutes in a car, sweet!). And then after I get there, we go run/walking for 20-30 minutes and then I hope back on my bike and head back home for another 15 minutes on the bike. I usually end up burning about 1,000 calories doing that. Great interval!! And so refreshing to get back on my bike after running and walking in the sweltering heat.

So anyways, things are getting back to the way they should be and I’m having a blast at it.

How have you guys been doing over the past month? Did you hit any goals? Get remotivated to do something? Lose? Gain?

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Okay, so I fell off the wagon last night and this morning. Which got me to thinking…

You know how when you fall off the wagon, eat something REALLY horrible which you KNOW is just going to add at least a pound to the scale? Well, after that, we have two choices:

• #1. Get back on the wagon. Like my WW leader always says, quoting the Duchess of York, “You’re only one meal away from being back on plan.” (Great philosophy.)
• #2. Keep on back sliding. Because after all, this totally wrecked any plans you had of losing weight this week, right? So why not just keep enjoying the splurges until after weigh in. If you’re gonna gain, you might as well have fun doing it, right?

Okay, so #2 is the most helpful advice, I know. But these are the thoughts running through my head this morning when I didn’t have a thing to eat in the house for breakfast. I had meant to go to the store last night but got waylaid by that enormous indulgence (steak restaurant—need I say more?). I was in too much pain (from completely overeating) to go to the store and get stuff for breakfast.

So there I stood, in the grocery store, 15 minutes before I needed to be at work, staring at the pastry counter. Sure, what I should have done is gone to the cereal isle and picked up a box of instant oatmeal to heat up once I get to work. But did I do that? Nooooo.

I added 3 donuts to my atrocities of last night.

I just couldn’t get option #1 to kick in. For the life of me, I couldn’t!

Now here I sit, eating my lunch as I’m typing and what am I eating? Hot dog, coleslaw and a bag of lays chips. Nothing healthy about this meal at all. Unless you could consider the coleslaw as a vegetable. Aw, come on, you won’t give me that one???

Okay, so what I need to do now is write down option #1 and keep repeating it to myself for the rest of the afternoon. Then eat something healthy and sensible for dinner.

So that’s what I’ll do.

“I’m only one meal away from being back on plan!”

There, that was a good start, right?

But seriously, wouldn’t we all be much better off if we could just keep option #1 in the forefront of our brains? How many times have we said “I’m starting my diet tomorrow” or “I’ll start back on my exercise regiment tomorrow morning”? We would all be so much better off—even our nation as a whole—if we’d just start that diet or that exercise plan or adopt that better spending plan, or whatever, now.

Make the option of that next meal or next run or next whatever become a present action rather than a future action. After all, who knows what’s going to happen in the future, right? But right now… right now we know what’s happening. And we can make a difference right now.

Start right now. Not tomorrow morning and not at the next meal, but now.

I am.

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I’m sitting here with my fingers on the keyboard wondering how to start this post…

I’m not sure what to say first except to say that I’m back. But not in the grand sense of the word. I mean, where have I been to come back? Did I go away? Did I do something to pull myself away from this blog? No, not really. It was kind of like I’ve been in limbo for the past month. Blog-wise.

Weightloss-wise, I haven’t stopped or gone anywhere. I’ve been steady at it every day. Every hour.

So where am I now? Well, to start with, I’m here. Fingers on keys. Words floating around in my head. Things on my mind ready to be passed through my fingers onto the keyboard and into this blog.

So, since I’ve been away from blogging, I’ve gained a few pounds. Whoa, surprise, huh? Not many, though. A little over 5. I gained a few lost a few gained a few, etc. Same old same old.

I think when I reached the 100 pound mark, I just needed a break from… From what I’m not sure. But I guess I decided to take a break from blogging. Funny, though, because its the blogging that’s the best part of my weight loss journey. Who knows why I chose to give that up.

I don’t want to make this a long post, but I wanted to just get something down on paper… er… uh… on computer (huh?).

Anyways, I’m going to be blogging again. I’ve got alot to share about what I’ve been up to over the last month or so and I’ve got alot that I need to get down on paper about what lies ahead.

So, thank you loyal journal and thank you loyal readers for being there and being patient while I got my head straight.

How have you all been? I’ll be visiting your blogs soon and getting caught up on everyone.

Talk to you soon.

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