No, I'm not on maintenance...

I had a pretty good week last week. And it resulted in a pretty good loss. I lost 1.4 pounds. And here's how I did it...

I usually splurge (my definition of the word "splurge" is to eat whatever I want and however much of it I want, just in case you're wondering) on Saturday's after weigh in. Then I tell myself I'm not going to splurge on Sunday, but I usually splurge just as bad on Sunday's as I do on Saturdays. And then I usually over eat in some sorta way on Monday's too. Then back to the plan the rest of the week only to end up weighing exactly the same at weigh in as I did the week before. 

Great maintenance plan.

Except I'm not on maintenance!!

I'm still about 6 pounds away from goal. So what I did this past week is what I should have been doing for the past year. I did not splurge on Sunday or Monday. I was back on plan Sunday morning.

And I added something a little extra to the mix this past week. I told myself not to eat unless I was hungry.

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD THAT WAS??!!!

Oh, wait, of course you do!

It was SO hard for me to sit here in the evenings wanting to snack but telling myself I couldn't because I wasn't hungry. I had nothing but healthy snacks in the house, too. Snacks that I could totally eat and still stay on plan. Snacks that wouldn't put me over my daily points allowance. But I would not eat unless I was actually hungry.

A couple of nights I almost convinced myself to eat something just because it had been3 or 4 hours since dinner and I knew I'm supposed to eat something every 3 to 4 hours to keep my metabolism evened out. And I almost convinced myself of that. But I didn't give in. I didn't cave. I didn't eat.

Was the hardest thing I've done in SO long. And I honestly don't know if I can do it this week.

But I'm going to try.

Who wants to try it with me? Before you hit the comment button and tell me you're on board, know that it's NOT going to be easy. You're going to feel like you're depriving your body. But remember you're not. You're only depriving your mind. Your body will let you know when it needs nourishment and you'll just have to wait until it does, no matter what your mind or emotions tell you.

So whadaya say?

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Can I throw in the towel now??

I have been having the hardest time, lately. My old demons of food addiction have been creeping up on me alot lately. Its really made me rethink all of my weigh loss accomplishments. Have I really come as far as it looks?

This week, I gained 3.2 lbs.

So that's the outward assessment of my weigh progress for this past week. But my inward assessment is that I feel like I'm slipping back into the old me. Now, I haven't been bingeing or hiding my food or eating in secret and I haven't been really over eating (too large portions) but I have been craving food and eating what I crave.

A craving is a good and natural thing. Most times. Our bodies will tell us when it needs certain foods. Right? So what do you do when your body tells you it needs a cheese quesadilla? Or fried chicken? Or chocolate cake? Or cheese fries? Or how about hand made potato chips covered in blue cheese, cheddar cheese and bacon? Why does my body possibly need these things??

It doesn't.

These are cravings in my mind and in my emotions, but most definitely not in my body.

But they feel the same. It really feels like my body wants these things. I feel it all over. My head tells me. My stomach tells me. My heart tells me.

I heard Dr. Oz say this week that we get cravings for only 10 minutes at a time and all we have to do is (drink water first) ride out those 10 minutes doing something else (distraction) for the craving to pass and then we'll be okay. What?! My cravings last for days! Sometimes weeks. What's up with that?

And while I'm "satisfying" these cravings (by eating all these bad things), I feel vindicated, comforted, and completely satisfied. Even afterwards I usually don't feel bad about eating them. I usually feel like I've just set through a productive therapy session or a deep conversation with a friend who has helped me work out my issues. I rarely feel guilty for giving into these cravings.

Now, sometimes my stomach makes me feel "guilty" by tossing and turning after I've eaten these bad things (like it feels right now because I just finished a half a brick of cream cheese and half a bag of Ruffles).

Its weird, because sometimes I do great when these cravings hit and sometimes (like now) I don't handle them well at all. The problem is, the times that I don't handle them well usually set me back anywhere from 2 to 10 lbs and then I'm right back where I was a year ago.

I'm so mad I could scream!!

I am now at the exact ... same ... weight as I was on September 20, 2008!!!

