Monday, November 22, 2010

Day 342

Took a walk today at lunch, thanks to my motivating co-workers (and co-walkers!) Boy, have I lost the progress I had made before. I was hot, sweaty, and out of breath after walking about a mile and a half. Drives home the need to keep doing it...!

I am lucky in that I am not going to a big Thanksgiving dinner this year, so I can avoid the caloric chaos that will be my husband's aunt's house! And, I am going to try try try to motivate to walk Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, since the husband is taking the kiddos to his family and I'm staying home. The other BIG goal for while they're gone in purging - especially the toys, but just trying to clean up and make sense of all the crap that has piled up. I think that those movements will add up to a good number of steps - I just hope I can motivate to do it (although I've now told so many people that's what I'm doing, I will be really embarrassed if I don't!)

I'm tired too..I feel like I had a lot more energy when I had gotten the sugar out of my system...

The next BIG hurdle will be the first week in December - we are taking the kiddos to Disney World! Lots of walking, yes, but LOTS of not-so-good food opportunities...

Friday, November 12, 2010

Day 332

When you don't post for an entire month, it makes adding up the days much easier...

As you probably have guessed, my silence has not meant good things. I've been muddling along, and not eating well at all. Yes, I've gained weight back - probably even about 20 pounds from my lowest weight. (Which, I need to try and remember, is still about 45 pounds less than where I was this time last year...) I have excuses out the wazoo - weekend getaway, Halloween, etc. - but none of those really carries weight (ha ha) when it's been essentially an eat-anything-and-everything mentality. It's almost like my brain was so tired of working at this, that not only did I just give up, but I started wanting to push more and more crap down my gullet just to make myself feel worse about it all. And I do feel crappy. At least my body is realizing that. After Halloween I really find myself not wanting chocolate. But I'm completely off from a planning standpoint - I had nothing in the house for breakfast this morning, so I ate cookies on my way into work.

Dr. Albers has sweetly continued to be super supportive and email me even when I ignore her for weeks (and she has an infant to deal with - I'd be saying "to heck with Jennifer!" if I was her :) Her suggestion is to not look at this as all or nothing, but go back to trying to do small steps - trying to hit a certain number of steps a day, eating a healthy breakfast, etc., but not saying I have to feel like I have to be completely on plan immediately. Sounds reasonable, and is worth a shot as I could see the possibility that as my body and head start making healthier choices, they might want to make more of them after a little while. I was going without my pedometer for many weeks, and I've started wearing it again. It's not hitting terribly high numbers, but I'm wearing it at least.

The holidays seem like this looming pit of despair in terms of food. I am thinking though that while it was hard last year to resist everything, in some ways it was easier to not try and balance and moderate, but more just say no to pretty much everything. It might be worth trying that again, and only make exceptions for a few specific times/items, like my birthday, husband's company holiday party, a really good Jersey cannoli.  And not to go crazy, but to just enjoy what I eat and stop when I'm full.

That is another goal I've been noodling on for a long time (and probably mentioned before): not eating everything on my plate. Why is this so hard? No matter how we were brought up (and I don't think I was told to eat everything on my plate because of starving kids somewhere in the world), at this point I should be able to internalize that it's not benefiting anyone, especially myself, to eat everything on the plate. And yes, I could bring things home as leftovers, which irks my husband (he grew up being told leftovers are "used food"), but somehow that option doesn't even solve the problem for me.

To end on an up note: no matter how much of the kids' Halloween candy I ate (and really, it was more from the bags we bought to give out rather than raiding their stash), I am proud that I have still not once taken candy from the candy dish of the secretary here at work, even though she got everyone's leftover Halloween candy and will be doling it out for months.