Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Trust the plan

For the last week or two I have actually been feeling very positive about where I am with my eating, where I am with my exercise and where I’m going with my weight loss journey. I’m feeling stronger, more empowered and honestly more capable of once again completing this task of losing weight. So it came as a complete shock to me during the last week to be paralyzed with fear.

Let me backtrack, the plan that I am currently working with for my weight-loss efforts involves a balancing act. I’m not giving up anything… I’m balancing. I know for me right now deprivation is not going to work. So I’ve devised a plan that actually is working for me. Slowly, but surely. Honestly it really is a fine line. I am still eating a sweet treat most nights. This could blow up in my face really really quickly and easily. I have tried to set up a check system so that I don’t eat the sweet treats when I shouldn’t, but it really is a crapshoot. Why am I willing to take this risk? I think the biggest reason is because for me it gives normalcy. Normal is what I’m striving for. I don’t want to live a life where I’m constantly stressed about my food choices.  And let’s face it, for the first time in a long time I am excited about this journey.

Enter the fear. It started last week, the one day that I did not earn my steps but still ate the sweet treat. I laid in bed that night wailing and gnashing my teeth in fear that I had gained weight from my little bobble. OK, maybe that was a little melodramatic… A lot melodramatic! But in all seriousness, I was worried. I was starting to see movement on the scales in the right direction and I didn’t want to upset that progress. It turned out OK though. (In fairness I didn’t totally go off track and I got right back on track the next day.)

On Monday I wrote about the weekend  I wrote about my hunger on Sunday that lingered into Monday causing my calorie counts to go a little bit higher than I wanted them to be. Enter the fear. I worried! I really worried.

On Tuesday morning I stepped on the scale for a little check of my weight. I looked down and saw the number and let out a sigh of disgust. On one hand, I was happy because it was a maintain from a week earlier. But on the other hand I was disgusted because it was a maintain for the week and a gain for the weekend.  What happened to all of my effort from the previous week. There was nothing I could do other than move forward. I had already figured out why I was so hungry those days and in doing so had pinpointed the problem, which means I know how to correct it for the future. There really was nothing else I could do but move forward.

I moved through my Tuesday with a smile on my face. And while I ate my sweet treat, I wasn’t worried about it because I had met the criteria that I had set aside a couple weeks back for eating a sweet treat at night. In the back of my mind I wondered if I wasn’t a bit dehydrated though, I drank  the same amount of liquid at work… But almost immediately I had to pee constantly. In my experience whenever I start drinking after being dehydrated I pee a lot to get rid of the water that I was retaining. I refused to think about it deeply and just kept moving forward.

Wednesday dawned and a new day, a new chance to step on the scale. I was so relieved to see the lower number on the scales this morning.. My effort from last week is back! Hallelujah! While I was in the shower one thought kept going through my head… Trust the plan.

Trust the plan? If you have a solid plan in place for weight loss, the wait is going to come off. A slight aberration in the plan is not going to derail you. Trust the plan.

On Monday night I set out running clothes and set my alarm for 30 minutes earlier. I must’ve been insane! But, when that alarm went off I rolled out of bed through all my clothes and headed outside for a run. I got out there and it was misting… Not a full rain thank heavens. I didn’t let that mist stop me. I ran anyway! I was wearing my glasses, and they fogged up something horrible. I push them up on my head and kept running. I did it!



About the glasses… Yes I’m pretty blind without them. I was able to see and stay on the sidewalk and when I had to cross the road I could see that there were no cars there for sure. So in that regard I was safe. However if there was some stalker or person out to do me harm hiding behind a tree… I wouldn’t have seen them. For example as I approached a street corner I saw what looked like a tree or somethingand then the tree moved. A quick flip down at my glasses revealed that it was a person walking their dog that had stopped to let the dog do their business. Yeah that’s how my run went. Never a dull moment. 

Luckily my work break walks were serene!!



It’s hump day today… And today, I’m just trusting my plan.