I know it has been a LONG time since I have written on this or my family blog! But I am determined to get better at it again now that we finally have joined the rest of the world and have a laptop! Now I don't have to go sit in the office in the back of the basement by myself to get on the computer! It is so great! Right now I have my boys sitting on my legs while they watch a movie and I work on the computer!
So you are probably wondering how I have been doing with my weight (since this is a blog about my weight journey!) Well, I am not that different than I was in my last post...physically at least. It has been a long few months of struggling, falling, getting up, learning and then starting the same cycle over again. I have lost some weight, gained some back, lost some weight, etc. I feel like I have been in the same place forever! It has been frustrating but at the same time I feel like it has been necessary.
One day as I was thinking about this cycle I am in and feeling so frustrated, I had a sort of epiphany. I lost a lot of weight with hardly any weeks of weight gain, in a relatively short amount of time in the weight loss world. I lost an amount that changed me. Even though I am not at my goal yet, I still have gotten my life back. But, I realized that if I had kept losing like I was until the very end and met my goal without any real opposition, I would not have been ready to maintain. I would not have any of the tools I will need to keep it off and get through the times it's hard.
It is like I have been hanging off the edge of a cliff, and I am hanging on for dear life. I know I have gained some weight back, I have been feeling discouraged and hopeless again. I have known I have two choices. I could let go and fall off that cliff and return to my old ways and let the weight creep back on...that would be the easy thing to do. Or I could fight, and claw my way back up to where I want to be. I can fight for what I want. I realize that I have been faced with this same scenario every time I have ever lost some weight (which is a lot of times when we go back to the 2nd grade when I started dieting). But every other time I have let go and gone back to the old ways when it got tough. I have not fought for what I really wanted. I am blessed this time to have lost an amount of weight that has really changed me, and I am not willing to go back to where I was! I will not let this go. I will do whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, to get where I want to be and STAY there!
I am talking about the non-physical aspects of weight loss. It's the mental and emotional aspects of this journey that are usually the hardest. I have been working to understand why there are times that it seems I forget all goals and eat with reckless abandon. I have been trying to understand how and what steps I need to take to keep control in those situations. It is such a small window of time that this happens, but it does such damage. I have been keeping track of feelings associated with when and what I eat so I can find the patterns that lead to this breakdown of control. I have been practicing techniques I can use in those moments to get me safely through. I have been learning a lot about myself. I have actually been putting in the mental work I need to figure out how to live this way and not turn around and run when it gets hard.
As I have worked on this there are many times I figured out what I need to do by doing the wrong thing! That is why I have gained and lost the same little bit for so many months! But I am feeling stronger and smarter than ever before. I feel like I finally have a game plan for those moments, and I now know when those moments are coming so I can be ready! It's a very empowering feeling to not feel so helpless and blindsided like I used to. Does that mean I think from here on out I will never make a wrong choice? No. But it means I know I will fight and not give up when I do make a bad choice. I have a basic plan to fall back on to keep going instead of quitting.
Right now I am doing really well. I am making choices that reflect a strong inner strength and will to move forward. I had a really good 3 mile run today. I am planning to run a 10K in a few months. I know that as I continue doing as I am now, the weight will go down again. I will get to that ever elusive 125 lb award!
It feels so good to write all these thoughts that float around my head! When I reread it I don't know if it will make any sense to anyone else! But even if nobody ever reads this, it is so therapeutic for me! I have missed this blog! I commit to write every other week.
I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes right now. I don't know where it's from or who said it, but I saw it on the Weight Watchers facebook page, and it really hit home to me.
"Pick your hard."
What does that mean? It means I get to pick the kind of hard I want to endure. It is hard to be overweight, and unhealthy. It is hard to have nothing to wear, and feel bad about myself all the time. It's also hard to track my food everyday, exercise 5 days a week, drink my water, make good choices, and work on the emotional and mental aspects. So if they're both hard, why not work on the hard that makes me feel good and be healthy?
That's why even though it has been hard, I won't give up.
It's worth fighting for!
.jpg)
