Every successful endeavor starts with a strong plan of action. For the past 2 to 2 1/2 months, I've had pretty much zero course of action where losing weight is concerned and, well, it shows. Right now the scale hates me, and I, it. We have a very complicated relationship.
I'm sitting firmly at a quarter pound under 230 right now and I want to scream my head off. I'm so insanely angry this is my reality. I'm even more angry at how hard a time I seem to be having at changing this reality. Considering how much I loathe it - it should not be this hard to change it. Right?
Every single stinking time I seem to find weight loss momentum, I allow something - anything - to throw me off course. This has been my history from the beginning of my dieting days way back when. It's not appropriate to say I yo-yo diet, because that would imply that, at some point, I hit a goal and then bounced back and regained what I lost. Truth be told, I'm usually eons away from my goal before I bail ship and the pounds start creeping their way back on. I must be a very good host to those fat cells, that's all I can say. I sure feed them well, anyway.
Yesterday after I posted, I did a little Throwback Thursday and went back to revisit my old Sparkpeople page. I created it in 2007 and weighed roughly 24 lbs less than what I weigh now. I'd kill for that weight right about now. While I know living in the past doesn't help my future, those pictures did inspire me to firmly plant my ass back in the saddle today. And I'll stay here for as long as it takes.
Which leads me to that aforementioned plan of action. Other than my marriage, I'm actually quite terrible with long term commitment to most things. I need to aim for smaller goals so that I'm not staring this huge 90 - 100 lb monster of an obstacle in the face. That's right - the one that's looming between me and my future healthy self. It's too big, too ominous, and too depressing to take on all at once, so smaller weight loss increments are going to be my focus right now.
To begin, I'm aiming for another 10 lbs. Since I began this journey in January, I had been slowly losing until my surgery. In May, right before my gallbladder hit the skids, I was down to 225.75, a slight increase from my lowest weight through this most recent journey, which was 224.5. I'm still only 4 lbs heavier than my pre-surgery weight but it still pisses me off that I allowed myself to slip back to this point. Part of my anger stems from knowing that had I not decided to take back control, I could easily allow myself to slide all the way back to where I started in January. I'm angry that after all the dieting I've done in my life, I'm still doing the same stupid things.
10 lbs is, in my opinion, a very obtainable goal. But how am I going to do it? This morning I spent more time than I should have Googling the shit out of "clean eating for weight loss". I found a few food blogs where people posted pics of their standard daily meals and honestly? It all kind of looks culinarily void of excitement to me. Which I, perhaps mistakenly, interpret as also being void of taste. Anyway, I quickly realized this is certainly a bad way to start thinking so soon into my weight loss recommitment ceremony. So, I abruptly halted my search and thought about what I might be able to do realistically, given that I enjoy cooking and cannot for the life of me imagine myself making a meal out of simply raw almonds, a small banana, and wilted kale. Gag me with a friggin' spoon, will you?
What I learned from my pre-op eating is that clean eating is what you make of it. It means different things to different people. I don't doubt that if I strictly followed some pre-formulated meal plan and removed all wheat, gluten, dairy, artificial sweetener, and alcohol that I would lose weight. As a matter of fact, I know I would. I also know that I'd probably last as long as a snowball in hell on that plan. Call it lack of willpower. Call it lack of truly wanting to lose weight...Call it what you want - but I know myself and in order to do this long term, I have to figure out a way to be successful that is not going to drive me to murder or suicide. Removing alcohol and cheese from my life? Yeah, I don't think so.
My eating essentially has to go back to basics. Lean protein, veggies, fruit....get rid of the processed crap. It's all the things I talked about before my surgery - and I need to treat this lifestyle plan in a similar manner. The indigestion attacks may no longer be an issue, but I have to pretend like they are. In other words, eat like I have a problem, even if I don't. Except - I do have a problem. It's called obesity. No one needs Salt & Vinegar Kettle chips in their life, especially me. Fact. Meals should be kept simple. The easier it is to prepare, the more likely I am to stick with it. I like the sound of it already.
Now that I have the eating sort of figured out, I need to address the other elephant in the room. Exercise. Simply put, I don't really do any regular form of it, as embarrassing as that is to say. At best, I am inconsistent with yoga. It's not enough. I'm well aware. I need to get out there and burn some calories and typing at warp speed on my Mac while sitting on my ass doesn't burn the calories you might think it does. Thirty minutes a day, Saturday through Thursday, with Fridays off if needed. It doesn't matter what I do, just that I do it for thirty minutes. Yoga, walking, swimming...all perfectly acceptable activities. As I move toward my next mini weight loss goal, I'll increase my exercise time, but for now - it's 30 mins, 6 times a week. No excuses.
I'm feeling better. So far, this plan sounds promising, and I am excited about turning myself around and being back on track. Let's see if the scale and I can make peace next week.
Stay tuned...
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