happy friday folks!

This week, it feels like Friday took a long time to get here. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who wish the week away and live for Saturday and Sunday. I try to enjoy each day as it comes. This morning though, I woke up, completely disoriented and thinking it was Saturday. Eventually, I figured it out and all was sort of fine. It was a weird way to start the day.

This morning I had a good workout, almost completely back to normal levels of effort after my back trouble. As far as my eating goes, I realized today that I've been "white knuckling" things a lot less lately. Except for the nanaimo bar incident, I've remained completely on track now for almost 4 weeks. I feel much better physically and emotionally and I have noticed that my clothes are getting baggy (baggier) again.

From January to September 2003, the first large chunk of time that I spent on plan, I realize that I did white knuckle things. I was frightened to snack, weekends totally terrified me, and I didn't want talk to folks "in real life" much about my weight loss program. I didn't want too many people to know what I was doing because if I fucked it all up, I didn't want to do it with an audience (or at least a huge audience). When you have as much weight to lose as I do, from the get-go it's going to be a long haul from start to goal and, given my past attempts, I didn't want or need any more pressure than I was already putting on myself.

From September to May, I basically did maintenance. I gained back a few pounds over Christmas but was able to keep the biggest chunk of my weight off. It was easy to do because I hadn't made a big deal about this to many people. To those who I knew were also trying to get fit, who seemed to be in a similar situation, we'd all say, "well at least I'm not gaining it all back!" After my birthday last month though, I was sick of maintaining. I reminded myself of how good it felt to see the numbers moving in a slow but steady downward progression on the scale. I recalled how exciting (and potentially embarrassing) is was to have pants literally fall off of your body. I wanted to feel those things again and now, almost 4 weeks later, I am.

The white knuckle stuff is gone because I'm not afraid of food anymore. I know what stuff to avoid and what is good for me. My thinking is different this time too. I'm listening more to my body. When it's hungry, I feed it, when it's not (like when I get a boredom related craving for crap), I don't give into it. I know that I don't deserve to have chemicals that will shorten my life floating around inside of me anymore. My body needs good stuff, healthy food and consistent exercise. Giving my body both of those things is not so much of a struggle anymore. I'm happy to do it for myself, for my family.

I've been writing in this journal for over 18 months now. During that time I know that a lot of what I write is redundant (Trish mentioned the same thing about her journal yesterday). Every time that I write here it's to share what's working and what's not but I apologize if it's not always zippy and fun. It's just my routine. Routines can be boring but they don't have to be. I'm thinking of the repetition more like it's positive reinforcement and less that it's the same old same old. Positive reinforcement is better than same old same old any day!