Good Decisions

Llamabean

New member
Hey everybody! I'm back, yet again. I've been here off and on for several years now. I lost 40 lbs at one point, and I'm back up again to like 207.

I've "restarted" losing weight probably two dozen times over the last 3 years, and every time I fade off within a couple of weeks. Thing is - this time I'm engaged so I have a little extra motivation. I'll be so frustrated if i look this same way on my wedding day.

I have a roommate now that is going to be working with me. Perhaps together we'll do better than each of us separately. She's even going to join my gym!

I spend too much of my time beating myself up over the bad eating decisions I make, so I've decided to make this a journal focused on the good decisions. I'm going to take pictures of the food that I am tempted to eat, but manage to resist. This way I can focus on all of the good decisions I make instead of the bad. For example, I just went into my work break room and picked up the muffin in the photo attached. I walked to the door of the kitchen saying to myself "it's only a muffin" but then decided that I really was going to make a go of losing weight, and put it back (don't worry, i only grabbed it by the wrapper!)

Also, I'm going to Mexico this weekend with my fiance. I know I'm going to have a ton of food temptations there, but it's also a fishing town so I think I will be able to stick to light seafood options.

I'll let ya'll know how it goes!
 
Llamabean...I like the name. I must say I chuckled trying to think what a Llamabean would look like.

Welcome back. Today is a new day. You have choices to make. Some you will choose wisely....others, ehh..not so much. But the bad choice you just made is never as important as the good one you can make next. You've made a good choice by coming back.

Keep up the good choices!

E.
 
Taking pictures of foods you have resisted? That's pretty cool and an interesting way to do it. I've heard of taking pictures of what you ate of course, but never of what you've managed not to eat. Again very cool lol, keep us updated :)
 
Last weekend in Mexico was awesome. I didn't even stuff myself the way I was afraid I might. We ate reasonably, and I am down some today (204.4 baby!)

Yesterday after I got back in town I went and got an ipod+nike little thing for my ipod (of course i'm not spending the money on the shoe - i just stuffed the sensor under my laces). I'm enjoying using the pedometer features on my ipod - it's pretty fun.

My roommate signed up for my gym today, so we're going together now. So freaking excited. I'm enjoying it.

Attached is the picture of the fun sized snickers that I almost ate - but didn't! - at my mom's house on Friday.
 
<chants> I am not a nuclear reactor...I am not a nuclear reactor....

I need to find a way to get away from the freaking scale! I weigh myself daily and even though I know in my head that most of the daily weight fluctuations are a measure of the physical food in your stomach rather than overall fat loss I still am disheartened when the number goes up.

I know that if I spend more calories than I consume I will lose weight. My body can't generate energy without using the calories I put in or those in my fat - I am not a nuclear reactor.

It's just so sad to see the number go up. An answer could be to stay away from the scale and weight weekly, but when I do that then I like to pretend like I can splurge on day 1, after all - I have 7 days till I have to weigh in!

How do you all deal with the frustrations of weight fluctuation?
 
I weighed myself again this morning - and shouldn't have. Oops.

I did very well yesterday though. I didn't overeat and I went to the gym. I was SO tempted to not go to the gym. I had a million excuses running through my head

"My stomach is upset"
"I've had a bad day"
"I'll go twice as long tomorrow"
"I just don't feel like it"

But, since my roommate went to the gym in the morning I felt like I had to keep up. Yay for accountability!

I tell myself every morning i'm going to get up early and go to the gym, and I haven't been able to do it yet. I love sleeping so much....
 
I know how you feel about that scale issue. I have a scale at home and I work in a Dr.'s office with a scale five feet from my office door so I feel compelled to weigh myself 10 times a day. I'm not good at showing restraint. Although, I once went for four years without weighing myself and look where that got me! I've realized that my weight will fluctuate and if I write it all down and then average it out over a few days I can see a "downward trend". Does that help?
 
At one point i had a nifty moving averages excel spreadsheet. I should bust that out again.

I'm at 204.6 yesterday and today. I'm getting nervous about the weekend coming up, I almost always screw up on weekends....

I did well today though. I had a lean cuisine for breakfast, a ham sandwich with a slice of provolone, light miracle whip and mustard with a 100 cal pack of chips for lunch, and I had one slice of a pizza a coworker had delivered.

It's the 1 slice thing that is so amazing. I don't think i've ever stopped at one slice before. And it's the best pizza ever, spinach, garlic and tomatoes. Delicious.

My coworker just told me to go have some of the leftover pizza and I resisted, so here is the picture of the pizza I didn't eat!
 
Oh noes - i went to taco bell. I totally shouldn't have. And I ate too much.

My day ended at like 1850 calories.

I guess it could be worse, but I'm afraid because I'm at the 1 week mark where I usually fail.
 
Today is going to be a challenging day. This is the day where I end up still motivated, but I start to slip up "it's just one cookie!" "I screwed up yesterday anyway, what does it matter, one more time" "I'll try again tomorrow"

I've been in this place a thousand times! This morning i was up to 205.6 and totally discouraged (stupid scale!). But, on the other hand, when i take away the scale then i think i can cheat even more cause I know i'll have days to make it up.

I'm so scared I'm going to fail over the next 2 days the way I always have before.
 
You CAN DO THIS! Don't get down on yourself, think positive! Your minor gain is probably sodium from taco bell food making you retain water, so flush it out with more water. Water water water! Positive thoughts! Heres to a good day!
 
Thanks Owl for your encouragement!

I made it through yesterday! Yay! My roommate and I worked out together, and I'm back down to 204.4. I can make a real go of getting lower than that now.

The next hump to get over is this weekend. I've never been good at weekends, but I am also working a lot this weekend so maybe that will help.

<jazzed!>
 
Weekends are hard for me too, especially weekends with my son who is a human garbage disposal and wants to eat out for every meal (mostly pizza). maybe if you find something to keep you insanely busy you won't eat badly...like...have a garage sale? Those always keep me busy, and give me a workout too. Or, go to some garage sales, that'll keep you busy too!
 
Thanks again for your encouragement!

The weekend was awful (as expected) but it could have been worse. I ate quite a bit of fast food, but not as much as I would have had a couple of weeks ago. We also went to the gym every day except Monday.

I am working on not getting down on myself. I am still at 205.4 today, so it's not like i'm really losing weight, but I just need to be patient and give another few things time to click.

It's like if my food choices were on a scale of 0-100 where 100 is stuffing my face with every bad fast food choice i could make I had been at a 95 and brought it down to 50 (where i want to be), then i let it eek back up to 75-80. Now I just need to bring it back down a bit and I'll start seeing results.

The nice thing is that in any case I'm actually working out consistently, and that has to be helping!

Check out the doughnuts I didn't eat this morning!
 
This last week has been up and down again. I hit a new low of 203.8 (yay!) but these past two days I've been terrible and i'm back up to 205.8. But that's OK, it's still a pound less than my high last week :)

I'm doing what I can to remember that it's all a cycle. My roommate and I have gone to the gym for 3 weeks now so it's becoming a pretty regular pattern. Our rule is that we can miss a day and not beat ourselves up over it - but we can't miss 2 days in a row. It seems to be working well (I've missed 3 days in 3 weeks, she's missed 2)

Movin' forward!
 
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