triggers = T - I double 'guh' - ers

This week’s homework is to deal with triggers.  Triggers are events or things that detour you from staying on track with a diet / lifestyle change.   This is my third year of working on my choices in eating / exercising / diet / lifestyle etc.  Every year I try and look at my triggers and I have had moderate success.  As my sister says, we are far from being “cured.”  J

Emotional Triggers

The biggest emotional trigger for me is stress.  I have thought about this for a long time because everyone has stress.  EVERYONE!  Why is it that some are able to not dive head first into a bowl of nachos and some aren’t.  For me, my trigger stress is what Joe and I call, “Can you squeeze blood out of this stone?” stress.  Other phrases for it could be “The-impossible-task” stress, “The-no-control-over-the-outcome” stress, or the “Are-the-people-in-charge-crazy?” stress. 

I swear, losing weight is like being in AA (forgive me for anyone who has been in AA, all I know about it is what I’ve seen on TV and we all know how accurate TV people are).  In AA, they often say the serenity prayer: 

    God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

I think that I need to make a small card with this printed on it, like a business card, and when I am feeling the Sisyphusian Task Stress (Greek punished to keep pushing the boulder up the hill) I can pull it out and remember I can only do what I can do and I can only change what I can change.

Food Triggers

I was thinking about these on my run this morning and although I am far from being ‘cured’ I feel like this is the one area that I have made some head way.  I do not keep a lot of “bad” food choices around the house and the ones like my Achilles’ heel (ice cream) is not allowed in the house.  There is a bowl of candy for the boys on top of the fridge.  I am pretty good at not touching it.  This year I had to throw out some of last year’s old Halloween candy! That is a milestone! A Non-Scale victory (NSV) for me.  Now, to be clear there isn’t any chocolate in there from last Halloween, but there is candy.  Four years ago that bowl would be filled and drained, filled and drained, even the “meh” candy would have been eaten long before it could have gotten stale. 

Trigger Sponsor

This is my last AA reference for the day, I swear! I need a good Trigger Sponsor.  Someone who will not let me have “just one bite” …. Would anyone say to an alcoholic, “Oh, you can have one drink” because when I am in Sisyphusian Mode one bite is the slippery slope to 3 servings of ice cream with all the trimmings!  I think a good sponsor would say, “What is stressing you out?” and then “Will ice cream fix that?” and without the Dad Tone say, “How about a walk instead.” (My secret goal is to suddenly turn into one of those people who are stressed and go for a run!) J

Today on the last day of 2013, I am going to go through my pantry and fish out any hidden food and purge it, it wasn’t for the kids anyway…it was for me! And ask my sister to be my sponsor.  Then I can be hers but I haven’t had to field any crazy phone calls from her…so…hmm…

What are your triggers and what is your plan for dealing with them?

Day 1 - again...attempt number 3,492

Question of the week: Why am I even dieting?

It would be so much easier to just eat what I wanted to, not get up in the morning and exercise, and keep buying larger and larger clothing.  I can see easily falling into a self made trap of sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating handful after handful of what ever I wanted to eat.  It is easy.  It is comfortable. It feels safe.  I don't have to face what is bothering me when I do this but it has ugly ramifications.  Self anesthetizing myself with food is an old habit. 

Why do I want to change?

  1. I don't like the way I feel 

  2. I don't want to wear tight jeans 

  3. I want to run again

  4. I don't want to pass these habits on to the boys

  5. I don't like seeing the scale inch up and up and up

  6. I want to not be in the obese category anymore

  7. I don't want to feel guilty anymore

  8. I want to feel normal in my own skin rather than slightly itchy

  9. I want the outside to match the inside 

10. I don't want a muffin top that feels (to me) like a cake top

11. I don't want to feel tired

12. I want to be a good model for my children

13. I want to run the entire 5K without stopping

14. I want to get rid of the monkey on my back that whispers ... "one bite...what could it hurt!"

15. I want to feel strong

16. I don't want to be afraid

17. I want to know why I feel afraid

18. I don't want to feel disengaged

19. I want to be around for as long as the universe has planned and not curtail it by my choices

20. I don't want to feel heartsick anymore

2 weeks to go and almost there!

