glorytogod

Okay, the holidays are winding down and so is my 3 month experiment with taking a break from dieting.

So…. from my birthday, the first week of October, until yesterday….

I have not:

weighed myself, measured myself nor watched what I ate at all - neither portion size, nor types of food.  I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. 

I ate cake and icecream at 6 birthday parties, plus some Halloween candy in October.  I went to restaurants with friends a lot over the past 3 months and ate a large meal with all the trimmings, plus, pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and in December I ate lots of candy, and desserts, at several Christmas parties. Plus, I have been eating carbs freely during these past 3 months, because I read that people generally need more carbs when the weather is colder and darker.

As you might guess, I gained a little weight.  It is difficult to say exactly how much I gained, because I have always had a 5 pounds a day swing, but no matter what it was only a few pounds. 

I am up 5 pounds from my lowest weight, but, like I said, I had a 5 pound swing back when I logged that weight - and I only logged that lowest weight once.

So, it is theoretically possible, with all that I ate that I haven’t gained anything. Though I am realistically guessing that I gained 2 to 3  pounds, which isn’t so bad, figuring how much I have been eating.

Now, since my “holiday season off” experiment is coming to an end.  I stocked my fridge with vegetables to steam, (instead of pasta, potatoes and macaroni & cheese. etc) and I bought some “transitioning to healthier snacks” Not quite as healthy as what I was eating over the Spring and Summer, but aiming in the right direction, without setting myself up for failure by going too extreme too quickly.

What have I learned from this experiment?  Well… mostly…. not to be afraid.  I am learning that I don’t have to be a perfectionist about this whole thing. 

I am grateful for that lesson.

I could probably have lost weight instead of gaining a few pounds, if I hadn’t done this experiment…. but…. I have no regrets.

I will be fascinated to see how quickly the weight comes off now.  I am curious what the past few months have done to my metabolism. 

This morning, after a month of no food journaling and no weigh-ins… and after a month of weekly birthday parties with cake and icecream and people bringing Halloween candy into work… and after a month of eating out more than I had in the previous 6 months combined…

I stepped on the scale.

I will be honest, I was fully expecting to have gained 5 pounds.

I was not expecting that I had lost a few ounces, but I had.

The goal of the unmonitored month was to RELAX in this process, because I felt like I was running up a mountain and was too afraid to sit down and take a breather.

The stress is dropping in my life and I am feeling more able to get back to monitoring things more, but I was grateful to see that taking a month off didn’t really hurt. 

In fact, it has given me the confidence that I can “maintain” when I reach my goal without having my life obsessively revolve around dieting.

That is HUGE for me, because in the past, I have been able to lose weight quickly, but not able to maintain.  This time, I am losing weight slowly and am getting chances to learn what it takes to maintain in the middle of the process of losing.

I know that, in the past, I would have been too afraid to step on the scale after a month of indulgence - and I would have “given up” not knowing that I hadn’t really gained weight.

I am grateful that I am committed to not having to be perfect. 

Older and wiser is nice.

Today is my uncle’s birthday.  Mine was last Sunday.

 My close friend’s birthday was the week before mine.

Next week is another birthday celebration.

My months seem to have themes lately and basically, this is a month of cake and icecream.

Don’t get me wrong, I have not gained weight.  But it has been a maintaining month, rather than a losing month.  I am not disappointed in that.  I know that I haven’t been doing what it takes to move forward, but I still have been making sure not to go backwards. 

I know that we are heading into the holiday season and I think my goal, rather than to lose a whole bunch of weight is to go through this season aiming to lose about a pound a month.

Does that sound like a lame goal? 

Well, I figure that most people gain at least 5 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Years, so even not gaining the 5 pounds would be a great accomplishment with all of the baked goods that have already started coming around.

I am praying about what to do to ensure that I eventually go forwards again.  Because I do feel like, in some ways, with all of the stress that has been in my life, I have gotten tired of paying so much attention to this issue on top of all of the others.

Not that I have given up AT ALL, but I feel almost like I have been climbing the  mountain of weight loss and I am wondering before the Lord if it is okay to sit down on a rock and rest for a few weeks. 

A monitored rest, for sure.  Meaning that I am not going to go out and eat a bad of Oreos or anything. 

But figuring out how many calories it takes for maintaining, rather than losing and hanging out at that pace for a while.

Lord, strengthen and renew me and help me get back on track.  Take the sense of “burden” off of this process and take the stress off of my shoulders.  Jesus, you said that all who are weary could come to You and that You would give them rest.  Well, here I am.  Thank You for answering my prayers.  In Jesus Name I pray AMEN

I can’t believe that almost a full week has past since my last post. 

Life has been so all-out busy that I haven’t even been keeping track of my food journals for the past 3 weeks.

The good news is that, I weighed myself last night and my high weight this month is 5 pounds lower than my high weight of a month ago. 

So, I am still losing on track, even though I am not doing anything except for limiting sweets.

I have still been eating too many protein bars, which are sweet-ish, but they are not empty calories or pure junk food, so I have been gentle on myself about eating them.

