Day 116

Better, but still in more of a maintenance mode than a losing mode...

So even after an Easter weekend at my in-laws', I managed to stay at about the same weight for the week. (The scale was hovering between 330 and 331, so I like to round down in this case :) I did really well on the Easter candy (the ABUNDANCE of Easter candy!) that was around all weekend (and still around at our house now). But with birthday parties on both Saturday and Sunday, it was hard to stay away from the pans of ziti and the cake. I did okay on the cake, eating just a small piece each day. (Except when we got home Sunday night - the kids said they wanted some of the left over cake, but then didn't really eat it - I started eating it because it was sitting there, and my husband - bless his heart! - asked me if I REALLY wanted to eat it, and he was right, I wasn't being mindful, I was just eating without thinking.)

The walking, well, that's another story. A couple of days I didn't even hit 2000, and the highest I got was just close to 5000. Not good. Lots and lots of driving though - DC to NJ, NJ to Long Island, back to NJ (sitting in traffic for hours!), then back to DC. Still, no excuse. And now it's 90 degrees outside! Not exactly prime walking weather. But I think I've decided to do a 5K walk in early June, the Komen Race for the Cure here in D.C., with a friend of mine from work who is similarly trying to lose some weight. It'll give us both something to work towards. And, I've found myself thinking about (not acting yet, mind you!) trying to get up in the mornings to walk on the treadmill. The kids haven't been sleeping well, so I've been up at least twice a night, and so it's hard as it is to drag myself out of bed at 7 each morning, so to get up 45 min earlier will be a struggle, but I think I need to try. Perhaps if I do it a few times then it's not such the big insurmountable concept that seems impossible.

Someone made the comment that my way of looking at food has changed forever, and I think that's true (well, forever seems like a long time, but still...) There is definitely a pre-Jennifer-Can-Do-It mindset and a post. Even when I've slipped like this weekend, I am able to get back on track more easily, and get back to a salad or sandwich for lunch, a good breakfast, healthy snacks, etc. (I have discovered, interestingly, that the sugars are not my downfall at this point, in fact, I don't like how I feel when I eat sugar now. It's the carbs and the CHEESE that are my real weakness, and I don't feel the physical effects as much as with sugar.)

Plus I'm wearing clothes that I haven't worn in years, and they're fitting decently on top of that! I have started a pile of things that are way too large - I don't think I can get rid of them quite yet, but at least get them out of my closet. So that is a motivation - I like fitting into size 24 pants again, and thinking I could actually go back to Talbots soon and buy clothes again, which I haven't done in about five or more years. It's just easy to get overwhelmed with everything - life, work, kids, house (why is it no matter how many things I put back in their place in the house, things just keep multiplying and moving around??) - so I need to keep telling myself "one step at a time, one morsel of food at a time"...