Week 57: I'm Struggling

I didn't report in on Monday after I weighed myself because I was discouraged. In spite of my best efforts, I gained 1.5 pounds this week.

I was discouraged by this because I was careful during the holiday weekend. I watched my portions, and I didn't eat any sort of dessert or sweets. Even with those good choices, I gained.

I was so discouraged by this small gain that I considered throwing in the towel on the entire project. Now that I've had a few days to think, I'm surprised that my reaction was so strong. I was really ready to give up because of the results, even though I knew my week was a total success based on my behavior. Wow. I've got some rethinking to do.

What's important is my behavior, my lifestyle change, and NOT the results. I do expect the results to follow my behavior, but in a more general way. I'm not changing my behavior to get results--I'm changing my behavior because I want a better life.

The truth is that I'm still not completely on my new program. I'm half way there, but I'm still not sure what I can eat, how much I can eat, and other things. At meal times, I'm floundering a bit. I know this will get better and I just have to be patient with myself. I also have to give myself a bit more time at meal times to figure things out. Too often, I'm waiting too long to eat, then I'm starving, and the frustration of figuring out what I should eat gets added to the top of that stack. That's the behavior I need to adjust.

I also need to have different groceries available. I want to start my days with a piece of fruit and yogurt like I used to have. I need to make sure I have these things available.

So there is a bit of re-engineering of my lifestyle that needs my attention, things that support my eating need more time to settle into the new habits.

So in spite of my frustration and out-of-bounds reaction to this week's gain, I'm still in the game. I'm still committed to my lifestyle change. My head is back to solving puzzles instead of complaining and looking for a way out.

It's the small decisions, day in and day out, each meal of my life, where I choose to win. And I'm still choosing to win.

Week 56: The Honeymoon is Over (Already)

I had hoped the honeymoon would last a little longer.

The last few days, I'm cranky. I'm tired of being hungry.

I'm hungry because I'm still working out the details of what I can eat, how much I should eat, and how to feed myself.

And I'm fighting off the flu.

I even weighed myself mid-week as a sort of bribe. I thought that if I had actually lost a couple pounds, that fact might motivate me to tolerate my perpetual hungriness. Except it backfired because I had gained a pound. Serves me right for trying to cut corners and wanting the ends to justify the journey.

This low-level misery is my own fault. And I'm going to let it motivate me to dig in faster and harder into the program so I'm set up, educated, and starting to build routines.

I really do want to do this. Now, I just need to make it happen.

Week 56: Catching Up

I'm so glad that I'm back here.

I love the new layout of the blog, and I've spent some pre-sleep time re-reading my blog.  Wow. I'm surprised by how much I'm the same and how much I've changed.

So many of the things I set out to learn at the start of this journey, I've accomplished. I have come a long way toward creating my healthy lifestyle. I'm feeling very grateful for the road I've traveled.

I was quite scared at the start, and I'm so glad I expressed that here.

Today, my goal is to be equally honest and open about what challenges me today. I'm sure that the journey will be quite interesting in new ways.

I am eager to watch the days and weeks unfold before me.

Week 56: Off And Running

My first few days have been really great. I've been busy and I've gotten a lot done.

• I'm back on Weight Watchers online.
• I've spruced up my blog.
• I've inventoried the food in the house (and said goodbye to a few items).
• I took my before photos.
• I've weighed in twice!
• I've lost weight!

The best part is that I feel like I'm back to something I really enjoy. I realize now that I truly had created a lifestyle that I loved. My problem was that I stopped paying attention, and over time, slivers of it started slipping away.

The next time I feel like I've reached a sort of graduation point, I need to create a simple structure for checking in. I'm not sure right now what that will look like, but I'm confident I will figure it out.

Oh, and last week, I made a big pot of my sloppy joe recipe. It's really, really good if you are looking for something delicious, home cooked, and health friendly.

Very soon, I'll be posting my updated weight chart with my first week's loss.

And I'll be posting by before picture taken last week.

Week 55: The Whole Truth

Hello.

I'm surprised that I'm back here.

I never really thought about my relationship with the blog or the future of my healthy lifestyle improvement. I rather thought I would just drift into healthy habits and it would take on a life of its own. Maybe I was dreaming. Or maybe I just wasn't being realistic.

Finding My Way Back

So here's the story about why I'm back.

Last week, I decided to stop by Blogger and visit this blog. It's marked anonymous and isn't part of my basic online presence. I've done that deliberately so I have a private place online. That way, I feel I can talk freely about what's on my mind. And I thought it was time to stop by.

I knew that Blogger had been through several upgrades, and I knew my blog template was broken. So while I was glancing around, I got the smart idea that I could spend 15 minutes and add an updated template to the existing content. So I did that and walked through all of the pages to see how the new template had worked out.

That's when I landed on my weight chart page.

In a quick glance, I thought there must be some mistake. Certainly those were not the real numbers! Certainly there was some mistake. That's when reality hit be right between the eyes.

In the nearly 7 years that I've been gone, I've developed a personal myth about this effort. Reality had gotten fuzzy and I was telling myself a story. And my story didn't match up with the facts.

Either that, or someone broke into my blog and changed my weight chart!

Facing My Truth

I was shocked to realize that I had rewritten history so that I had regained much less of the weight loss this blog reports. The truth is, I've regained about half of the weight! I had no idea that was the truth. And that truth stunned me.

Over the last two month, I realized I had dropped nearly 15 pounds. Then, I watched myself yo-yo with the last 4 pounds. They came off. They went back on. They came off again... I realized that my dreamy idea that maybe the rest of my weight will drop off on its own went up in smoke.

Then, to realize I had actually regained so much of the original loss... Well, I was stunned.

