The ongoing struggle

I am trying…  I am honestly trying….   All of a sudden it got hard.

Last month i was awarded my 16 week pin, the pin that signifies that i have made it thru the crucial time and am more likely, statically, to make it all the way to my goal weight.   I was asked what i did to stick with it.  I told them it was not that hard, really…   that i had this health crisis and something in me changed.  (Well it did!)  But i think i jinxed myself.  Since January 12th I have lost a whopping 5 pounds.  (well, almost – I am 2/10ths of a pound from my next 5 pound star. – I suggested that we close the doors and let me strip to get rid of those 2/10ths, but the weigh’er-in’er did not think that was a good idea.)

I know some of the reasons it has gotten hard:

1) I feel so much better.

2) I relaxed my guard.

3) My fat cells are starving and crying out for food..  bad food…  I crave fat….    strongly.
4) I am not good at long-term…  I lose interest…  Get sidetracked.

But, even so, I do not understand why it is so hard.  I want this.  I really really want this.  I talk to myself…   remind myself of all the reasons.  I listen; I determine that i am back on the straight and narrow.   And then I just fail….   I don’t understand.

It is good that I have all of you pulling for me.  It is good that my doctors are both so proud of me that i feel sick at the thought of not having lost more when i go back for the next visit.  It is good that i have gotten rid of all my clothes that are too big.  I go in and try on the next size down from time to time and have moved them into my closet so i see them all the time.  I want to get into the next size down.  It felt so good to give away all my “fat clothes” that i want to do it again.

It is also good that i am beginning to feel fat again.  For a while i felt so much smaller…  It is still nice to sit in places that i could not easly sit before…    but i am increasingly aware of my belly again, which is a good thing.

Well, it has been a while since I have “reported in” because i did not have anything good to report…   consider this my update.

2 comments

  1. It’s good that you are keeping it up. I’m going to start working on dropping a few pounds myself; maybe I’ll follow your lead and post about it.

    I will say this: think about how much better it will feel when you get rid of even more weight.

  2. Nothing tastes as good as being slim feels.

    I remember patterning that over and over – wonderful introduction to cross stitching. 🙂

    Beth is going in for knee surgery next Monday. Think about how losing weight reduces the load on your joints. Think about knee surgery instead of plastic surgery.

    Keep posting. I really liked it when there were weekly updates, even when they were short. I want to be able to support you the right way, which is much easier when I know what you’re facing right then.

    Make those short term goals. Have you bought new smaller clothes? Walking shoes? How are your swimsuits fitting? What about the interesting museums in Houston, are you up to walking through them? How long can you stay there, comfortably walking and standing? Is there any upcoming exhibit you’d like to be able to go to? I don’t know … just some thoughts.

    Is Dad being more supportive now that he’s also trying to lose weight? Is that perhaps what has changed? Sometimes it is easy to hold yourself to a goal when it is a unique thing that you are doing; when everyone is doing it the whole process suddenly seems mundane, boring. Don’t know if that’s part of it.

    And you know, plateaus happen. Your cells are crying out for bad food, they had this cushy life and they aren’t going to give up without a real fight. They have been accustomed to ordering you around, and now they find themselves in radically different circumstances. Breaking a plateau is boring, hard, tedious work; the more so because it lacks regular rewards. The harder the fight, the sweeter the sucess.

    You can do this. I totally, totally believe in you.

    Beth is closing on her house any day now (it’s been a long process, longer than she ever expected). Her reward for when it closes is to pick a week for the costuming extravaganza. She is really looking forward to that. So I think it will be sooner rather than later. So in a matter of months, you’ll be spending a week in the house of a stranger. I don’t know about you, but that would sure motivate me to batten down for a real effort, so that I could casually say, Oh, yes, it’s been sooo hard dealing with this plateau, but you know the only way through it is to do it! (wish there was an appropriate smiley for a saccharine tone)

    And when we spend this week together, I’m sure we’ll want to talk food and such, and have you educate us. Beth loves cooking healthy, so we’ll be all into figuring out the Right Way To Eat.

    Anyway..

    Just an explosion of random thoughts for you. Scattershot, hoping that if I say enough stuff, perhaps I’ll accidentally say the right thing at least once. Let me know if it works (or if it’s just terribly, terribly annoying) 🙂