A Month of Maintaining

This month has not gone at all according to plan. I was hoping to kick it up a notch, start exercising more and drop more pounds by the family reunion in June. Unfortunately, that has not happened.

With all the emotional stuff happening at the beginning of the month, I got turned completely around. I started eating larger portions again. We ate out more this month than any of the last few months combined. And I've eaten more junk food than I should have.

But I did start exercising more. Maybe I knew I would need it to help even out the break in my diet. Whatever the reason, I have been able to maintain my weight. It's fluctuated a few pounds up and down. However, overall, I've been maintaining for the last month or so.

I'm ready for that to change. I'm ready to start losing weight again. I felt so proud of myself for losing those 30 pounds. I want to lose 30 more. And then maybe 30 more after that. I need to get back on track.

Having my husband do this with me has been a huge help. And a great hindrance. When one of us fail, the other starts slipping. But we also pull strength from each other. I think we're both ready to get back on track.

So, we've discussed it and while we still don't know for sure what we're doing, we are going to start trying harder. I don't want to get sucked back into the though pattern that losing weight is too hard. It is hard! But it's not impossible. And those 30 pounds gone proves that.

A Major Phony

Sometimes, I feel like a big fat fake. Blogging about my weight loss journey has really helped me in the last 6 months or so, but sometimes, I just want to scream, don't look at me. I'm a complete loser and don't know what the heck I'm doing.

If I look back at my life, I can honestly say this is the first time I've REALLY tried to lose weight. I've given it half-assed efforts in the past, but they never amounted to much. And I've never really lost a significant amount of weight.

But now, I can say, I've lost 30 pounds! Yay! Go me! Not really.......

Sure, I have definitely changed my eating habits. I've cut out a substantial amount of sugar. And my DH and I are eating *mostly* low carb. But I'm BARELY exercising at all. So, I feel like major phony. I haven't had to work hard to lose those 30 pounds.

But I know that all of the weight isn't going to come off as easily. Do I have the strength to continue this journey if there's real effort required to make it happen? I have to ask myself why I don't work harder. I want to be healthier. I want to be thinner. I guess it boils down to laziness. It's easier to fail. Plus, I'm worried that I'll give it everything I have and still fail. Then, what do I do?

April Recap

This is going to be short and sweet, but I didn't want to skip my monthly recap post. I'm still sorting through a lot of emotions right now. Honestly, I don't know how to make myself feel better. My husband says I have to force myself to focus on the good things. But that seems so false. I don't want to pretend I'm happy just for the sake of other people. But I don't want to keep being miserable either....

At my lowest point in April, I weighed 285.8. That was right after finishing the Jillian Michael's Jumpstart 14 Day Cleanse and Burn. Since then, I've put on a little bit of weight. That's no surprise. While I was at the hospital last week, I had McDonald's twice. It was either that or expensive hospital food that didn't taste good, or go hungry. Maybe I made the wrong choice, but it's done now. 

I also allowed myself one guilt-free crash meal. Saturday night, after spending all day at the hospital, we ate at O'Charley's. Talk about emotional eating. I had bread and pasta. My body was calling for it. And I caved.

Brief Hiatus

In case you've missed it, there's a new post on my other blog which will fill you in on why I haven't been around the last few days. And why it will be difficult for me to be around for the next few days as well.

But I am trying my best to stay "on the wagon." I've been very aware of what I've been eating. I'm tracking my food daily. And I'm listening to Dr. Colbert's audio book when I get the chance.

I think if I can continue to eat healthy through this ordeal than it will prove how dedicated I am to changing my life. If anything good can come out of this, there's that.

Be back soon.

New Changes

I've made a couple of changes in the last few days. Minor changes that I hope will aid me.

First, and I think most importantly, I've started tracking my food. Right now, I'm using Spark People and My Fitness Pal. Eventually, I'll narrow it down to one or the other, but I wasn't sure which site I wanted to use, so I'm giving them both a try. It's my understanding that Spark People has been around longer, and so probably has better tools and a larger index of food. But I'm finding My Fitness Pal easier to use. There's also Calorie Count, which I've used in the past to track my weight. But I haven't actually entered any foods into their website before. It might be worth a try.

