Have you heard the one about the tortoise and the hare?

Some weeks I feel like I'm moving at lightning speed; others, not so much.  This pertains not only to my weight loss, but extends to other parts of my life.  

It extends, for example, to me at work.  I wear many different hats and can be juggling several projects at once.  Some weeks, I am like a dynamo - I can lose 4.2 lbs. and finish every single project with aplomb and even perhaps applause.  Really.  Some weeks, I walk around without a clear thought in my head and I forget to do things, even the mundane things that are part of my weight loss journey and part of my job.  I don't quite get it, but I move on from everything with a smile and a plan to improve upon anything that I do.  I want to do things better even if I've done it well in the first place.

To that end, I'm on a quest this week to lose better than the .6 lbs. I lost in the last week.  Most would say, "Wow, you did great!  You lost almost 5 lbs. in two weeks!"  I'm the opposite.  Someone even said, "Hey!  At that rate (.6/week), you'll be down 30 lbs. in a year!"  No matter how optimistic I appear, inside I'm always finding the the black lining.  I never think I've done well enough.  

This even extends to things that are not particularly under my control.  When things I manage, but am not really responsible for making work do not work, I take on the blame.  It's kind of dumb to do that, but I take it on anyway.  I've talked about this in therapy, but haven't really gotten past it yet.  I end up saying sorry even when it isn't remotely my fault.

So, you probably get at this point that mostly I'm the tortoise, but it doesn't directly relate to how slow I am in losing weight; it points to the fact that I'm slow on the uptake in getting that it's a process. 

How can I change my attitude?  I'm not quite sure yet, but I know that continuing to attend meetings every week will help.  I also think I have to find other things to focus on, even when a day turns into gloom and doom.  I've got to do some research.  What do you do when you experience something like this?  How do you turn it all around?  Hit the comments and let me know.  I'm going to turn this all around.  Tomorrow.
 

 

I Can't Make Me Love Me (but I should)

As I began this journey again in January, I had a renewed sense of hope.  I decided not to base this on resolutions, like every one else was scrambling to do.  I wanted this to be my decision and my decision alone, not one that I made because a holiday dictated it.

Now, in my fourth month of trying to lose weight, I find that I am losing that sense of hope.  I know that I can find it within me, however, I find obstacles in other areas of my life that seem to slow me down.

Where I'm not slowing down is in exercising.  I'm continuing to do that, whether I am walking the treadmill or riding the recumbent bike or marching all over town (at some point this weekend, I actually marched because I spent some time with a little friend and well, it was mandatory that we all did).

What I'm not consistent with is tracking.  You must have heard some weight loss guru say that it's important to write down every morsel you take in.  I used to be very good with this.  I was so good, in fact, that I was obsessed with it and I ended up stopping because it was consuming my life.  This time, I started out really well with it and one day, when work was especially stressful, I did not track.  That put me on a downhill spiral.  Each day, I would promise myself that I would track my meals, but for some reason, I would "conveniently" forget to do it.  Once this was happening for several weeks, I'd effectively created a habit and I was done with it.  Now, you say, how can not tracking be a habit?  If you are not doing something, how does it become routine?  Well, I can speak for myself, but I can bet you that many people find ways not to do something they normally consider routine and once they stop, they are comfortable with their new habit of not doing it.

This, of course, scares me a little.  If I can create a way to not do something as simple as logging into the WW site and tracking my meals, I can probably do the same with many other things.  Will I stop exercising?  [Maybe] What if I stop making the bed?  Will I refuse to wash dishes?   The answer to the last two is probably not because even at my age, my mother is still in my head scolding me for things she doesn't even know I'm not doing.  Confused?  I am.

Okay, so really the answer is that I need to get back to tracking.  I have to start making it a habit again.  I really want to succeed at this, mainly because I like to have good health.  The secondary thing is that I want to look good (okay, maybe that's up there with health, but I don't want to sound selfish).

I took a step this week that I can't elaborate on, but I can tell you it was something that was pursued after I spoke to someone about staying in touch.  I knew if I did this, it would make me feel good.  So, the plan for me has to be that I get back on the tracking, er, track.  I know if I make it through at least one week, that can turn into two and soon it will be four weeks, where my habit will be on the positive side again.

What do you do when you fall off track?  How do you fix broken routines.  Hit the comments and let me know.  In the meantime, you can find me tracking.