Last week, I wore my first new outfit and I got 5 or 6 compliments. 

Though I have been having an internal mental glitch happening the past few weeks, where, even though I have lost 30-something pounds, or so, when I see my reflection in the mirror, my first thoughts have been feeling discouraged that it doesn’t show more.   (This has happened every time in my life that I have dieted.)

Oh no, negativity you must go!  I will not allow it in this process.  Not this time!  My internal agreement it to give myself GRACE during this journey - no matter how many times I stumble!

The Bible tells me that I must take my thoughts captive and that is what I am going to do. 

Sunday is my birthday and I am going to celebrate that I am still moving forward and haven’t given up.  It may take several more months before I am happy with what I see when I look in the mirror, but I will get there.  Step by step.  Pound lost by pound lost. 

I figured out today that I am still losing about a pound a week, even with a shaky past few weeks eating-wise. 

That made me smile and makes me feel even more confident that small slip-ups aren’t a big deal at all - as long as you don’t totally go out of control and give up.

Tomorrow, for church, it will be cool enough that I will finally get to wear one of my new outfits. 

And, next week, is my birthday. 

New beginnings!  That is what I am sensing in my spirit!

And that is what I am celebrating even the week before!

Hope you are having a good and healthy weekend!

God bless!

Things have been unbelievable here… 

It has been seeming like a never ending stream of challenges.

On the positive end, other than one night of stress-induced self-pity and a few days of emotional eating, I have been doing amazingly well.

What I have learned about myself.  My emotional “chink” in the armour comes when people on every front of my life are angry with me for not being there “enough” for them when they are hurting and in pain. 

I don’t like being yelled at.  Generally, people yell, I cry.  (And eat something sweet.)

One night this week, I think 7 people were angry at me.  One person’s mother was dying and I hadn’t called them.  One person with 5 kids was losing their house.  (I got yelled at because “nobody” was helping, then, I got yelled at for the way I tried to help, because I called people to see if I could raise money and it was seen as exposing their private matters.) Another couple is also on the verge of losing their house.  My closest friend still can’t see or drive and hasn’t gotten on unemployment yet and has been frustrated that I haven’t been available.  My grandmother is burnt out with caring for my uncle and wants me to spend more time helping.  My uncle has been going through his own terror of dying and he wants me to be there with him all the time.  (He doesn’t even want me to go to work.)  My coworker was frustrated that he has been picking up the slack around here, while I go to tons of doctor’s appointments with my uncle.  A statewide ministry that I made a commitment to in the Spring is frustrated, because I haven’t kept my commitment to it.  Oh, and my car has been unstable, and my job has some stressful situations to deal with…

 Yes… I did some emotional eating.  Mostly, eating extra power bars here and there…

Though I did start adding in some sweets, which I hadn’t eaten since the Spring.  Three days ago, I ate a mini-eclair.  Two days ago, I ate half a cookie.  And yesterday, I ate half a cup of icecream. 

Well, today, as I got past the sting of being yelled at (which I recognize generally is a stumbling block to me) and as I was coming fully out of the feeling like I fail everyone and got past the feeling sorry for myself…

I weighed myself

 And I had lost a few ounces…

God is very merciful.  That is all I can say!

 LOL!

Hope everybody is giving themselves grace for the journey!

Blessings to all of you!

It has been an unbelievable past few weeks. 

My uncle has an infection over his eye, which they are concerned might enter his brain.  (Which, even if he didn’t have brain cancer, wouldn’t be a good thing.)  So it has been an in and out of the ER and other doctor’s office time.

Plus, he had a fever and was confused, on top of bathroom problems.  (Let me say right here that confusion and bathroom problems don’t mix!)

On top of that, my closest friend, who is a single mother, banged her head and severely detached the retinas in both of her eyes, requiring emergency surgery. Then, her employer fired her for some very small thing she did before she knew that she was as visually impaired as she was. 

Which means that she is basically blind and can’t work for a month, but literally has no savings or income coming in. 

She was in the middle of moving when the whole thing happened, and also hurt her wrist and needs surgery for that.  And her old landlord is giving her no grace, meaning that the stuff has to be out of her apartment by next week or he will put it out on the curb.  (He wasn’t moved by the fact that she is currently blind and can’t lift anything for several weeks, which means that she needs to rely totally on the kindness and schedule of friends.)

All this sounds bad, but God is good and His peace passes all understanding is all over me. 

The Bible calls the Holy Spirit the Comforter and He is.

I am just praying for my friend to experience it as deeply as I am.

Oh yeah, I forgot, I have been eating horribly, but I lost 2 pounds this week.

Hooray!  I can actually write a post! 

 Yesterday, I couldn’t write or edit.

The system is still a little glitchy.

It is a new month and, as of my monthly weigh in, I lost about another 5.1 pounds this past month. 

