It's no secret that the last two months have been a struggle - I have lost and gained the same three pounds over and over again. Plateau's are normal, though...and, frankly, August is just TOUGH for me. But, I feel like I have lost my mojo. It's been quite difficult to get myself back in the swing of things - I have found myself wondering on numerous occasions how I had time to work out so much in the spring. Even after the work world settled down, I still couldn't get in the exercise like I used to. So what was different?
For one thing, I am. It was a cold realization the day recently that I discovered I wasn't earning as many activity points as I used to..now, it's not changed by much, but I forgot that the less you weigh, the less activity points you get! It doesn't take as much energy to get the body moving, so you have to do more to keep earning the same amount of points. Well, heck, I've been struggling to even keep up with what I'd been doing!
For another thing, I've gotten myself a life! Year to year, there is always turnover with my coworkers - that happens when you have a fixed term contract. The last couple of years I kind of flew under the radar - wasn't super social. That probably was some due to my unrealized unhappiness, and a lot due to my realized laziness. My closest friends from my first few years here had all gone on to bigger things or to other schools, and I really didn't feel like putting in much effort to make new close friends. I don't know if this year I actually put in more of an effort, or if my rekindled sparkling personality just became a magnet for new friends ;-) , but I realized that part of my difficulty finding time to work out has been because I've actually been spending time with other people! It's not like I've gone back to spending my evenings on the couch watching tv/playing games on the computer, I've actually been out socializing! I've made some great new friends - and I love actually being a little bit more of a social butterfly again. But, I really need to get this workout thing back.
I was a little surprised that nobody has called me out on my lack of posting for the last few weeks - until one of my students did this past Wednesday. Truthfully, the first week I just ran out of time...it seems to be flying by this semester! The second week, I didn't get to go to my meeting because I had to work late, so there was no real update. What I should have written about, though, is that I was kind of glad I didn't go that week. I had a really strange week and ended up taking a bit of a vacation from my "diet." I was literally hungry almost all of the time! I would, no joke, eat a whole meal...feel comfortably full...and then half an hour later I would feel like I hadn't eaten in 5 hours. I wanted to eat everything in sight! I had such comfort food cravings - desperately wanting foods I hadn't eaten since I started this journey. So, I decided that for the week I was going to take a "break". Clearly, my body was rebeling and trying to tell me something, so I said that I would listen for the week and just accept the consequences. I think that I didn't do as bad as I would have at this time last year, but it was still not a good week and I really didn't want to see what that scale was going to tell me...so I wasn't exactly sad that I had to have a work meeting and couldn't make it to my WW meeting.
The next week I wasn't exactly an angel, but I was much more focused on eating better choices. And, it turns out, that my break kind of helped! I didn't have the cravings anymore - I can now sit with a jar of candy on my desk and not be tempted to eat it - and after each meal I felt full again until it was actually time to eat another meal. But, I wasn't quite able to shake off all of the damage that I had done the week before. This past Tuesday, I didn't want to go to my meeting...and I tried coming up with all kinds of excuses to not go...and I failed every time. I told myself that I would just go weigh in the next morning...well, the only weigh-in was at 9:30 and I had a meeting with the super super big boss at 9:00. Then I told myself that it was okay if I didn't go because I was really exhausted (I could tell that a cold was coming on) - so I would just go home and take a nap instead because I really needed it...and then my coworker emailed out to remind everyone that there was a fire drill around 5:30...right when I would have been trying to nap. So, I took it as a sign that I had to go...and even though I knew it still wasn't going to be pretty, I went. I had gained a little, but it wasn't as bad as what it probably would've been the week before if I'd been able to go, so I still considered it a victory.
But, this week, I'm working to get my mojo back. I'm still having friend time, but I'm having me time too...I need to get off this plateau and back on the downward slope.
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 38: +0.2 (not bad)
Week 39: no weigh-in
Week 40: +1.6
Total weight loss: -52.2
Current weight: 205
No comments:
Post a Comment