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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

It's hard to lose weight when you're not even trying

        The first time I gained weight, I was in college. Basically, I was a crazy stressed out student who coped with everything by eating, and eating, and eating. At first, my coping mechanism also included lots of exercise, so I lost weight instead of gaining the freshman 15. Then, I went from being a freshman to a sophomore to a junior, and free time was something I had less and less of, so exercise slowly got cut out and before I knew it I'd put on 70lbs to go from 150lbs to 220lbs. Since then, I have yo-yoed up and down to a low of 208 (Lindora) and back up to a high of 266 (too much food), with my current weight holding strong at 246lbs.

        All this to say... I'm in college again and free time is nonexistent, the going got tough, and guess what? No diet. I was doing SO well for a while there... Eating right, cooking healthy food, storing leftovers to bring with me on busy days, counting calories, and generally writing down everything I consumed so I could watch what I was doing right and wrong. It worked. I went from 266lbs to 242lbs in less than 2 months. But then? But then, here I am now. It's been weeks since I last wrote in my food diary, weeks since I got a proper hard exercise in, weeks since I paid attention to what I was eating. Thanksgiving weekend brought my weight back up to 246lbs and that's where (thankfully) I've held steady for the last few weeks. It's hard to say at least there was no gain, at least I maintained, because I don't even feel I deserve that. I should not have fallen back into bad habits, but I did. The problem is, my bad habits aren't just bad habits. They are well and truly the steady state of my life right now, what my mind still thinks is the norm, and it's going to be very hard to readjust to a new steady state where healthy is the norm and eating like I have the past couple of weeks is simply out of the question. Hard, but doable. Doable if only I tried. I would try if only I had the time. Ahh, and here is the pattern...
Try->DO->Get busy->Give up. On and on in a circle.

        You'd think this is where I say, now, it all changes NOW. Hmmm, seems like I've said that before, about a million times. I'm sick of hearing myself say it, think it even. Also, there is this little problem of I'm not actually going to try again until I get back home for the holidays. I just can't, well, maybe I can, I should, but I wont be. I have two finals standing between me and my flight home on Friday... home to my boyfriend, home to my family, home to my healthy habits? So yeah, I'm here and I'm being truthful. Come Monday my food journal will be filled to the brim with good eats and exercise and health. Right now, I can't and even though that's a choice I am making willingly, I still feel terrible about making it. Monday. I'll be back.

        Dear ladies of the Fall into Fitness challenge, yeah, I suck, and my weight is still 246lbs, but I'll still be weighing in until the end, hopefully you will as well. Even if I did take a couple week hiatus right in the middle there, I want to keep going. I don't want to give up on the first ever challenge I started. :) Stay with me?

2 comments:

Violet Cream said...

I'm sorry to hear that things are tough for you foodwise at the minute. I have a tendancy to beat myself up when i'm struggling rather than just adding a little bit more self care, which we all need.

I was given a tip from some video on weight loss somewhere along my travels, which said when you are struggling make sure you record aleast one positive thing you do each day. I'm sure, even though things seem so difficult you are making some great choices each day. However, you need to work on something that works for you. You have done so well with your weight loss so far!

Katie J ♥ said...

I ended the year with a gain of 5 lbs. So for the whole challenge I lost one friggin pound.

Don't beat yourself up. The holidays are rough and busy for everyone and you have school and life on top of that.

Keep chipping away at it... I know it seems like a relentless task but we CAN and WILL do this Kathryn!

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