Over the last seven months I have done fairly well in my quest to lose weight. About a week ago, I even hit the 25-pound weight loss mark.
Yee-haw. Whoopie. My joy has been extremely short-lived, because I have since gained back 3-4 pounds.
Despite my very best efforts to avoid the seduction of dieting (restricting my diet in a short-term manner that I would be unlikely to comfortably maintain in the "real world") and instead work on developing long-term healthier lifestyle choices- I have been unsuccessful thus far in developing habits that are able to stand the test of outside factors.
What I mean by this is, I have learned over the last 7 months that whenever I am operating in my normal, day to day "bubble", i.e.- experiencing normal stress levels at home and work, planning/eating my meals in advance at home, keeping track of how many glasses of water I drink each day, not going out to eat at celebratory parties/dinners with friends and family- I am okay. But the minute I venture outside of that bubble into a more unpredictable and uncontrollable enviroment, in this case- high work stress, time-consuming business deals, eating out with friends, sleeping less, business trips with unlimited delicious food- suddenly, I am thrown off. I get so caught up in what I'm doing that without meaning to, I quickly and conveniently disregard all my new "habits" and revert back to the old ones.
I know this is the absolute worst thing I should do, but I need to get it off my chest so I can move on- I feel pathetic whenever this happens. I am so dismayed that I'm 31 years old with everything a girl could ask for, but can't for the f*&#ing life of me pull away from food. I can summarize my dilemna to this one simple point- I do splendidly well avoiding food, but when faced with it, I crumble.
I make NO excuses for my behavior over the past few weeks. Even as it all unfolded, I was cognizant that for the first time in 7 months, my diet and exercise committment had been dropped from the #1 focus in my life, to #3 or #4. In this case, because I've been stressed, instead of using my downtime at home to relax and refocus (I have learned it is critical to be this way when confronting a serious behavioral addiction), I was instead stressed, tired, and irritable. This set the stage for me to feel "too tired" to give my diet and exercise the priority it deserved and needed. Bottom line- I allowed myself to eat more and exercise less. And for me, this translated into a highly depressing 3-4 pound weight gain.
I am consistently faced with the fact that the simple act of identifying my psychological, chemical (cravings) and environmental triggers are simply half the battle. The other more grueling half is actually conquering them.
If I've learned one thing over the past 7 months, it's to not get frustrated or depressed over a couple of bad days. I refuse to give up and go back to where I was 7 months ago. I have learned to love myself and my life far too much to throw it all away over some f*&^#ing Trader Joe's cinnamon twists or whole wheat pretzels. I refuse to be held hostage by the fear that I'll gain the weight back and hate myself again. As soon as I log off, I'm gonna pick out an exercise DVD and feel the burn. I'm coming back.
7 comments:
I have been reading your blog after finding it as a result of looking at Steve's website. I have enoyed reading your blogs and think you are an amazing person. Both you and Steve made very interesting comments about the weight battle today. Steve's is the most on target comment he has made EVER! Winning the battle is a matter of choices we make every day and that never will be easy. I think you are doing a wonderful job and I know you will continue to hit your goals and be able to maintain your fitness level, because when it is all said and done the real deal is living a healthy life and right now even though you may have your missteps you are leading a very healthy life. By the way, your blogs make me laugh my a$$ off sometimes thank you so much for sharing such a big part of yourself!
You'll notice I deleted the first comment...this was not because someone was mean to me (to date, I've only had 2 mean people). It's because it was an ad that featured a somewhat pornographic picture.
Even though this girl happenned to be very hot and probably makes more in a day from her porn site than I make in a week, I'm not jealous (a lie). I just think it's kinda pathetic to do that to nice people's blogs (I'm kind of nice).
Keep on keepin' on! You will have set backs but it's important that you didn't let it get too out of hand.
I have dieted all my life and had to suffer the heinous "gain back". I was unsuccessful at it because I chose not to weigh myself. I told myself that I had not gained that much (even thou my pants were screaming at the seams). In my mind if I didn't look at the scale to see the actual #, I had not really gained the weight back. Totally devestating.
You are doing the right thing by keeping track regularly. You'll do it. I know you can!
I feel you!!! I start back with my quest at WW on Wednesday. I really changed my lifestyle (for awhile) took off almost 30 lbs.....half of what I need to take off....then let lifes everyday issues/stresses get the better of me. Long story short, gained back all the weight +5 lbs. Thanks for sharing!! Here I go again....
I can so relate to this post. Losing weight is so like trying to build a sand castle with a sieve. 3 years ago I went to the obesity clinic at scripps. At each visit, the number one thing that concerned my doctor was exercise, how long and how often. In fact, he never mentioned my actual weight or what I was eating. He told me exercise was the key to keeping off weight.
Atmikha
I'm where you're at. It is way too easy to "just forget it all" and fall back into the old stupid habits that bring you down. I feel so proud of myself wen i'm doing well (I'm doing the 10,000 step program) but then I beat myself up for not getting enough steps in and then whining that I'm too tired. It's a rough spot but only I can take care of it. Sigh
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