For any woman who has ever tried to lose weight, you know where I am at right now. I've had a tough couple of days and I guess I need some moral support.
First of all, dieting sucks. When I met with Julie she told me that I should look at the Dash eating plan as a way to change my life. A way to change my eating habits. Bullshit! Changing your eating habits, after 39 years of bad eating habits is hard. I'm not talking about colonoscopy hard.....It's beyond that! Come on girls, you know what I mean.
I'm in blue today. There is a reason for that. I'm terribly upset with myself for straying. Here's what happened, and you can tell me how bad it was. I weighed myself Tuesday morning. I was on top of the world because it was the least that I have weighed in over 3 years. I was thrilled.
I went to work, I left late for some reason.....you know how crazy mornings can be when you're getting kids around for school. Well, I forgot to eat breakfast......so in a crazy fury I ate a little bit of raisin bran. Then, I was out the door. I did make a lunch the night before so I had that at my advantage. I ate an apple when I got to work because I was starving.
At lunch time, I had brought boneless chicken breast that I had cooked in Italian dressing. It was chopped up and mixed with lettuce, one of my favorite things. Here is where I went wrong. I brought a pita to work because I like to stuff the chicken etc into the pita as a sandwich. Well, I cut the pita in half...and proceeded to eat both halves. I also ate a smal baggie of baked lays.
When I got home, I was starving. Not a good thing, because I still had to make dinner. Jason doesnt' get home until 6 - 6:30ish. So, I knew we wouldn't eat until then. So, I ate an apple. I had Scott put a roast into the crock pot and had Jourdan add carrots and baby potatoes. I figured it would be done around 6pm and I could mostly stick with the veggies and be ok for the day. Well, 6pm showed up and the roast wasn't even near done. I guess when Scott put it in the crock put, he put it on Low. It didn't get turned onto High until Jourdan got home. In a nutshell, it wasn't done until 8:00!
What are my options? Last minute dinner and the kids are starving. I'm starving and crabby about it. So, I decide on Spaghetti. Not exactly a diet food. In my mind I keep thinking portion control, Tracy. Just think about portion control! Well, I blew it. I had a scoop of spaghetti with sauce and then I added the parmesean cheese. WHY DID I ADD THE CHEESE? Then, a SECOND helping. I let myself get too hungry and I had a second helping of spaghetti. WHY? WHY? WHY? I don't know that I was still hungry but it's like this mechanism kicked in in my brain that said....EAT EAT EAT. Why do I eat when I'm not that hungry? If I knew the answer, I would be a size 4!
On top of all that, the entire day I was having this crazy, and I mean crazy, craving for salt. I think because I know I'm on a low-salt diet I want it even more. It was literally driving me nuts wanting salt. I could have taken the salt shaker and dumped it in my mouth.
I'm wondering if my body is just going through some withdrawals. I explained to Julie that I get to about the third day and I just poop out on any diet I've ever tried! This is about the right timing. I did work out a little bit last night. I tried doing my regular workout with weights, but my upper body is pretty sore. I have at least worked out, to some extent every day.
So began a fresh new day today. John has been sick so I knew I had to get to work bright and early and then leave by 12:30 so I could be home in time for Scott to go to work. First mistake, left the house without eating breakfast. I had a little bit of leftover diced chicken and lettuce at work so I put just a little bit of light italian on it and had it for lunch....at 11am. I know, its early but I was so hungry. I even drank a coke at work. I haven't had pop in.......seems like forever. I don't even think I finished it all.
I got home and for lunch I had a bowl of soup with some crackers. When I am dieting it's like I become obsessed with food. Like last night, and it was late, I had some baked chips and two or three dill pickle spears. Not too bad, unless you consider the salt intake. So what do I do? I eat the same thing again after eating my soup.
Then I found myself rummaging through the fridge and the cupboard. WTF! Something Julie told me jumped into my head. When I start behaving this way I need to stop and ask myself why I am eating. Am I hungry? No, I wasn't hungry. Am I bored? Yes, I was bored. Am I stressed? Yes, I am very stressed about the kids and about our finances right now. It's a short pay week for work and it's a tight money week. Why did I want to eat? I wasn't sure, but I did know that it wasn't because I was hungry.
So, I poured a huge glass of water and got out my hand weights. I worked out for about 20 minutes and then took the kids for a walk. I wasn't gone long, 20 or 30 minutes.....but at least I did something. Right now, I have chicken in the oven. I took the skin off before I seasoned then and put them in the oven. I'm going to make some rice and greenbeans.
Right now, I'm tired and sore. I'm so tired that I feel like I could take a nap. But, I have more laundry to do and I need to get the rest of our dinner started. I pray that I have the strength to keep my portions under control. I don't want to do the exercize for nothing. I don't like to walk, but it's the best thing for me to do. I'm just looking for some strength. Scott is usually my strength but he has been working so much that I have hardly seen him in the last week and a half. So, I'm feeling very weak right now.
I hate being hungry. I don't even know that I was hungry, seriously. I am just so used to eating what I want and overeating when I'm not even hungry. It's so stupid. Lord, help me break this cycle of overeating.
Well, that was on Monday. The only bright spot in all of this was that I did exercize...a little. I worked with my weights for about 20 minutes. I didn't walk. I just felt like crap because I knew that I overate.
Hey Tracy,
ReplyDeleteDid Julie tell you that you should be eating six times a day, rather than three? I lose more weight when I do that than when I eat three sensible meals a day. I'm starving otherwise. The whole idea is to burn more calories during the day than you take in.
Eat a small breakfast, have a mid-morning snack, then have lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, then dinner - one helping only - and eat it slowly so you have time to fill up on it before wanting seconds. That still leaves you room for a small snack in the evening without ruining the day's intake. AND it helps keep your metabolism going all day so you burn more calories.
Don't forget to drink the required amount of water. That will also help you eat less at meal times because you will feel semi-full before you sit down to eat. The exercising is good but you really only need 20-30 minutes of it a day to keep your metabolism high. Try Googling for exercises you can do while sitting down at work. I've found many. Fidgeting even burns calories. :)
I think you may be putting so much emphasis on "I've got to lose weight so I need to make sure I eat right" that you're making yourself crazy over it. You'll get the hang of it after a while; it just takes time. No worries.
Yes, Julie did tell me to eat six meals a day. I wish I could meet with her on a weekly or monthly basis, help me stay on track.
ReplyDeleteI am trying really hard to change how I'm looking at this. I'm looking at it as a diet, but once I meet my own goal weight (that I set myself) I want to look at it as a change for life. Seriously, I don't want to put any of these pounds back on.
I start obsessing about the "diet" part so much that it makes me crazy! Someone my sister knows lost a huge amount of weight, something like 100 pounds. He was telling her that it is a struggle every minute of every day. It's always there in the back of your mind. This is how it is for me, because I like food.
Hmmmm, maybe this should be the topic of my next post huh? LOL. Well, thanks for the advice. I'm trying really hard but have to find what works for me I guess. Scott has lost 8 pounds. He was much more supportive when we talked about my issues this afternoon. Guess I just got him too early in the morning to be sympathetic.
Tracy