We have 14 days left until our March 25th weigh in and a couple of things happened.  My sister had two weeks where she was surrounded by really non-diet food and gained some weight.  She calculated that she would have to eat 1200 calories a day to lose the weight she had gained/needed to lose to meet the 25th of March deadline.  So, I told her I would do the 1200 calories a day, My Fitness pal says I should be around 1450 to lose a half a pound to a pound a week.  Oh My Goodness, the first couple of days I was STARVING.  But the results have been pleasant.  So, as of this morning I have only .6 pounds to lose to make my bet.  OH Yeah!!!

Then, I decided to take my 2 days off of exercising consecutively, I took Monday and then took Tuesday off...and it bled into taking Wednesday off...and then Friday off....egads! The Exercise Trap; when you are exercising on a regular basis you feel WONDERFUL and then when you take a couple days off (my limit seems to be 2 days in a row) and then I want to become a sloth and BFFs with my Tivo remote.  When I exercise, no I didn't say if I said when, I will have only exercised three times this week for only 20 minutes each.  Which is really sad because I was going on a 4 week streak of 5 times each with at LEAST 45 but more like an hour of experiencing!

So, my goals for this week are to get back to exercising and try and lose at least a pound so that I will be under my goal and have a little bit of buffer.

3 pounds down + 3 more to go

I have 22 days left until the March 25th quarterly weigh in.  Recently my sister and I decided that we would do a side bet...hmm...I guess it isn't a bet per say but rather a extra added something.  We decided we would exercise 5 days a week and if we could make 5 YAY if we couldn't at least try for 4.  So I dusted off my Hiit (High intensity interval training) or Cross Fit journal and decided I would do 15ish minutes of that and 45 minutes of tread mill at least 4 times a week and 5th exercise could be one or the other or both depending on how my body felt like I could handle.  Well, I immediately gained 4 pounds....bleck.  That was 3 weeks ago.  Last Monday I gave myself a goal of loosing 2 pounds because I need to lose 2 pounds a week to get to my weigh in requirement otherwise I will owe a political party $100 ....not good.

The results = 3 pounds lost oh yeah!

This week's goal (with 22 days left) 2 pounds and exercise 5X this week.

If all goes as planned, by next Monday (with 14 days left) I will be at my weigh in weight which will give me the last 2 weeks to get in a couple of buffer pounds.  I do NOT want to what happened on the New Year's Eve weigh in to happen again.  For days I had my 3 - 4 pound buffer and then on the day of the weigh in I was up 4 pounds...STRESSFUL!

Here's to hoping that the adage "counting your chickens before they hatch" doesn't come true in the next 22 days! Murphy go find someone else to play with!

3 Year Anniversary!

Yesterday was the 3 year anniversary of this blog / this diet pact.  Wow! And for some disappointing news...yeah...I was up to 200.3 this morning.  pffft...

Almost 3 years

On Tuesday it will be 3 years since I started this diet pact.  I have managed to keep off 50+ pounds in 3 years. I have exercised more in the last 3 years than the previous 10 (most likely, because I didn't keep track).

This week I hit an all time low (for this month) at 196, so I was one pound away from my 5 pound goal for the 25th of March.  This morning I'm back up to 197.2 so the scale sucks.... and I looked back and since the 3rd of this month I've lost....a half a pound.  Meh.  Or maybe I should look at it as; I haven't gained anything! even through Valentine's Day!

I have 5 weeks left until the 25th of March and I want to be well below the 195 range so there will be no 5 am surprises!

My goals this week are to exercise 5 times (which I did last week) and log my food for at least 5 days and be honest about what I eat.  There is no skipping hard work and watching what you eat.... nope none. sigh.

I am excited that it has been almost 3 years and I'm excited that I've kept off 50+ pounds.  I am looking forward to this week exercise and diet because I know I can do it.

Now, I'm off to buy cupcakes for my hubby's birthday.  My personal goal for that is to only eat half of one. Yes, it can be done.  I've done it before. :)

This Last Week

I made my goal of 4X of exercising and I lost .9 pounds.  However, this morning (Thursday) I was up 1.1....bleck.

This week I intend to lose ? and exercise 5 times this week.  I've already done it twice so I've got three more times to go.

I want to lose be a pound lower than I was at the end of this last week but I fell face first into some chocolate on Valentine's day.... and with that 1.1 up I will just do what I can to be reasonable the rest of the week.

OH! and for LENT I have given up snacking after I put the boys to bed.  I use that time to totally nosh out on food, not sure why.  I don't need it but I do it, so that is what this non-catholic is doing to give up a crutch and find something else to lean on.