So in a moment, I made some new choices.

I realized that I can't wish the weight off. It takes a little more focus and concentration. So I decided to rejoin Weight Watchers online and start putting a little more attention on this area of my life. Especially since I regret gaining so much of the original loss.

So here I am. I'm back on WW online. I've weighed myself for the start (new weight chart coming soon!). I'm giving myself a week to sort through the food already in the house. (It's mostly good!) And I'm going to spiff up this blog and return with all of the passion I have for improving the overall quality of life I want for myself.

So here we go!

Welcome. You have a ring side seat for chapter 2 of my online journey.

Being Real

As I look back over the last week (and last month), I feel the need to sit myself down and have a heart-to-heart. What exactly is going one with this maybe-I'm-back and maybe-I'm-not action going on here?

My brain would tell you a lot of stories and a lot of reasons for my half-hearted attempts. But that sentence contains the whole truth. It's not inside the stories, its the fact that I'm only half-heartedly into this.

So what's up with that?

I realized a few months back that I was actually scared to start back to my exercise regimine, which is JUST WALKING, because the last time I resumed walking, I developed serious complications from my previous surgery. Even though I know that won't happen again, I realized that I had this fear lurking back there.

OK, it's been revealed for being irrational, and now it's not lurking. I choose to walk into that fear. What else?

There is a part of me that wants to avoid being completely responsible for myself. I want to be, oh, 90% responsible, but I think I'm really waiting for someone to come along and fix me and my life. Let someone else do the hard work in these areas where I'm slipping. I'm doing the hard work in most areas anyway. Isn't that enough?

Sure, if I want to only reach 90% of my goals, and only be 90% happy at max. I can never reach MY goals through someone else's effort, and I can never be happy based on someone else's effort.

I've got a little bit of resistance going on. But it's not just in this area. I do the same thing with my laundry, my closets, and my housecleaning. I try to cut corners. I'm not willing to empty out the file drawers, sort through the files, and return only what I need in good order. Instead, I open the drawer, pull out things that are obviously misfiled or outdated, and close the drawer. I don't want to look that closesly. It's too overwhelming.

I know that I can't accomplish a major clean sweep through all of my life in a short period of time, but the truth is, I want to be a person who does sweep clean.

The last two days, I've taken almost everything out of my office, moving it to the living room. I've sorted things, and taken most of it back in. But some is still sitting around in the living room, and some of it has found its way to the trash. Because of the amount of stuff I have in my house and heart and mind, I might not be able to clean sweep everything on this pass, but I can attach most of it, and leave the remaining bits for a later sort and toss session. I'm only putting back what I know is valuable and useful. I'm open to tossing the rest, trusting that I truly won't miss it, and I will gain extra physical space, mental space, and even emotional space, for my life.

The same with my healthy lifestyle. I don't have to start out walking 2+ miles each day. It's enough to start out walking a single mile, and adding to that as I build up and gain the desire for more. Some of these folders from my file drawers that are in the living room contain valuable things, I'm sure. But I can put them in a box of things to sort, and one day a week, I can attack that box. I can sweep clean.

I'm glad I've gotten to the heart of this.

I've Started, Sort Of

My life has been so crazy lately that I've not exactly followed through on my restart. I still haven't weighed in, but I've been eating right! I keep thinking I should just weigh in any day to have a starting number. The perfectionist in me (yes, she's still there) says to wait until next Monday. When I forget, it's the next Monday, and the next.

If I don't weigh in next Monday morning, I promise myself that I'll weigh in as soon as I realize that I forgot. It's a new habit to start. And you can keep me accountable.

I'm slowing updating the website. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the tabs across the top working yet. I've resigned up at Topica for a newsletter service. I expect the first issue will come out in March. I'm trying to get my Blogrolling setup, but I can't remember my login or password (even though I've got them set up on another blog!) So bear with me. I'm doing good just to have things running off of the next computer. The old computer is still sitting right next to it, two monitors side-by-side, while I find things on the old that belong on the new. Which happens a couple of times each day.

Otherwise, I'm doing really well with my lifestyle changes this week. After working too much last week, I'm really taking good care of myself this week. I'm going to be bed early so I can sleep long and still get up close to my normal time. I went to the grocery and stocked up on healthy foods, so I have lots of options when I do get hungry. I'm yawning now, so I'm about to head off the computer for the day. I'll spend the evening catching up on laundry, cleaning... you know the rest.

What A Week!

Did anyone else have the same week I had last week? Everything turned out A-ok in the end, but the journey was like a Fear Factor obstacle course. No bruises, no scrapes, nothing as serious as a broken bone, but BOY-o-BOY it was a tough time.

Every day had its surprises for me. They were mostly the routine type of things that can go wrong, the kind of things that might happen once every five years or longer, and yet they all managed to happen at approximately the same time. They showed up, one right after the other. At one point, I thought I should be taking notes because it was an incredible story, something that was such a comedy of errors that it would be hilarious in hindsight. But while I was living it, I was a struggle to let go of the irksome points and really focus on the positives. And there were positives. Throughout the week, people everywhere helped me out, whether they realized they were helping, or whether I asked for help (which I did frequently). People last week were fabulous in my life. Inanimate objects, on the other hand, were not so friendly.

But I made it through. I even managed to make a pot of my famous sloppy joe mix, which I've now been enjoying at least one meal a day for most of a week. I'm not sick of it yet, but I'm eyeing the last container in the fridge, thinking that one should go to the freezer. Perhaps I'll do that tonight before I hit the sack.

I did not managed to get weighed in last week, but am hoping to do that this week. Don't ask me what obstacle course ran past that goal, just laugh me with and know that it was a doosey.