It was a strange thought and I don't even know how my brain wandered to there. I was driving somewhere and started thinking about how much weight I had lost from my top weight and my current weight loss effort and was feeling pretty good about my progress when all of a sudden I thought, "but you know, what if I gain it all back? What if I don't keep it off? Would I be able to lose it again?" And my head said, "I don't think I could do this another time."
And it's not because this is hard. Yes, some days are harder than others (the last few have been more difficult). And it's not that I plan to stop exercising and go back to bad eating habits - my blood sugar can't take that - or my blood pressure. But I don't know if I can continue to sustain the same mental effort or would be willing to put my head in this "do it" mental state again, especially if ultimately I fail.
It took me over a decade to try to lose weight after failing at my last major attempt. Staring failure in the face is hard, but trying to convince your brain that you will not fail again is even harder. Right now I trust myself that I will stick to it and that I will keep it off (though that resolve has been a bit shaken by how hard these past couple weeks have been). But, if I were to fail again? How could I ever believe that the next time will be any different? I would need to believe that I could succeed to even attempt it.
And these past few weeks have been very hard. I was so careful during vacation. I didn't pig out. I walked for hours every day, yet I lost so little that month. It shook me a bit. Was it less working out the week before vacation when my elder son was sick and during vacation? Was it that I'm just getting to a slower part of this journey and I should expect that from now on? Or what?
The hunger feelings and especially the cravings for carbs have come back and that is even worse. I had no problem saying no to carbs for months and months and now it's harder to deal with. What is that about? Did vacation and the bit more of carbs do it? Did making my mother in law's birthday dessert do it? What is it? I'm now being ultra strict with the carbs - all of them, to get over this craving again, but that's hard too! The kids' cookies are staring at me. The rice at dinner is staring at me. and so on. But avoiding carbs isn't even a losing weight thing. It's trying to keep my blood sugar in check that is the reason for the low carbs! I do not want to use drugs to control my blood sugar!
Ack, full of doubt today as I deal with my gain towards ovulation. I guess I'll know in about a week how this month stacks up to previous months. Sometimes it's really, really hard to accept my body's patterns. Keeping that belief that it will happen and the resolve to make it happen can be very, very trying.
Doesn't help that the workouts have been kicking my butt this week. I thought a day off would help (the day we did the zoo - so just some walking), but no. Yesterday's step routine was H.A.R.D. Different instructor who was pushing us really hard. It's good for me, but I feel like I'm trudging through mud and I can see how much more fit the other ladies in the room are while I stay at my low impact watching them jump around. I've come so far, but man, I have a long way to go too!
Stats for 8/13/11:
Beginning weight: 255.6 Now: 194.8
Hours worked out in 2011: 241
Total miles walked in 2011: 679/1000
Of course, how much could these ladies jump if I added 30-50 pounds to their bodies too? We are probably expending the same amount of energy! (deleted above comment because I can't write!)
ReplyDeleteFor me, this time it had to be that whatever I did had to be whatever I could manage forever. Because of that, my approach has been to "normalize" my eating habits rather than to radically alter them. What I'm doing now, I can do forever. I'm eating moderately restricted, doing moderate exercise, and allowing for moderate numbers of treats. I realize that is not for everyone, but it does make it easy to say that I won't regain and that I won't have to "do it again" because I plan on deviating so little from what I'm doing now once I reach my goal weight.
ReplyDeleteI once lost a radical amount of weight (a long time ago) by cutting out all "bad" food and exercising a fair amount. Eating healthy wasn't really enough to reduce calories so much, but the exercise coupled with what I cut (sugar, fat, red meat) was enough to get me down to my lowest weight ever, but it was unsustainable. I gained it all back and more. This time, I learned from that mistake as well as didn't have the physical health to exercise 90 minutes a day 5 days a week.
I'd suggest starting to adjust your choices to something sustainable. Make the transition slow and gain confidence as you take baby steps from the lifestyle in which you lose to one in which you maintain. It's much easier than waiting to gain it all back and do it all over again.
Well, what I'm doing I plan to do forever. Well, of course, I won't always eat at a deficit, but how I eat will be the same. Actually, what I eat isn't a far cry from how I normally ate. I just took out the simple carbs and those I did for my blood sugar issue. I simply had to make a choice - keep the sugars and take meds or get rid of sugars and control it by diet. I chose to control it by diet.
ReplyDeleteI exercise an hour a day 6 days a week. Maybe I'll drop that down to 5 days a week when I get to goal, but everything else will probably stay the same. I don't have 'bad' foods besides the simple carbs and even those I'll eat in moderation at parties or birthdays.
But until now, I wasn't craving sweets. Now I am and I'm trying to figure out why so I can fix it. My body doesn't need sugar and I'm getting enough carbs - about 100 net grams a day which for someone with blood sugar issues, is ideal.