I doubt that I will be able to post again before Christmas so I am trying to commit to my holiday eating strategy.
I haven't posted much in the last while. Just can't seem to find the time. I am journaling a lot in my own private journal which was a hard enough habit to establish. I haven't lost any weight latel which is discouraging but I have established a lot of great habits in the emotionally area. I have my eating during the week pretty well established (with one exception which I will mention later) and I actually have started to have some sane weekends after almost 6 months. I am still doing the No "S" diet (no snacking, sweets or seconds on days that do not start with "S" like Sat. Sun. and special days). Emotionally this has really helped me become less food obsessed. And now it is starting to extend to my weekend eating days also. I am starting to not panic on Sunday night at the thought of having to go 5 days without sweets or snacks, which means a diminishing of bingeing behavior. I have also noticed less cravings on the weekend or building during the week (like I did at the beginning). I am working on keeping the same schedule on s days as nos days. That is taking a bit more week, but I have hope.
I read a short article in a Parade magazine that a study was done with overweight people. When their stress levels where measured those who had higher stress levels gained more weight even with the same calorie intake. It was a good reminder that I need to take my struggles with anxiety more seriously. Sometimes I feel that my body is telling me that it is under stress and needs some kind of care, but I just ignore it. I just find it so hard to take care of myself, but I am going to learn. I think I have to in order to eventually have a healthy relationship with myself and my body.
It is my prayer that I will not graze my way through the Christmas season.
I am back. It has been a long while. I have been trying to implement a new schedule for myself which has decreased my online time. I am starting to relax into my new routine - which has succeeded in reducing the amount of stress in my life (of course the holidays are here so you can throw that out the window) and want to reestablish posting here and catching up with everyone.
I spent most of today preparing for tomorrow's dinner and miracle of miracles no snacking or stress induced eating and believe me I have felt the stress. I am having over 20 people for dinner tomorrow 14 or so of them being international students studying at the local university.
I have also had my inlaws arrive today. Sometimes our visits have been stressful and I have had several incidents of anxiety just thinking about it. So far the visit has gone pretty well. Maybe it is a testimony to the power of prayer. I have spent some time the last couple of days thinking about all I have to be thankful for, something I don't always do when I am so focused on my battle to lose weight - too much wallowing in my struggle leads to lose of perspective.
Today has been a better day than yesterday, though I am kind of in that place where it would be really easy to give up. Anyway that is how I feel emotionally and in my history I have a whole list of times where that happened, but not this time. I really meant that I was changing the way I ate and never go back. I may have times where I fail, times where I don't feel like going forward but they will not define my journey. They will merely be bumps in the road. I got some good advice on how to better structure my weekends and also thought how I can tighten up my weekdays (which have been mostly successful)
I have to recognize that I will always have times where I feel lower than others, where I will have extra stressers and where I just don't care as much about getting healthy but they can not control me like they have in the past. Why is it I am always surprised that the rah! rah! motivation of a new diet will wane and then allow that change in emotion to derail my good plans.
So even though I don't feel like following my plan. Even though my energy level is low and I am experiencing a sadness that is hard to pinpoint, I will deal with this outside of food.
Sorry I am kind of rambling and still trying to think things through so that I don't do anything ridiculous that will show up in a huge gain on the scale.
Enjoy the weekend!
Exercise goal of 21 days - so far I have 15 days of exercise accumulated!
Every Thursday it seems that I become very restless and ready to snack. I am trying to hold strong, which is why I am here. I have actually been around a little more than it might seem but we are having router problems and very slow download speed and many times the things I have written to others have timed out and not made it through and that has happened to entries to my blog also.
I did exercise this morning though I was a little on the slow side and dragged my feet a bit. It was really hard.
I need to go and fix dinner now. We are having chicken. My family always says we have chicken, but we don't, but I do love chicken :)
I typed this in once and lost it somewhere in cyberspace so one more time. Maybe I won't complain so much this second time.
Here are the posititives: I have an improving relationship with food. During the week I am not turning to food when I am angry, sad, anxious or pmsing (usually - though this has been the hardest). It is a pretty firmly held habit now that I do not snack or have sweets during the week. Seconds have proven to be more of a temptation - so easy to place one more spoonful on my plate but it is so much better and more in control than ever before. I have been exercising 5 days a week since the end of August, which includes some strength training and cardio - which includes interval training.
The negatives: I have had little success in exercising self-control on the weekends. People who have successfully done nos assure me that the weekends will get better, but I think I have had such a miserable relationship with food that it will either take much much longer or maybe I will never be able to handle the freedom. I definitely need to rethink the how to best handle the situation. I have not loss any weight over the last few weeks and I am deeply discouraged despite the postitives.
I am praying for some encouragement soon. I can't give up the progress I have made but I need much more. Perseverance has never been more needed than now.
Exercise goal for October - exercise 21 times Progress so far - 12 times
Can't believe it has been so long since I last posted. I have been incredibly busy and just barely time to check my email and run. Busy is good though as it leaves less time for eating. I have been following my eating plan pretty well and also exercising on a consistent basis. I made my goal to exercise 19 times in the month of September. Amazing if you knew how little I exercised during the summer. I guess I like the routine of having the kids back in school. My goal for October is 21 times. I am still doing a lot of interval training and judging by how much I sweat and how tired I am afterwards I would say it is a good workout for me.