I know... take this one day at a time, Cara. I can't keep looking back. I know. I have to get a grip. I just want to throw in the towel and surrender to this whole weigh loss thing.

If it wasn't for how disgusted I am with the fat rolls lazing around my waist and drooping on the under side of my arms between my elbows and armpits, I swear, I'd give up and raise the white flag! But it makes me so much more mad that I have to carry around these extra fat rolls.

And what also makes me mad is the extra skin hanging around. I really think I'd be 10 lbs lighter if I didn't have all this extra skin hanging on me. I can't (won't) get surgery to get rid of it so I'm just stuck with it, I guess. I would have thought that after almost 3 years the skin would have gone back, but it hasn't so I suppose it never will.

Can you tell I'm just stinking frustrated!?!?

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Physical? Or emotional, spiritual and intellectual?

Drum roll, please...

I lost 7.2 pounds this week!!!! =D

Can you believe it??? I don't remember if I've ever lost that much in one week.

Now, mind you, I had gained 10.6 pounds since my last official weigh in, two weeks ago. But, in my food journal, I wrote down what I weighed last Saturday morning at home (before I took the no-weigh-in-pass at WW), which was 10.6 pounds more than my weigh from the previous week. (Yes, I gained 10 pounds in ONE WEEK!)

So this week, I "officially" gained 3.2 pounds (documented in WW system), thanks to the no-weigh-in-pass from last week. If I would have weighed in last week, I could have "officially" posted a 7 pound loss... No More No-Weigh-In-Passes for me!!

I still lost the 7 pounds, though.

And you know how I did it?? I went back to to the beginning and did what I did when I first started WW. I journaled everything I ate. Wrote down what exercise I did and didn't do. Tracked my flex points as I used them. I became more active. And I kept my craving demons at bay.

It really was a sweet victory because I focused internally for benchmarks on how I was doing, not focusing on the scale. I don't know if I've ever done that before. I had to get my head straight and think about the weight loss from an emotional and spiritual and intellectual perspective, not a physical one. Weird because weight loss is a physical thing, right?

Well, kinda. It sure has physical results. Tangible. Visual. But I think I'm learning that it is anything BUT physical.

It's all in my head and in my heart. What a revelation, huh?!

I still need to be able to process this new perspective on weight loss. But I'll tell you one thing its doing for me is it's helping me keep my emotional eating in check. Funny, because the topic at WW yesterday was emotional eating. It's like WW is really trying to tell me something. I needed motivation last week, so they talked about motivation. I needed to conquer my emotional eating and they talked about it this week. Cool, huh?

I started out this past week just focusing on one day at a time and one meal at a time. But more importantly, I focused inward on what my heart was saying about the food I was eating and what my mind was thinking about it and I tried to separate the physical responses I was feeling in response to eating or not eating or craving.

Usually, by the end of the week, I've already planned out what I'm going to splurge on on Saturday. At one point, I got a craving for chips and cream cheese (Ruffles chips dipped in cream cheese, mmmmm!). So I set my sights on that. But as the week went on, I couldn't find the excitement about eating the chips. I just kept remembering how the last few times I ate them, they weren't as good as I remembered them. That's separating my emotional and psychological response to food from my physical responses.

That snack used to just bring the world back into balance for me. When I ate them, I'd feel this rush of warmth that would start at my tongue, travel to my brain, then warm my entire body. "Mmmm." or "Ahhhh." is what I'd say. But this past week, I kept trying to envision those feelings and all I could come up with was that the taste wasn't going to cure or fix anything in my body. It would just be a waste of points and calories that I'd have to work really hard to get back off.

So all day yesterday, I kept checking myself whenever a so called "craving" would hit. Nothing I thought of was worth eating. Nothing I thought of eating was worth having to work it back off.

So I didn't splurge.

And I didn't miss it.

I think I'm on to something. :)

I went for a bike ride this morning. First time I've gone for a Sunday morning bike ride in a while.

This whole thing isn't getting any easier, but I'm hoping I'm learning more about myself and I can start to keep it all in perspective a little more.

We'll see. :)

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