A forum for an overweight mom of one to chronicle my journey toward health, and the realization that it's so much better to be healthy than not. Might be a gripe or two, but hey, I'm only human.
Okay, so I fell off the wagon today. Like, BIG. I ate an entire box (that's eight, to the layperson) of chocolate-frosted donuts. AN ENTIRE BOX.
I'm recording this moment of weakness for two reasons:
Accountability: You guys and gals will read this, shake your heads and tsk in pity and shame, and that will remind me never to do this again (because I hate feeling pitied and shamed); and
History: This will act as my proverbial walk of shame. If I record how amazingly gross I feel right now, the next time I'm tempted to down almost 1400 calories (yeah, you read that right, folks) I can come to this post and remember how vile it feels to know that I ate nearly my entire daily calorie allowance in thirty minutes.
And they weren't even that good. Kinda waxy, which makes me wonder how long I'll be paying for this transgression, if you get my meaning. (One word: YIKES.)
Anyway, for what it's worth, sorry folks. Or really, I should be saying, Sorry Heather. Won't happen again.
Now get back up, dust yourself off, and get back in the race.
Had a VERY off day today. The Munchkin decided to stop running a fever, but instead chose to voice her displeasure with being sick by screaming. ALL DAY. She screamed when I put her down, when I picked her up, when I sat down while still holding her, when I put her in her high chair for meals, when I tried to feed her ... well, you get the idea. The only time she stopped screaming was when I put her down for a nap and closed her door. By 6pm I had had it, so I took her for a little stroll around the neighborhood. It calmed her down enough that I was able to feed her dinner and then get her into bed, where she fell asleep without a peep. The little devil.
The point of describing all of that is to say that I was slightly stressed out today, and because of that I went WAY over my daily calorie budget. I also didn't do what you'd consider an actual workout. Add to that the fact that I weighed in this morning and broke even (I thought for certain that I had at least lost a pound), and that makes for a pretty depressed person. I know that stress is definitely not an excuse to eat everything in sight, but I'm working on controlling that part of me. Today, though, I cracked.
However, tomorrow I fully intend to start off right by grabbing a bowl of HEALTHY cereal (I promise it won't be Froot Loops or anything like that) and taking The Munchkin out for a walk. Not sure if it'll be on base or here in the village, but it will be a walk nonetheless. And I hope to make the day better from there.
(First off, a quick "housekeeping" note: I'm going to try to post every day, if only to report there's nothing to report. Nothing like a little redundancy to get your blood pumping, eh?)
I'm having my first "this sucks" moment. Wow, I made it one whole day before turning into Debbie Downer. Someone call Guinness. (And no, not the beer people, although I could use one right now.)
I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not supposed to see some major change right away. I'm a very results-oriented person, and I always have been. This means that if you tell me it's going to take a year to learn how to do something, I will do my best to find a way to learn it in a week. If I can't find a way, then I quit. It sucks, and it's very defeatist, but hey -- that's how I roll, people.
So I walked for 35 minutes this morning, and I ate fairly well (I'm finishing the day a whopping 37 calories under my daily budget of 1,798, according to my Lose It iPhone app, but I'm still finishing under). I was never starving or felt cheated, and I'm actually going to bed feeling sated in terms of appetite.
So can someone please explain to me why I still feel like today was a failure?
Is it because I didn't manage to run a marathon today? Survive on 500 calories? Fit into a size six pair of True Religions? (And yes, I know that they don't size them that way. I'm trying to make a point here, people.) I think I expected something to change when I made this declaration of intent to lose this weight. What that "something" is, I haven't a clue. Maybe I expected to have a crapload of energy so that I could have walked longer, or maybe I expected my body to recognize my intentions and start behaving in a more "athletic" way. I don't know. What I do know is that my expectations are obviously unrealistic. So what can I do about that?
I think the iPhone app I'm using will help some. Lose It is a way to track the calories you take in, plus factor in any exercise you may have done. You enter your starting weight, your goal weight, and how many pounds you'd like to lose each week; the app gives you the calorie limit for each day and tells you when you should reach your goal (my D-Day is around the end of June 2011, I believe). I am hoping that, once I get more days under my belt, I will be able to see my progress -- however slow it may be -- and my unrealistic expectations will either go away or actually begin to be more attainable.
For now, I have to be happy with going to bed feeling simultaneously satisfied and unsatisfied. Nothing like a little inner confusion to end your day!
