What's Different?

I have been reflecting on the past year as next Tuesday will mark my one year anniversary of my "lifestyle change." I've done some amazing things that have impressed myself. I have fallen many times and I look back on those things with guilt, but at the end of the day I know I deserve a pat on the back because no matter how much I've struggled, I have overcome and continue to try. I couldn't say that a year ago, much less two or three years ago.

Am I where I want to be? Not hardly, but I have learned a great deal about my emotions, eating better, working out and that I am capable of doing things I never thought I could.

I have been racking my brain to see what is different about where I am on my journey right now and where I was one year ago. A lot of things have changed. A lot of things aren't where I want them to be... so, I ask myself, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

A year ago I KNEW that if I didn't get a handle on my emotions that emotional eating would continue to take over my life as it has for the majority of it. I knew I would continue gaining weight and that I would continue to be obese for the rest of my life. Essentially, I would end up like my father. My father strugles with heart disease (that runs in my family) and is a borderline diabetic.

I KNEW that I had a serious sugar addiction which caused my binges. I KNEW that I wanted that to stop.

I had a fire somewhere within me. I KNEW that it was important to start therapy. In fact, I remember when I intially emailed the therapist I was thinking about going to see that I told her "I'm ready to grab this by the horns..."

Where'd the horn grabbing motivation go?

Yesterday, after a great convo with the man that is ALWAYS in my corner (my friend Matt), I realized where the motivation went...

I haven't been LOSING any weight since July. That kind of takes the fizz out of your soda when you stop seeing the scale move yet you're going through the motions. It makes you tired. It makes you want to give up because you're doing SOME of the work, but not seeing any results.

So what is my stumbling block, again, what's DIFFERENT?

I haven't been planning my meals. It used to be on Saturdays I would get up, go the gym, peruse some recipes online and figure out something to cook on Sunday for the week. Typically I would fix one big meal (as I was cooking for myself the majority of the time) that would be lunch/dinner until at least Wednesday. Sometimes I would also cook a smaller meal to change it up because eating the SAME thing for 3-4 days KILLS me.

I haven't been eating breakfast. I know this may be a shocker to some of you... I've NEVER been a breakfast person. In fact, I don't like getting up any earlier than I have to. This morning I woke up at 6:10. Took a shower and was out the door by 6:35. I'm not hungry in the morning. If I eat too early I have to choke my food down and it makes me feel icky. I used to eat breakfast AT WORK between 9-10. Then I would be hungry again around 12-1 and I would eat lunch. I KNOW how much of a difference this makes with jump starting your metabolism because if I don't eat anything in the morning I can easily go until late in the afternoon before I eat lunch.

I haven't been tracking my meals. When I did WW I wrote everything down religiously. I KNOW that it makes a HUGE difference in what you eat when you write everything down. Even if you aren't tracking calories or points, there are some things you think twice about eating because do you REALLY want to write them down?!

Something else that really hit me hard in my convo with Matt was this...

"Stop being scared of your own abilities and just let go."

HOLY SHIT! He hit the NAIL ON THE HEAD.

As someone with OCD and a perfectionism complex combined with a procrastination complex I often find that there are things I really want to accomplish, but I don't do them because I am too afraid of my own failure. If I look back on the past year I have had a lot of what I would consider "failures," BUT I'M STILL HERE. I'M STILL OVERCOMING, I'M STILL WANTING TO STICK WITH IT. I just need to get my head out of my ass and START DOING IT AGAIN.

What's the famous quote?

"The only real failure in life is the failure to try.”

I keep saying "oh man, I'm not in therapy anymore, I'm so bummed." The truth of the matter is that I was given ALL of the tools that I need to learn to deal with my emotions, I have a great support group and I have all of the resources in the world to manage my compulsive over eating/binging. There's really no room for EXCUSES....

LATER NEVER EXISTS, right?

Again, Genius Friend moment brought up that I can't do HALF of the work during the week, play ridiculously hard on the weekend and expect to see results. You have to do ALL of the work during the week and if you play hard on the weekend that means you will MAINTAIN. I think I've proven to myself that I can do that, now it's time to prove to myself that I can get the rest of this weight off.

And my own light bulb moment that went off again - WHY AM I SO AFRIAD OF GETTING OFF THIS WEIGHT? WHAT AM I AFRAID TO SHOW PEOPLE, rather than hiding behind the "fat girl facade" so that I can make excuses for people not being interested in me or not wanting them to get close to me. That's all of my own bullshit. I have a great personality, I'm a VERY cute girl... people like me or they don't like me and losing weight isn't going to magically fix any of life's problems. In fact, it may create some more that I haven't experienced before.

I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE because I feel like for the past few months all this "blog" has been is me bitching about what I need to do and how things aren't going to the way I want them to and this is what I'm "GOING" to do, but none of that has happened.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing consistantly and expecting a different result every time... apparently I have been IN-FUCKING-SANE for the past 6 months. (Come on, I had a good laugh at that, you should too).

I tend to get overwhelmed making big plans for myself... I look at the list (like I made during my last post) and think "oh man, that's SO much to change." For now I know that I WILL START PLANNING MY MEALS again and that I WILL START WRITING DOWN WHAT I'M EATING. Of course, I'll be at the gym, but for right now I can't promise you 5 days a week. I just know that as Jen over at Prior Fat Girl says...

I will take it

"ONE BITE AT A TIME. ONE STEP AT A TIME."