Second, I've started listening to Dr. Colbert's "I Can Do This Diet" on audio.

After the encouragement of a few fellow bloggers, and my mother-in-law, I thought he might have beneficial information to share. I've just started the book, so I haven't gotten any really good points out of it yet, but I'm sure they are in there.

Last week was a bad week. But I'm not going to let it get me down. I've worked hard this year and I'm not ready to give up yet. I think keeping this blog has really helped. I know getting feedback and encouragement from readers makes me feel awesome. Thank you all so much! 

Food Confessions

I can't figure out why exactly, but I've had a tough week. Every night when we've discussed dinner plans, I've wanted spaghetti. And I've been thinking about eating ice cream and breads too. Thankfully, we don't have anything in the house that would be that bad if I ate it. I could binge and eat a lot, but it would be on apples, sugar free jolly ranchers, beef jerky etc.

I went so far as to look in the cupboard to see if we had the ingredients for spaghetti. Thankfully, while we had a variety of noodles, we didn't have sauce. Then, when we were at the grocery yesterday, I actually went down the pasta aisle. But my husband pulled me away from the sauce before I could put it in the cart. He's been so great. 

I can't figure out why I'm sitting here wanting cereal this morning for breakfast. Why do I want to cheat? Sure, it's not always easy, but the rewards have been awesome. I can say that I've lost over 30 pounds. I've been able to go down a size in my jeans. Some of my old shirts that used to be too tight fit okay now.

It's not temptation, because there's nothing here to tempt me. I want things we don't have. But my mind keeps telling me these are the things I want, that I won't be happy until I get them.

I know that if I were to eat ice cream or spaghetti that it would be yummy. And five minutes after eating it, I would feel awful. Guilty. I'd be mad at myself, mad for eating it, mad for giving in, for being weak.

I know all these things and yet, I still want the stupid spaghetti. I feel gross even feeling like this. Admitting it makes me feel like a fool. I was hoping that by putting this out there, that it would make me feel better. That I might overcome whatever this is. Or maybe at least understand it a little better.

Gala Apples

I have heard over and over again how good writing your food down can be. This visual exercise shows you how much you actually eat and what it all adds up to. I've been meaning to do it for awhile now, but I keep forgetting or putting it off. Whatever my excuse, it hasn't gotten done.

So this morning, I decided it was time to stop putting it off. It didn't matter that I didn't have a fancy notebook or excel spreadsheet to write it down in. I got a lined yellow notepad from the office supply closet at work (shhh....don't tell!) and started calculating breakfast.

I know breakfast is important blah blah blah, but I just can't make myself a huge plate of food in the morning. I usually eat an apple with a bottle of water. Sometimes, I have an atkins bar or an activia shake to go with it. I wanted to write down the calories and carbs of everything I eat. Since apples don't come with nutritional information on the side, I had to look it up online. I started at About.com's Calorie Count

In case you have trouble seeing that, it says 1 large gala apple has 22 carbs!!! I was shocked. I knew there would be some natural sugar in the apple. It's sweet. But I wasn't expecting 22 carbs. That's almost my daily allotment of carbs.

I love apples. I eat them daily. But now, I need to seriously rethink that. 22 carbs is a lot. I knew I needed to avoid grapes, raisins and bananas, but I thought apples were okay. I decided to get a second opinion. Sparkpeople.com says that apples have 9.5 carbs, but I couldn't find anything on gala apples specifically.

And here I've been avoiding strawberries, and Sparkpeople.com says they only have 5.8 carbs. Calorie Count says 11.7. I love fruit. I know a person is supposed to have several servings of fruit a day (I've seen 2 cups or 5 pieces), but how do you do that and avoid the carbs? Most, if not all, fruit have natural sugars.

I seriously have a lot to learn.