11/7/05
Well I'm seeing Duane the trainer today. I think switching to mornings is a great idea. When I had afternoon sessions I had all day to dread going and come up with a way to get out of it. I'm usually pretty motivated in the morning. That all being said, I've pretty much decided to tell Duane the trainer that I don't want to schedule another session this week. I'm ready to start trying this on my own. I actually started getting our upstairs set up to do his interval workout. I think it's a good workout, but I still only want it as part of my routine--not the whole thing.
I did a lot of thinking before I fell asleep last night. I still want to lose weight, but you'd never know it from my behaviors. I've got a very Wild West thing going on right now--there seem to be no rules. I had really hoped to be much farther along at this point, and I'm disappointed I've been foundering. I'm very happy that I haven't gained weight back--I seem to be gaining and losing the same 2 or 3 pounds. Even if I wasn't interested in losing weight, the habits I've had over the last few months are not healthy and are really impacting my quality of life. My problems are pretty much solely with food. I'm consistently getting about 3 workouts a week, sometimes more. I could do more, but really right now my problems are 95% food based.
Here's what I think the problems are at the moment.
1.) Boredom
I am trapped in the house all day because of work, but really don't have enough work to focus on all day every day. I also don't enjoy my work very much so I tend to do only what I need to, when I need to. This leaves me with lots of unoccupied time during the day and I'm very, very bored. Weekends also seem to be very boring. There isn't much to do in suburbia and now that it's winter our options are even fewer. When I get bored I overeat and get depressed, which just leads to more overeating.
2.) Lack of regular, balanced meals
Lately I've been on this path where I'm just eating whatever, whenever and it's mostly junk--a lot of fast food and junky snacks. I can only imagine how unstable my blood sugar is, which I'm sure is why I'm constantly craving junk and just moving from fix to fix.
3.) Motivation
Sure, I want to lose weight, but it's for very abstract reasons like better health. There isn't much in the here and now really pushing me to lose weight. I've always been fat, so I don't really know what the alternative is like. I'm better than I was before, and so sometimes it doesn't really seem like losing weight needs to be a high priority for me.
4.) Lack of self-care
I've fallen back into the bad habit of not changing out of my PJ's and sweats throughout the day, I rarely fix my hair, I can't tell you the last time I painted my nails, etc. I haven't been investing much in taking care of myself or feeling good about myself and my appearance.
5.) Ignoring limits and my body signals
I've really gotten out of the habit of listening to my body and letting it tell me when to eat. I've been eating for taste and recreation, not to respond to hunger. I also seem to have no limits beyond eating until I'm uncomfortably full. I never had much of a sense of limits where it came to food, but when I concentrate I can keep to them. I haven't been putting any effort into recognizing or respecting limits when it comes to food.
6.) Water
I haven't been making any effort to drink water. The only good behavior I've managed to pick up is that I usually order water in restaurants instead of another drink. Which brings me to...
7.) Eating Out Too Often
I know I can make good choices at a restaurant, but it's also very easy not to and every time we go out to eat I take the risk of severely overeating. I've even let go of basic rules like ordering either an appetizer or dessert, not both, and only eating 1/2 of my entree. Lately it's just been a free-for-all.
8.) Using DH as Cover
It's very easy for me to let my behavior be "OK" because DH is doing it too. It's always easier to have a partner in crime, and there are many times I will excuse behavior that is really inexcusable because we did it together. This is bad for me, but could be devastating for my diabetic DH.
<More later--have to head to the gym>
11:30am
--2 boca burgers, no cheese
--10 or so medium strawberries
--carrot coins w/dip
I had a good workout this morning and I'm feeling pretty good. I feel like I got some clarity this morning and now I need to finish defining my problems and then working on solutions.
In unrelated news, our wait list came through for OKW this December instead of SSR. More points back to us!
3:15pm
--1 sm can vegetable soup
--1 oz Ruffles
Wow, soup is very filling. Let's see how long this sticks with me. I'm heading out now to organize the garage. Why? Because I'm bored!!!
5:45pm
--1/2 pear dutch baby
--1/2 large cheddar omelet
I actually got a lot of the garage cleaned out and even did some fall cleanup in our yard. It felt nice to be productive!!!
The dutch baby turned out so well!!! It got the idea off an inexpensive meals thread on the Budget Board. It was just a couple of eggs, and 1/2 cup each of flour, milk, and sugar (Splenda for us). I added a chopped ripe pear and 1/2t. almond extract. 25 minutes at 400 and it was great!!!
6:45pm
--1/2 sm slice nsa "leftover" bread
I had a couple of bananas, and a couple of cups of yogurt that were about to go bad, so I took a banana bread recipe, used the yogurt in place of the oil and the other banana the recipe called for and baked it all up (again, with Splenda instead of sugar). It turned out pretty well. I made a 9" loaf. I cut aside 1/2 to freeze for later, and the rest I cut into 8 slices. Hopefully it will work out for us and we won't go nuts.
I've had to do a lot of "use it up" cooking in the past few days. Luckily I've only lost one yogurt so far. I've got 8 eggs that need to be eaten in the next week, so there may be a few egg tortilla mornings. I also have one pear, a few strawberries, a bit of milk, 2 ears of corn on the cob, and some broccoli to cook up in the next few days.
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The rest of the evening did not end well. I don't know what came over me but I wound up eating 2 1/2 thick slices of the bread, a whole bunch of Ruffles with the rest of the ranch dip and yes, you guessed it, 1/2 a pizza. Ugh! I had such a good day, and then it all fell apart after 8pm. I think a combination of no breakfast and an early dinner put me in a bad place, but I honestly wish I'd fought a little harder to hang on.
I just wanted you to know that I read your journal frequently and admire you so much for the 45 pounds you've lost so far. You inspired me to work harder at losing, and between that and my semi-South Beach diet, I'm down 16 since the start of the summer. 
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