Overdue update

Things have been going ok so far and the weight keeps dropping although not at the same pace it has in the past. I really can't expect it to stay at that pace but as long as it's dropping I'm happy.

There have been some bumps in the road though, mainly from boredom. It's the same thing to eat every day. There have been many days that I'll finish work too late to have a "dinner" when I get home and I don't want to go right to bed after I eat so I've been using some of the meal replacement bars from Slim-Fast. The cookie-dough one takes some getting used to and I haven't tried the oatmeal one (yuck) but I really like the brownie one. These are just a crutch though, just for those late nights or days when I'm working overtime. Even when I can eat actual food, I feel so limited by the options I have. Yes I know there are ways around this and I know that this is a very common situation that happens when people are on really strict diets for long periods of time. So I just trudge through it and move on.

When I started this quest it was June 10th, 2006 and I had just seen my parents about 3-4 days prior. In the beginning of July I mentioned to my mom that I had lost 30lbs but that is the last time I've mentioned it (or that she asked about it). I will see them again next week.....95 pounds lighter! I really can't wait to see their reaction when they see me.

My first goal was to be under 300 by the time I turn 40, well I hit that goal about a month ago. :) Now I have my sights on the final goal....225. Only 60 more to go.

Undoing old programming

I had a bit of a rough time as of late (as seen in the previous post) but I've been able to get through it, finally.

What I found out was there I had an internal sabotage point buried deep in my brain that would not allow me to get below 320lbs. Why that specific weight? No clue. I had seen it happen before so I knew that something was up. The last time that I seriously tried to lose weight was about 3 years ago. I started around 350-360 and got down to 320 and got stuck. I was stuck there for so long (about a month) that I became overly frustrated and found some reason to rationalize ending the diet.

So when it happened again this time, I knew something was at work behind the scenes. What I found was that it was my own mind trying to live up to years of programming that I had been doing to myself. I had always said to myself and others that "I'll never be skinny. I'll always be big" and if you say something enough times, you believe it and it becomes law in your mind. For some reason my mind picked 320 as the place to drawn that proverbial line in the sand and conjured up every weapon it could to thwart my efforts. So, I had a good long talk with myself (meditation) and made sure that my inner psyche understood that what I was doing was for the good of my entire body and that I was not trying to hurt myself or that I didn't love myself anymore. In fact I was doing this so I would be around longer and live a healthier and hopefully much longer life.

Within about 2 days, I felt renewed with my determination to lose the weight. I could see my goal again just like I could from day 1. The cravings and binges I did the week before were gone and that fire was roaring at full blast again. Best of all....the scale started moving again. :)

Another thing I noticed was that people are finally seeing that I've lost a lot of weight. My uniform has gone down 3 sizes (almost ready for a 4th) and when I was 320, no one noticed it but it seems like the last 10 lbs made all the difference. People are stopping me every day at work and saying "What the hell happened to you? You are looking so much better." It's funny that 3 and a half months of hard work finally gets noticed in the past few days. I'm totally not used to getting compliments so this is something new for me but I also find it encouraging. It's not just myself that sees the changes, but now it's the rest of the world that sees them too.

Diving head first into an empty swimming pool

Yes, it's dumb and yes it hurts and yes....I did just that (well metaphorically speaking).

Things had been going fairly well even with that small plateau I hit but somewhere along the way I think I got lost. 2 out of the past 3 days (Monday and today) have involved MAJOR binges on my part. No it wasn't candy or ice cream or any of the typical ammunition used with such dietetic attacks. This was meat, cheese and mayonaise (at least it was low fat hehehe).

After both times I felt like shit. I was thinking "what the hell did I just do!" Here I am 60 pounds lighter than when I started and fitting into clothes I haven't been able to wear in about 3 years and I'm destroying it all!

Have I given up? No. Have I lost sight of my goal? Maybe a little. Have I become bored with my program? Umm...yes. For nearly 12 weeks I've been doing the same thing day in and day out meal wise. There has been very little variety or change in the routine. I know I used to use non-fat sugar-free yougurt instead of milk for my shakes once in a while (roughly the same amount of calories - Dannone Sillouette brand) but maybe I need to do something else, something more.

I know I've been horrible about going to the gym. I've had ZERO motivation and it's been about 3 weeks since I've been there. I have lots of excuses but no good reasons.

I think what added to this (this time) is that I've had 3 days off in a row. Three days of being stuck in the house and being BORED! At work it's not an issue and tomorrow I start my week (4 on, 3 off, repeat) so those days will be easier.

So what will I do? Well first off I'll get over being pissed, angry, depressed, frustrated, and every other bad thing towards myself and brush myself off and start again. It's not the end of the world, just a nasty pothole that I thought was a puddle.

