Up and Down

I’ll try not to let my bloated stomach dictate the tone of this post...but it won’t be easy. My stomach sticking out is a huge reminder (pun intended) this afternoon of how much I’ve botched my diet this past week. This brings me to the subject I want to write about now. I believe it was back in the first post or two that I talked about knowingly sabotaging yourself. This is something that’s been a consistent theme for me throughout my weightloss quest and has resurfaced again this week. I have been making excuses…e.g. retirement party, company over, Mother’s Day, birthdays…the list goes on. I have been ignoring my inner voice again and again in favor of cake, pizza, nachos, beer, etc. Why?? I know that after I eat this crap, the scale will tip the wrong way but I do it anyway and I really cannot for the life of me grasp why. Do I want to stay overweight? Do I just not care? Am I afraid of succeeding? I don’t know the answer here folks. If you do, please fill me in.

I was up 3 lbs. yesterday morning. I really did have a fun weekend and considering what I all ate and drank, it could’ve been much worse. Thanks to a healthful diet yesterday and walking on my new treadmill nearly every day since I got it (okay – I didn’t at all over the weekend but I wasn't feeling well), I was back down today. I now have just 2 more ounces to go until I reach that “summit” I talked about last week. I plan to reach it this week – no excuses.

Although I’m only down 13.5 pounds since I started this blog about 7 weeks ago, I am down almost 25 from my heaviest weight a couple of years ago. There is some part of me that says 25 lbs. is so great and I should just be happy at my current weight. I think this is the part of me that just wants to eat junk and drink diet Coke again. I will not listen to these voices. I am determined to make it much, much further.

As I said before, I’ve been getting a lot of compliments lately – “you look great!” or “wow – you have lost so much weight!” to which I always respond (I am terrible with compliments...always have been), “yeah, but I still have 30 lbs. to go.” People generally respond to this by saying, “30 lbs? You can’t possibly lose that much more…you’ll be a stick”. I reassure them by letting them know that losing another 30 lbs. would put me in the average range for my height (see horrible obesity scale here). In fact, it puts me closer to the high end of what I should weigh according to the American Health Association.

On a positive note, my clothes feel like they’re getting bigger and bigger (despite the fact that the scale isn’t going down all that quickly). I’ve almost given away all my pants and quite a few shirts about 5 times this past week. Unfortunately none of my friends seem to be a size 12/14 or they could inherit a pretty nice wardrobe right about now. I am waiting a bit longer though as I can’t possibly afford to replace my wardrobe once, much less twice. I suppose I could go out and buy a bunch of stretchy Mumu’s…always a popular choice for AZ in the summer...but somehow I don’t think that would go over well in my place of employment.

I will end by saying that tomorrow is my birthday - read BIRTHDAY HAPPY HOUR. Hopefully I won't have to re-lose all this weight again next week but I can't make any promises...life is meant to be lived.