Walking on the wild side

So today I woke up feeling so much better than last night.  Last night was hard, I had a world of emotional baggage that came out and that I still have to deal with.  It made me retreat into myself, but it was a sort of a final moment after a week of being off plan and eating terribly! This weeks topic was again emotional eating and of course I did a lot of that.  Today I am back on plan, tracking, and got in my workout.  I think that this is what I have to remember that I need to do no matter how far I go.  Getting back on plan and getting back to what I know is best for me is the most important thing.  That's one thing I can see throughout this blog and my journey, that I am not likely to walk away from this.  That I keep coming back to it no matter how far I go from it, and that the great thing is that the plan is always there, waiting to help me track and get back on track.  So for today, its all about finding the positive in negative, being the best me that it is in me to be, and just trying for what I know I need:)  I feel empowered, I'm a beast, I'm taking name and conquering stuff, lol.

Will Winter one-derlands never cease?

I thought I was done with this blog but the universe keeps brining me back to it. I've been thinking about it and then it just keeps coming up in conversations, or my cousin entwined it or it just pops into my head, so I figured why not just give in. 

So September of 2013 was the beginning of ups and downs. I lost the weight I gained over the summer (so hurray) but plateauing and going up and down is becoming the name of the game. Still positive feelings are there. Buried deep down. Struggling to get out. Choking for air, but there nonetheless.  I think. I'm happy to say that I've reached Onederland and I've been here for well over a month and even when I go up my body brings me back down and that makes me sooo happy.  However I'm not as excited as I thought I would be. I think it's because I'm becoming inconsistent and I know who is to blame. Because, let's face it, it's always easier to blame someone else, so my blame heads to Mother Nature!! This winter has been BRUTAL!! What the hell!! Snow, -0 degree weather, and dark days followed by grey afternoons and even darker nights have lead me on a merry chase when it comes to getting on track and continuing to lose.  I can't get it together, I'm tired, my feelings are low and plummeting ever more and I'm questioning EVERYTHING! Seasonal depression is real and it's kicking my butt. 

That makes it hard to stay on plan. I want things that are warm and heavy. I don't want cold salads or an abundance of vegetables. I want carbs and meat. Nothing else will do, or at least that's what my stomach says. So I'm at meeting, down 3.8 from two weeks ago and really wanting to get back in the swing of things. Now if only the weather would cooperate. 

Where does the time go?

I know a lot of my time went into not following the plan.  Summer came and although I had all kinds of good intentions my good intentions went nowhere. I gained weight over the summer rather than losing it and I felt my weight loss was becoming a burden rather than a good thing.  But, all things change as they must and for the past three weeks I have been riding high.  I'm trying to come back into my positive attitude, I've been working out every morning and I have been tracking, tracking, tracking!! When you are on plan, tracking is the thing that you are constantly reminded of, because the truth is the more you track the more aware you are of what you eat and the less likely you are to over do it.  Tracking is really just a way to not only count your points but to journal your food and I sound like the commercial but it genuinely works.  So, my plans for now...keep tracking, keep positive and be creative:) I know I can do it, I've done it before.

I'm a weekday warrior!

During the week I am on plan and on the go.  When I'm on plan and motivated, I feel like nothing can keep me down.  Wake up early to workout? No problem.  Track all your food? In the bag.  Make good choices? So easy its laughable.  But then the weekend comes and with it Armageddon   Let me tell you that having to go through the end of the world when it comes to my healthy habits, every weekend, is exhausting.  I have no set routine.  I might be doing this or doing that and so I seem to lose all will power and ability to make good choices.  I suddenly resent the strictures that during the week, I embrace.  I make food plans and then break them with no issues.  Case in point.  This past Saturday I went to a birthday party for a 6 year old.  In the morning I had a sensible breakfast.  I went over to my friend's house and we did half of our scheduled workout, not ideal but still good.  I had a sensible well balanced lunch, two hard boiled, toast, apple, orange and banana.  Tracked it all and all was right in my world...Then I find myself in front of a table of appetizers, two fried pastelitos (beef patties), kipes (which are also fried), then the most incredible thing: I'm sitting next to a bag of candy.  I reach in a take one, it was Willy Wonka taffy.  Then I reach in and take another.  The whole time I'm talking, laughing and generally enjoying myself and in the back of my mind ignoring that little voice that is telling me to stop eating the candy.  I then of course get into a battle with myself, where I tell myself to stop being so damn controlling because it's only one day, while simultaneously telling myself I really should stop eating the candy.  I'm my own bickering married couple, all while smiling and joking at the people around me.  The thing is, I really had no business eating that candy.  I didn't particularly want it.  It wasn't necessarily something I craved. And currently as I type this during my break period, in between classes, in the desk behind me there are two snickers bars that have been there for over a week.  I think about them often, really want to eat them, but then consider that I could get a whole meal for the points "cost" of those bars and tell myself its not worth it.  And I don't eat them.  Simple as that. So what is it about the weekends, the lack of routine, and social settings that makes staying on plan so damn hard?