I think I mentioned before that my husband is working from home most days (big change for me). He was gone all day on Tuesday and that triggered a huge temptation/craving in me to eat chocolate - kind of like a celebration (hey, he really is a good guy - I love him). I fought through it but I really almost gave into it because it seemed like such a good idea. I am trying to learn other ways to celebrate.
I need to go and catch up on how all of you are doing. I have missed hearing your stories. Oh and I didn't quite reach my goal of not stepping on the scales for the month of September. I did step on one morning. I was disappointed in the number. I also really need to replace the battery and had all month to do it but it didn't get done. It is my goal to pick one up in the next week. I will update my weight - good or bad then.
Today I have spent my day driving my kids around all day. Starting at 5:30 a.m. I drove my 17 year old to her job (she had a day off from school). At 7:30 I drove my 14 yr old son to school (he was doing some kind of standardize testing today and would be getting out of school early). I went and worked out at the gym after dropping him off and when I was done there I drove across town to pick up my husband after he had dropped off our minivan for the 3rd time to have the transmission fixed (luckily under warranty). At 12:15 I picked up my son from his shortened school day and at 1:30 I picked up my daughter from her job, but she didn't see me parked outside and we "waited" on each other for 20 minutes. At 2:30 I called around and found the only pair of size 13 soccer shoes in our area and loaded up my son and went to track them down. I then dropped him off at school to catch the bus for his soccer game and then went and picked up my youngest daughter from school and arrived home at around 3:35. We grabbed a quick dinner and left the house at 4:45 to drop youngest daughter at volleyball and drive to my son's soccer game. We arrived just in time to see him make a great assist on a goal. We stayed 1/2 way through the second half and then left to pick up daughter from volleyball and sit through a supposedly 15 minute parent's meeting which was really 25 meeting when we had to leave to meet the bus bringing my son home from his game. That brought us home at a few minutes past 7 where we are home to stay. I got very little down (but, yeah I did exercise!) but I am so exhausted physically and emotionally. It made meal times kind of rushed and left me feeling slightly unsatisfied at each meal. I almost gave into the temptation to have some chocolate during one of my breaks today, but I managed to resist. I am still a little wobbly on will power so I came here instead and I am watching the "Biggest Loser" - kind of hard to be pigging out when you are watching people work so hard at losing the weight.
11 days of exercise, 8 to go to make goal!
Hope everyone is hanging in there! Sometimes it doesn't seem like it butall of these little victorys and right decisions will lead to bigger successes!
I have managed to pull myself back from the brink and am back on track today. I exercised today and that is day 10 out of my goal to exercise 19 times this month. So that goal is still on track. I did break down and jumped on the scale in the middle of the day just before my period started with my clothes on. So the weight is almost meaningless. I am still waiting to hear back from my doctor about my thyroid levels, hopefully tomorrow. I have cut back on my caffeine intake and suffered yesterday with a headache because of it, but I am better today. I feel a little frazzled with some things in my life and am probably a little down because of it, so it is even more amazing that I am still doing fairly well in the food area. Thank you for all of the encouragement. I love this place!
It has been a while since I read that book to one of my children but I use to love it and it is exactly how I feel about the way I ate yesterday. I have had worse days eating wise in my life but I hadn't really had one since I started nos. After having too much caffeine throughout the day I compounded my trouble by eating a large size candy bar in the evening. I had been so faithful to wait until the weekend to have dessert and I am sad that I gave in so easily. I am struggling right now having my husband working out of the home. I love him and he is such a great guy, but I miss having time to myself and I am starting to feel stressed about it almost all day long. This is exactly why so many women go back to work after their husbands retire. He has an opinion about everything and being an engineer by training he is very logical in his advice. I on the other hand am a slightly scatterbrained, slightly disorganized, contemplative thinker who likes her space and wants the luxury of doing things her way even if it is not the perfect way. Anyway since I am really working on not eating out of emotions I need to learn to deal with these things without the use of chocolate. Obviously I have a lot of work to do.
I did hear from my doctor and I go in for my blood work probably tomorrow. I am actually hoping that my thyroid levels are out of range, at least that would explain the very slow rate of weight loss. Well I am off to wash a load of towels and get some things ready to be donated. Someday my house will be organized and clutter free - I hope I am still here to enjoy it.
I got in my strength training routine in this morning but no time for cardio. Dinner threatened to get out of control but I was able to reign it in. It is definitely an improvement for me as I often, almost always just give in and binge. After a few days of doing fairly well in the food area and also exercising, I am dying to get on the scale. But so far I haven't. Also I really need to get my thyroid level retested. My last test came back high - it was an employee health fair and whenever I get it tested there it always shows a TSH a little higher than what my doctor's lab tests but this time it tested out of normal parameters. I really need to do this tomorrow, because if it is true I probably am not losing anything at all and the whole month could end up being a big disappointment. Well I guess I will go and get an envelope and mail in those results to my doctor now. Also I forgot to close our skylights and it has probably been raining in my bathroom - at least there isn't any carpeting in those rooms. :)
Thanks for all of the encouraging notes. It means a lot to me. I tend not to talk a lot about my weight with my family because I have failed so many times in the past so it is nice to come here and freely and honestly discuss things and receive encouragement back.