I think I have lost 25 pounds since June, but I will never know for sure, because back then, I didn’t know that I had a daily 5 pound fluctuation between morning and night (and also a monthly 5 pound fluctuation between TOM and other days)

I know it sounds strange, but…. for some reason…. it psychologically helps me to keep track of my heaviest weights along with my lowest.

I don’t know what it is about the emotions during the monthly cycle that make me want to step on the scale, even knowing that I will be heavier than normal, which used to be discouraging.

It was such a strange thing, because my mind knew that it was ridiculous to have that be discouraging when it didn’t really mean anything “results” wise.  It was like comparing apples to oranges.  But my emotions used to insist on getting discouraged anyways.

At the beginning of this weight loss journey, I made a commitment to encourage myself on this journey no matter what….

I knew that I needed a strategy in the fluctuation of pounds area, since I kept weighing myself around that time, and since I realized that it discouraged me.

So I decided to chart my “night” weight , my “morning” weight and my ”period” weight and compare each of those 3 numbers month to month.  (Too hard to keep track of on a weight tracker, but… that’s okay…)

It really has worked to encourage me, because during the vulnerable times in my monthly cycle, I can compare “apples to apples” and actually step off the scale encouraged, even then.

The moral of the story is…. whatever works to keep us encouraged is good…. because quitting is the only real enemy of this process and discouragement is the biggest reason people quit.

My message to anyone who reads this is:  Find strategies to encourage yourself that work for you.  And never quit.

Hello All,

I hope everyone is having a great week!  Mine is still super busy at work, and my uncle has been feeling ill this week, but I am hoping to have time to do the rounds tomorrow.

On the positive end, I can’t believe how many new clothes I have!  I had to send back some things.  But I think I still have over 40 new shirts and something like 5 new blazers and 8 or 10 new pants and 2 new suits and 2 new dressy outfits and a few new pair of shoes…

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something… but… let’s just say that the gift of clothes is overwhelming, to say the least.

Mostly, I am just overwhelmed by the Lord’s generosity, and the generosity of the mysterious gift giver.   (I hear that the mysterious gift giver thought that I might buy (2) $300 outfits.  Ha!  Not my personality!)

When I first heard that someone wanted to buy me a clothes shopping spree, I was disappointed that they wouldn’t wait until “I arrived at my goal.” 

But, earlier today, I was looking at how baggy my Summer shirts and pants have become and I was truly grateful to have some clothes that fit for the Fall and for the coming holidays.

The contrast, between clothes that fit and clothes that don’t made it more real to me.  I really have lost over 5 clothes sizes!  Hooray!

I am also grateful, because I can sense that having the new clothes will help me to appreciate the “season that I am in” weightloss-wise, rather than trying to rush to the end. 

It is amazing how the new outfits make me want to enjoy the process.  It is fascinating to me how well it has worked to “calm me down” inside.  Rather than wanting to lose weight quickly, which is normally an intense and obsessive inner drive when I am doing the dieting process, having a whole new wardrobe makes me want to lose weight gradually and have these clothes last at least until the Spring.

That is fascinating to me! 

What I am sensing is that the Lord is wiser than I am, and that these clothes are a gift to help me stop focusing quite so much on my weight, and to remember to enjoy the journey.

Which, with my uncle having brain cancer, is something that I am trying to really learn.  Lately, he has been asking me to just spend time sitting and talking, rather than just doctor’s visits and physical care.  He wants me to take him to a waterfall in a neighboring state.  When I think about what he is going through, I know that whether I lose weight or don’t is not nearly as important than keeping my priorities straight. 

Time with God.  Time with loved ones.  Time with friends.  Time with myself.  Time working.  Time relaxing.  Time in nature.  Time playing with the dog.  Time keeping track of my diet and exercise to make sure I am continuing to go in healthier directions.  

Spending time wisely… that is my prayer right now.

I have a lot of work to do the next 2 days, but I wanted to do a little blogging before immersing myself in the tasks at hand.

Mostly, I weighed myself this morning and I have lost a little over 4 pounds in the past 3 weeks.  Which was exactly what I am aiming for.

Sometimes, I am tempted to really rev up the exercising or to cut further back on the calories to make it happen quicker, but I know that I have to be able to make changes that I can live with FOREVER - or else the weight loss won’t last.  (Or worse, eating too little or exercising too much will trigger the ghrelin “hunger monster” hormone to make me hungry until I gain it all back.)  Yes, I have failed at this process before.  That is why I am determined to do this the slow and steady way.

Right now, it doesn’t feel like I am dieting or exercising at all. 

Though, if I think about it clearly, I am still not eating junk food, still limiting white breads, white pastas and potatoes, and I am still moving throughout the day. 

It’s just that I read everybody else’s blog and sometimes feel like I am putting in so little effort in comparison.

But… with almost no effort… I am still losing weight… so I celebrate that, and remember that I can always do more later, if I stop losing pounds and inches.

The clothes from my shopping spree have started to arrive!  So… now I am just waiting for the weather to cool down a little so that I can wear some of them! 

 :-)

Well, back to work!  Hope everyone had a great weekend!