Breakin' Up Is Hard To Do

OK everyone sing along... "Come a come a down do be do down down. Come a come a down do be do down down. Come a come a down do be do down down. Breakin' up is hard to do!"

I am trying very hard to break off my affair with food. Fact is I love food, but food does not love me back. It doesn't even care about me. What kind of a relationship is that? I should be able to walk away and say "buh bye" right? Wrong... it seems our bodies cannot do without food so I am forced to continue eating food. Boy does that ever suck. Talk about an abusive relationship.

I need to set the terms of the relationship and that is where the trouble lies. I cannot find a happy medium between all and nothing. I begin by setting limits but then when the food is before me I dig in with gusto. I love food. Any food. Particularly well seasoned and sauced food. As my dear husband says I never eat anything plain. I am supposed to be eating lean and green. Ok so it starts out lean and green but soon ends up with condiments and sauces galore and it tastes so wonderful be it Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Indian, whatever. The sauces and condiments make the dish and I am having trouble refining my taste buds down to the basics.

I am having successes although they are not showing on the scales. I have done an absolutely fabulous job of avoiding the bowl of trick-or-treat candy at work. It's the good stuff too: mini Snickers, Milky Way, Whoppers, Reese's Peanut butter Cups, Junior Mints, Nestle's Crunch Bars, need I go on? Last year I ate tons of the stuff every day during October. This year I have not so I know I am doing well in that regard. Also, I had a dilemma regarding what to hand out to the trick-or-treaters on Halloween. I know darn well that any candy I buy I will eventually eat as the things I do not like are few and far between. I hate those Circus Peanut candies but I would not hand them out to anyone. Besides they are not individually packaged for handing out. Hmmmm so what do I dislike that I actually could hand out and not be embarrassed to be giving it away. Ahhhh BUBBLE GUM! I hate the stuff and I don't know why. I used to eat the stuff all the time as a kid, but somewhere along the way as I got much older I grew to loathe it. SO I bought 2 bags of bubble gum and that is what I will be handing out. Any leftovers will go in the candy jar at work as there are plenty of other people who do like bubble gum.

And while I am still eating too much, I am also eating healthier. Lots more veggies. So that is good too. At least I haven't quit. Usually by now I would have given up. But each time I feel I am failing, I am trying to look deeper for the cause instead of just ignoring it all. It is frustrating to realize how very addicted I am to food. This blog is helping too because in order to write about my experience I have to examine it so that I know what I want to say and how I want to say it.

So while I should be down about 30 pounds by now I am only down about 18 or so because I continue to struggle over the same 2-3 pounds. So frustrating.

So tomorrow I start over AGAIN and try to be honest with myself. Food, are you listening? I HATE you!

UGH

SO last week I had gained a pound. This week I am still holding on to that pound. However, during the week my weight went up significantly. The day after weigh-in day I checked the scale and I'd gained 4-5 pounds. It just hadn't caught up to me on weigh-in day. So I successfully got back down to the +1 pound state. My goal is to show significant improvement by next Monday. This past week's major challenges were a pot luck lunch at work and a wedding reception on Saturday. Both featured fabulous foods, none of which fit into my diet, and all of which I indulged in. Good news is that I have not been digging into the Halloween candy that is out every day at work. This is a major coup as it is a huge temptation for me and lasts for the entire month of October. A challenge coming up for this week is a Halloween dessert buffet scheduled for tomorrow at work. I handled this one by explaining to the organizer that I would not be participating in this activity. I knew that if I brought a dessert I would eat it as well as what everyone else had brought. Just a bit of this and a bit of that to taste them, but it all adds up. I plan to not even go into the room where the desserts will be served tomorrow. Resisting this temptation is a huge success for me.

Another success is that I had my lab work done this week and most of my levels are now in the normal range. Those that are not have dropped significantly. I have a doctor's appointment scheduled for next week. He is going to be surprised and very pleased with me. I am pleased with myself.

Empowered

I feel empowered today. What a difference going to church makes. We had a great lesson in Relief Society on repentance. I was thinking about a lot of things having to do with my weight loss efforts prior to class. But the lesson helped me go a bit deeper in my thoughts.

First off I am sabbotaging myself. It's what I do. It's my pattern. I get fired up about losing weight, start a program, am successful, and then blow it all by rewarding my success with food. Then I give up. I am following that pattern now EXCEPT I am not going to give up. I am doing a lot of soul searching and self examination in order to turn this around and break the vicious cycle.

Blew it big time this week. Example: A friend brought me beautiful home grown tomatoes. I love a slice of tomato on toast or a cracker with mayonnaise spread on it and a bit of fresh basil on top. YUM! So that is what I did with the tomatoes. But did I stop at a few slices? No! I ate cracker after cracker after cracker of this stuff because it tasted sooooo good and I could not get enough. I probably ate the entire package of saltines. Stupid.

So I need to be better about admitting I am out of control where food is concerned and stop it before it gets started. I feel like I am on the verge of tackling this. I feel like I am standing on the edge of a huge chasm and have been invited to drop my burdens into this big gaping hole. Unload the weight, but also the other burdens I carry, emotional, spiritual, whatever. Drop all this stuff and walk away from it so I can be free and progress. This knowledge alone makes me feel freer and lighter. But still I am not dropping everything into the hole. What is stopping me?

This program is a huge help because I can eat the foods on the plan all day and then only have to deal with the real temptations at night when I have my (supposedly) lean and green meal. Sometimes it is not as lean as it should be. I am a huge condiment eater. As my husband says, "You never eat anything plain." Correct. Baked some lovely chicken breasts but had to put tikka masala sauce on mine. Poached salmon needs tartar sauce on it, etc. Gotta stop that. This program works. I know it does, I am the one causing it to not work.

I know that I need to rely more heavily on the Lord. I have been slowly moving away from Him for one reason or another and I need to come back. There are so many areas in which I need to improve spiritually. This needs to be a part of my weight loss journey. If I do not bring the Lord along on my journey I will not be successful. So I have decided not to go alone. I will take the Lord with me and rely on him for the help I need. This knowledge also makes me feel freer and lighter.

Tomorrow is a new day and a new week. I will do better

Bit by bit

I am slowly starting to tell friends about my weight loss. Of course everyone is happy for me and very encouraging but I find myself holding back. I'm just not ready to let EVERYONE know. Not ready to post it on facebook. Again I believe it is due to my lack of self confidence. I'm afraid that if I am too sure of myself I will get cocky, blow the diet and gain it all back and be terribly depressed about it. I still have a very fragile relationship with food. It is all so tempting and I fear losing control.

Right now my best friends are celery and sugar-free Jello. Both satisfy a craving/need to eat something but don't impact negatively on the daily calorie intake. I am struggling with drinking all the water I am supposed to be drinking. It's a LOT of water and I am just not that thirsty. Doing my best though.

Trying to decide how to reward myself and at what point to do so. 25 lbs? 30 lbs? 50lbs? I think what I would like to do is treat myself to having my nails done. I have never done that and I think it would be a fun way to treat myself. I could get the full set of acrylic nails and a fun paint job on them. Or maybe just go with the French manicure. Hmmmmmm ....what to do?

Doing Great!

Well I have now been on this program for 8 weeks and have lost 20 pounds! I am so happy about it! I cannot really say it is easy. I am tempted by food on a daily basis, but I am learning to make wise choices. Sometimes I give in to a craving for something but I find that if I just have a small amount of that item I am happy and can move on. It amazes me when I get on the scale and see that I have lost more weight. I guess I just don't believe in myself and have failed so many times in the past that I expect failure instead of success. I need to believe in ME!