Exercised...weight meh

I got in 4X of exercising, my eating...on about Friday I took a dive into Carb Land...and Pulled myself out very very slowly.  I have done "well" today.  I haven't stepped on the scale.  :(  yes there is fear involved.  Tomorrow is soon enough to get onto that scale.  Maybe I'll post tomorrow the results.

My new goal is to exercise 5X which means I will take off Monday and Friday and exercise the rest of the days.  Wish me luck :) I did it before I can do it again.

I made my goal....as long as I exercise today

I did manage to lose a pound ... or two.  I got so disgusted with myself I stopped putting my numbers into My Fitnes Pal so I'm not really sure.  I'll have to check my last blog, but I'm not sure I actually posted an actual number.  I can't tell, except that I know I was at 196 on January 20th.  Well, I am at 197.6 so bummer.  I know I was back up to 199 at some point in between Jan 20 and today.  I need to go back to tracking the damnable number on my calendar or in My Fitness Pal.  An unforeseen consequence of this bet and being on MFP (My Fitness Pal) with my sister and my father is that I only want to put my losses in the tracker, not the gains.

But I have exercised twice this week and if...woops...WHEN I exercise this week I'll have made my goal of 3X this week.

Next week's goals.  Lose a pound exercise at least 3X.  More if possible, but at a minimum it will be 3.

Last week

So, I made none of my goals... I was horribly sick.  It wasn't until today that I started to feel human again. So, new week new goals: exercise 3X lose a pound !

NSV - Non Scale Victory

I've had a couple of NSV's (non-scale victories) the first is I have had a couple people whom I don't work with anymore say that I have lost a lot, which has always been hard for me to take as a compliment.  So, I made sure to say thank you! and it has been hard for me to actually see the changes.

The second NSV is a little stranger.  I am a side sleeper, and I have never had an issue with my knees banging against each other when I sleep, until now.  Apparently, I inherited my father's bony knees! The ... achy-ness of having knee bones rub against knee bones has actually woken me up.  So, I have lost enough "padding" in my knee area!

The last NSV is my pajamas.  I have been since I was a teenager a semi-clad sleeper.  The least amount of clothing possible sleeper.  I hated the feeling of t-shirts and pajamas riding up because I would wake up with the craziest strangler dreams that I would just forgo shirts and what not.  Then when I had the boys and was breast feeding, I needed to wear something to hold in all the "gear" that went with breast feeding at night.  After that I enjoyed sleeping in yoga pants and a tank with some "support."  Now, I am having a return of the strangler sensation and have ditched the sleeping paraphernalia again.  So, perhaps it is time to get some new pajamas! :)

Last one, I swear, I got out of bed and my hubby says, "What is wrong with your underwear?" I looked and they were not fitting me...so along with the pajamas...underwear, too!  

That's the end of my slightly embarrassing NSV's :)

Pact Thus Far

Well, everyone made their Oct 8th pound-age loss for the quarter.  We all made the Jan 31st quarter....most of us by the skin of our teeth...and I mean the skin of our teeth.  For me I had been 2 pounds under for the 3 days prior and 3 pounds under my goal the 4th day before.  Then the day of January 31st I was up to the EXACT number I had to be at...it was very ... cr@ppy in my opinion.  I gave myself a couple days off and then got back onto the scale....and realized I would have to lose 4 additional pounds...yes I went up 4 pounds on my 2 day Carb-fest... you'd think I would learn or not get so disgusted with myself and / or the scale. ... sigh.

For Christmas the boys got a puppy and I can not tell you how much STRESS that puts on me... It is almost worse than an other child or an infant.  At least infants have DIAPERS and will NAP!  On of us, Joe or I always have to be with the dog, he gets excited and piddles...a lot...a whole heck of a lot.  My sister keeps telling me that it will get better...good gods I hope so.

Our next check in is March 25th and I have been doing really well these past 3 weeks.  I lost the 4 pounds from the Carb-Fest, Plus the mysterious 2 pounds (I think those 6 pounds were hormone related...Eve's bite of the apple is the gift that keeps on giving ::joking::) plus 2 more pounds.  I am 1 pound away from the 5 I need to lose for the March 25th weigh-in.

I will be honest, I am having the hardest time getting myself to exercise.  I am just not getting it done.  I know that the more I don't exercise the less interest I have in exercising.  grr....

Ok, so let me make a goal.  I want to exercise 3 times this week.  Let me start there.  Just 3 times.  3 is more than 0.