I fight the battle and win the day Monday through Friday (afternoon), and then, I crash like, Custard losing the battle on week end days.  Do you know that's the worst part.  It will take me one week of being good to loose 1 lb and one day of being bad to gain 1 and 1/2 back (sigh).  But, the fight must go on....

There's a Rumbly in my Tumbly!

"Hum dum de dum, hum dum de dum
I'm so rumbly in my tumblyTime to munch an early luncheonHum dum de dum, dum
Read more: WINNIE THE POOH - RUMBLY IN MY TUMBLY LYRICS 

Oh Pooh Bear, you're so right on the money! Breakfast this morning was delicious, scrambled egg whites, 2oz of turkey breast deli slices, and a slice of Swiss cheese on a sandwich thin bun, 6 points of wonderful and filling.  However, I find myself here at work, falling asleep after a strange night of tossing and turning and I am having one realization after another.

First, being tired makes me hungry.  I found myself eating an apple right before my first class started almost as if the food would give me a pick me up and I suppose it did, because I got through class ok and my students were none the wiser about how I felt.  Once the class was over though, the yawning commenced and I felt like I was hungry again.  I thought to myself maybe I should get some coffee to pick me up, so I went downstairs to the teacher's cafeteria.  While there I purchased a cup of coffee, which I then put half and half and too much sugar into (not good), then I purchased 2 small bananas and a  fruit salad made up mostly from melon, pineapple and grapes.  I came upstairs and ate all of it.  I sat back and then had revelation number 2.  I was happy, really deeply felt satisfaction kind of happy, like I had accomplished something that was long on my list and now could stand back and admire my work and myself...I'm full and although I'm still a bit tired my mood seems on the up because I feel that my stomach is full to bursting.  Talk about an early luncheon.  It is not so much everything I ate in a short time, breakfast, apple, then full on fruit extravaganza with coffee (I know its a strange and disparate kind of combo).  It is a different aspect of my emotional eating, which I have discussed before here. If I calculate, I had breakfast at 6 am and I ate all of this at 9:30 am.  That's a three hour difference between breakfast and fruit-a-palooza, and so there is no reason to think that I would not be hungry, especially since lunch is not until 12:16 pm.  However, what struck me was was the joy, the elation I felt at being full that made me aware of just how food affects me.  I know I enjoy a good meal but fruit and a coffee do not a "meal" make.  It is not the food that makes me happy, it is the feeling of fullness, the joy of being stuffed, that is the problem.  I must find other ways of making myself feel good.  I just don't know what that will be.  I kinda wish I was home so that I could immediately work this off with an exercise routine.  (Now where did that thought come from?)

Oh well, I am not home, I am here, and there is nothing for me to do but get on with my day...I'll have to ponder the meaning of this a little later I suppose.  I think I'll take a walk around the floor before my next class starts.

This one is for me.

This journey has been so ongoing and I think that I have lost sight of the long haul of it.  I was so used to a seemingly endless drop, that I think my mind began to think it would be seamless, but no longer.   I'm back on track and again losing but I think that I have learned a valuable lesson from these weeks of not having a success of which to speak of.  There is no going back...

I will never be able to eat as I did, to not workout as I did, to be who I was.  That is hard to accept sometimes, because in the end and in many real ways, I am still me.  It is still me in my head and even though she has changed a bit physically, it is still me when I look in the mirror.  However, it is not me at my core.  It is not me fundamentally and it will never be the "old" me again, not if I want to be successful.  

This week I found myself deciding not to go anywhere and to stay home.  Weekends have been turning into an ordeal because I find it so much harder to stay on plan when I am not the one preparing meals.  So I had a choice to make.  It does not mean that I will never go out again, but I need to choose my battles wisely.  If I went out last week I do not need to do so this week.  It's ok to miss out on a few things.  I will survive, and I did survive and I saw a weight loss on the scale because of it.  So this one is for getting back on track, back in the race, and just plain back to the me who felt that I could do this.  The new me, the me I want to be.

Progress, no matter how small

So yesterday I tracked my food.  I didn't stay within my points.  My friend came over the day before yesterday and she had purchased a pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream.  I thought she had finished it so when I looked in the freezer yesterday imagine my surprise to see that it was still there.  Not all of it.  She had eaten about a third, but if you have ever read a Haagen Dazs label you'll know that two thirds is a whole lot of everything.  I fought myself, walked away, drank water, ate lunch, but to no avail.  I eventually ate it, but I also made sure that I tracked it.  And so I went through my day.  Actually ended up tracking today what I had last night, but I tracked it.  That's what matters.  Today we will see were the day takes me.  I have plans for working out but also for staying active by doing laundry and my hair, but again, we'll have to see where the day takes me, because I have a book that I'm reading and when it comes to reading I will totally put everything off just so I can read one more page.  Anyhow, I feel that this battle is about to get really uphill for me, but what matters is that I fight it, right? And, it's the sum of the battles won that ultimately wins the war. So I've got my armor on, and I'm off to the field. Pray for me.