Celebrating Victories, Not Wallowing in Shame

buniphuphu

Losing weight has been a long struggle for me. One of the biggest problems I've always had is on maintaining motivation because it's easy to focus on the everyday "defeats," "cheats," or bad days, but I'm trying to turn that around. After all, it's impossible to continue doing something that makes you feel ashamed if you're not perfect every single minute of every single day.

There are a million food choices I make in a day, and even on a "bad" day, some of those choices are good...not going to the kitchen just because there's a commercial on...drinking water at work instead of Coke (the elixir of the gods and my personal demon)...adding a veggie or fruit choice when planning a meal. All of these are going to help my body get stronger and healthier.

I'm tired of beating myself up. Yes, I had a piece of cake at the office birthday party. I like cake. I don't like frosting though, never really have. I chose to take it off instead of eating something I'm not really fond of at all, and I enjoyed the cake more. Yay me! I cut calories and enjoyed the experience more! And I tracked the calories. Yay me! I didn't try to hide those from myself or feel ashamed I had cake. I don't have cake often, so celebrating a friend's birthday does not make me a bad person.

I've been using MFP for 42 days now, and every single one of those, I've made the choice over and over, countless times, not to have a Coke. I've made that choice at least 100 times just while writing this because I know my husband brought some home last night. Me 100, Coke 0. But even if I have some at some point, I'm determined to try to not let it eat at me because I'm still winning.

This will be a long road, one choice at a time, more than 100 pounds to go.

capaul42

Good for you! Keep up the good work.