UN-stuck

I managed to break through my plateau and it seems like my weight loss is going in the right direction again.

Back on the 20th I went to the Canadian National Expo (the Ex or CNE for short) . It's basically a HUGE fair that lasts for 2 weeks at the end of August every year (for over 100 years) and it's full of carnival food and deadly temptations around every turn. Well with my plateau in full swing I decided to stop my program for 3 days and see if that would change things. It did. Even though I was back on regular food I still kept things in reason. My normal 1000 cals per day went to around 1500-1800 a day and I still did my best to make good choices. There were a few bad ones but they weren't any of my major vices (ice cream, pizza, and chinese food).

There have been some very rough days in between. I really wish every day was easy and I could just glide right through it but when I claw my way through the bad ones there is this sense of accomplishment. Some days are battled minute by minute but once that day is done, I can go "Phew, I made it through alive". Then I really feel that I earned what I lost weight-wise that day.

So where am I now? With my lowtech bathroom scale I'm at 322 as of this morning. I haven't had access to the dialysis scales that I prefer to use lately but it's only a matter of time before I do but I know it will confirm what my home scale shows.

Stuck

I'm stuck in a damn plateau. Granted how my work schedule has been the past 6 days or so it's been really hard to keep to a regular schedule. Since I'm on shift work an occasional monkey wrench gets thrown in (a night shift) that just messes everything up. I've been horrible about going to the gym but there has been no cheating at all so at least there is that.

I don't think this will last long but it's still a bit frustrating when that damn scale needle isn't moving at all. I'm probably just obsessing about it. I can tell because I'm weighing myself nearly every day and I know that I shouldn't.

Oh well....time to get ready for work again.

Killing the flying fat man

I've been noticing something lately that I know it's not unique to me. When I look at my internal mirror, I still see that near 400 man I used to be. Sure I've lost over 40 lbs so far and I've dropped sizes clothes wise, I can still clearly see how big I used to be. The visualization of how I want to look at my goal weight has been getting a bit fuzzy lately when it used to be crystal clear and in a sense I'm getting frustrated as a result. Again I know this is not unique but it sure is a bitch to go through.

I'm going to have to work on this and actively change how I see myself. It's something that may be hard since I've seen the same overweight person in the mirror for so long I've gotten used to it, doesn't mean I liked seeing it but in an odd way it became comforting. Now I'm changing that and I've lost that stability since I'm in a state of transition.

The Grocery Minefield and other things

Well with my weight loss back on track (well at least moving in the right direction) I have been feeling pretty good self-esteem wise for the past few days. Yesterday, I was able to comfortably wear a shirt that had not fit me in almost 3 years, but I was still forced to wear long pants since all my shorts are too big and I don't have a belt. At least they were light weight pants so it wasn't any big deal. I think it's funny that I haven't been able to wear these pants because they were a bit too snug, now it's just the opposite. :)

After the weekly movie outing it was time to do the weekend errands and this included grocery shopping. If I stop in on my own, I know what I'm after and grab it and I'm out. I have no need for 90% of the isles so I don't even venture down them. It's just all temptation and it's things that I don't need to face right now. Well with the two of us shopping, we hit every isle. I couldn't believe how hard it was to go down some of those isles and meet up again with some of my old vices/arch-enemies. It was killing me. Mainly because I was hungry, I was a little overdue for a meal and I was getting a bit tired so I was feeling like I could succumb to their siren songs once again. I stayed strong though and only but my dinners and some pickles in the cart. I've been adding in one or two every few days as sort of a treat/variety thing. They have a negligable impact on my daily calorie totals and have been the only "cheating" I've been doing.
Every trip to the grocery store has been a challenge but yesterday's was much worse than normal.

I'm not sure where this "strength" is coming from if that's what it can be called. It might be more like laziness on my part. Because I'm the only one in the house that is on this diet, there are very dangerous minefields in the kitchen, but I have not yielded to them. I've even gone to the extreme as to not even touch the containers. Seems extreme I know but a touch leads to a smell which leads to a taste that leads to the guilt. One of my all-time vices is sitting right now in my freezer less than a foot from my dinners....ice cream. No, I didn't buy it but I know when I open the door I don't even mentally acknowledge it's there. I just look for my white box and close the door.

Maybe this just my inner self proving to the outer self that there is a new sheriff in town and the old rules don't apply anymore. I know this isn't some devine light of salvation from my food demons so it's probably an intesnse fear of returning to the fatter person I used to be.

Will these demons still haunt me in the grocery store? at home? ....probably, but maybe one day I'll shake them and be rid of them for good.

In the meantime I must fight the good fight.