A Bump In The Road

Well, it has been quite the week so far - and it's only Wednesday!
Thanks to all who posted about my mom and her recovery - I am happy to say that she was in great spirits after the surgery and did amazingly well yesterday when the nurses got her up to walk the first time. She is a real trouper! I know she has a long road ahead and the real pain will probably come once she is in rehab, but she is a tough cookie and she is determined to push on through, no matter how much it hurts.

I think I could take a cue or two from that way of thinking. Push through, no matter what the pain. Josh and I are now back to walking but I know I need to push myself harder in terms of exercise. You know what I'm talking about -  investing a little more "sweat equity" into this weight loss thing. I go back and forth between telling myself it's OK to take it slow and really resolve the eating issue first (since I think that is the biggest culprit to my ample girth anyway) and then once I have that figured out, jump on the exercise bandwagon hard core. I have been known to swan dive head first into both restricted eating and abundant exercise in my previous attempts at weight loss, and I usually get burned out on one or the other faster than you can say pepperoni pizza. Usually it is the food that gets me before my exercise mojo wears out - but after a few lousy calorie-laden meals and overstuffed helpings, that too disappears quickly thereafter.

There are so many things that have side tracked me in my weight loss attempts, that I cringe when I think about them. This time I am really trying to get to the core of why I failed in the past. Eating is something we humans HAVE to do to survive. In that instance, food addiction is difficult because we need to eat everyday. There is no getting around it and it's hard because we are forced to face that demon each day just to stay alive and be healthy. Because let's face it, if you think being fat is bad, try being dead.

This week has been stressful. I didn't do well dealing with my mom going under the knife and lost a lot of sleep agonizing over what could go wrong with this surgery.  I am a horrible worry-wart, apparently. I got to the surgery center in the morning and had a small bagel for breakfast and nothing else through out the afternoon. By 7:00 PM, I was ready to eat damn near anything. With that said, I will confess that I broke down and ate pizza after getting home from the hospital at about 8:15. It is the first time I have had pizza since the beginning of the month - and although that may not sound like anything to you, it is to me. (My husband makes the world's best pizza crust - as in touch yourself delicious. This is the pizza crust dreams are made of. No lie.)


The problem is, I didn't cheat on my diet with his good pizza - it was take-out pizza from a place nearby. The crust was mediocre at best. Kind of tasteless really. Definitely not Josh's orgasmic cust by any stretch of the imagination. A waste of calories, if I am being honest. HOWEVER....Four, yes I said FOUR slices later, I not only felt like crust but I had that nagging bitch of a voice in the back of my head yelling, "Now what the hell did you go and do a thing like that for?" Good question, my dear conscience. Good effing question.

Lack of preparation, tiredness and convenience are probably the biggest reasons pizza made it into this house on Monday (at least it's a far cry from the days when 2 pizzas were the norm). Josh worked long hours and wasn't able to get dinner made and I was at the hospital until 7:00 and had an hour ride home. Pizza seemed, I dunno....justifiable.

I know it wasn't - or maybe it was - but four slices were not, no matter what the circumstance. So, again, this is why I feel I need to dedicate the time and energy to getting the food thing right first because when push comes to shove, I want to be able to resist those "convenient" temptations and have that Plan B in my back pocket, ready to go. Yes, I needed food, but I just ended up eating the wrong thing. And in quantities I cannot justify - period. But at least this is becoming more the occasional slip up, and not the norm. I really have been doing well on the eating front and notice the changes in my behavior - I'm really watching portions (pizza debacle aside), no second helpings, drinking water so that I feel fuller. And it is working. Despite living through Pizzageddon on Monday night, my scale this morning says I am still am down a pound from Friday. But since this Friday is official weigh day, that's off the record. :-)

In the end, I am trying not to make too big of a deal of this. I know there will be spills and trips and other crap to try to throw me off course at times, and I need to not give them too much importance or they will consume me, and that 'why bother' mentality will try to sneak in and sabotage everything. But I am determined. There is no falling off the horse this time - just temporary moments where a a good buck or two causes me to have to readjust myself on the saddle.

Consider me now readjusted.