Monday, February 22, 2010

It's Been A Long Time

Well I am back and I promise it's to stay, if you will have me. And I promise I will be back on here regularly, if only to keep myself motivated. And motivation is something I just for some reason can't seem to wrap my hands around and hold onto for very long lately. Or maybe ever.

I have been doing a lot of soul-searching and fumbling around lately. This isn't much of a weight loss blog if I'm not going to A- lose weight and B- blog! I considered canning the whole project. But lately it seems like I've done nothing but make all the wrong moves and I didn't want to regret deleting this blog. So today I am finally going to set the wheels of my train wreck diet back on track. I know, and most of you who are reading this know, that losing weight is probably one of the hardest things we will ever do. At least those of us who have battled it most of our lives. And I have. But just because something is difficult, doesn't mean I can't keep plugging away at it, even if I have to "start over" a million times.

The last few months I have used every (lame) excuse I can think of to sabotage myself. I'm tired, I'm busy, my back hurts, we were out of town. And while in my mind that may get me a free pass from exercising (although it shouldn't), it has nothing to do with my diet. Being busy hasn't stopped me from zipping into McDonald's on the way to work. Being tired hasn't kept me from sneaking down to the cafeteria and getting a Coke and bag of chips from the vending machine. Being out of town has nothing to do with putting all that extra sugar and creamer in my giant-sized morning coffee. I have been living off junk food and sugar and carbs and caffeine for months now, and I am amazed at how the human body can continue to survive for so long without taking in any true nutrients whatsoever.

I have always been an all or nothing kind of person, and it has done nothing but set me up for failure time and time again. If I blow my diet at breakfast, I just throw away the rest of the day. If I have a horrible Monday, I just give up for the whole week. And if I don't have time to get on the treadmill for at least an hour, I don't even consider just maybe doing 20 minutes instead of nothing at all. If I caved in and had a cookie at my morning break, I just let go of the idea of eating an apple for my afternoon snack. It's like once I make a mistake, my mental state breaks down as well, and some little switch in my brain shuts off- the one that normally would tell me to go drink another glass of water! I don't know if anyone else goes through this or not. It's like one little screw up gives me wide open permission to just make more of them.

After spending the weekend looking at my options- stay heavy and unhealthy or bust my ass and take control of my life- I would love to simply take the easy way out and just say to heck with it all and be okay with it. But I am only 43, and I have SO many more years left and I just don't want to spend the rest of them struggling to get up off the couch, or getting winded while I walk around the plus-size section of Wal-Mart. I am back to the one program that has always worked for me, and that's Weight Watchers. Today I wrote down everything in my food journal, and stuck to it. And even though I've been down in my back lately, I made myself do1.5 miles on the treadmill. It's only "Day One" but I haven't had any Day Ones lately at all, so that was the first hurdle for me to get over. And I did. And tomorrow it will be another hurdle as well, and I know every day after that, it will always be a mountain to climb and I will always be tempted to just fall to the wayside.

Weight loss is not going to magically happen, and no one can do it for me BUT me. Support from family and friends is wonderful and makes a big difference, but they still can't burn the calories or drink the water for me. I've even fessed up and changed my weight on my tracker for all to see (I haven't been 200 for months now). I don't expect this to be easy, I know I will struggle, but I always know that with the struggling and the commitment to the struggle, eventually success will also come. I may be out on the rock ledge all by myself, but there is no one else out there who is going to do this for me!

Sandy


2 comments:

  1. Glad to see you back on the wagon, Sandy...and boy are your right - weight loss is such a mental thing. At least knowing that is half the battle, right? Good luck, and good on ya for getting in some treadmill time!

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  2. glad your back - tomorrow is a new day & a fresh start. you CAN do it

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