Weigh in week 7

Today’s weigh in- 228.6


That’s a 1.2 pound loss this week and 9 pounds since I’ve started this journey. To help me visualize exactly what I’ve accomplished so far – this is what 9 pounds of fat looks like-

I’m feeling really good about my progress so far. I’m losing at a reasonable rate that will be more likely not to come back on again. It’s real hard though sometimes to stay focused on the big picture. Now that the excitement of starting a new healthy lifestyle has faded and I’m left with the ugly reality that this is going to take a year or longer before I reach my goal weight, I find myself getting a little depressed over it all. I’m trying to tell myself that it doesn’t matter how long it takes me to get there, because I’m going to be eating and living this way for the rest of my life. I can’t think of my goal as being the end of my “diet” because then it will all have been for nothing. I’m trying to change my perception of this journey to a lifestyle change. The problem is that I love food and the idea of giving it all up for the rest of my life kind of bums me out. I think that’s why I’ve failed so miserably at this during other attempts.

It reminds me of when I tried to quit smoking in the past. I must have tried to quit dozens of times. New Year’s Resolutions, Lent, Great American Smoke Out and sometimes just because. It never stuck before because I liked smoking. Sure I knew that it was bad for me in an abstract kind of way. But the bad health that came with it was always way down the road and right then I felt good and I really enjoyed sitting out on the porch with a cigarette and a glass of wine chatting with my girlfriends. My head knew what I had to do, but my heart was never really in it. It wasn’t until I met my husband who hates smoke that I quit for good. Even then I had the occasional lapse until I found out I was pregnant the first time. When I finally was successful, I wasn’t quitting for me any longer, I was quitting for my child.

I’m trying to apply what I learned then to what I am doing now. Believe it or not, it’s been almost 4 years since I smoked my last cigarette and I still have a desire to smoke. Even now writing this and thinking about it, I’m battling that inner demon that is telling me to go get a pack to keep in my desk at work. That evil voice that is trying to convince me that it will help me lose weight and manage the stress I am under. It’s the same voice that tells me the double fudge brownies in the break room are an acceptable breakfast. It tells me that I’ll never have the body I had in my youth again so I might as well enjoy the food. That voice is the devil. I will not listen to that voice. The bad foods that I have been eating all these years are poison just as much as those cigarettes that I was puffing on. I know that the cravings will never go away completely, but that there will come a day when I am not consumed by them any longer. This time I’m not doing it for me, I’m doing it for my son. This time I will be successful.