Trying again *sigh*

13bbird13

Hi all… I’m in my fourth attempt to keep 20 pounds off. I’ve successfully lost the 20 every time I’ve attempted it, and two years ago I lost 30, but I never did the important part: MAINTENANCE. I always go back to my frat-boy eating habits, and as a 53-year-old woman that’s not anywhere near an appropriate diet. I top off at around 160, get down to my very last pair of pants that will zip, go back to tracking, lose all the weight, then stop tracking and put it back on. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This time I picked the first of September to start again… I work at a school, so the new school year is always a time of renewal and resolutions to improve on the past. The problem is, my birthday is the first of the month. I already knew I was going to dinner at a friend’s house and that there would be cake, ice cream, wine, and probably pasta. Okay… I budgeted for that. I came in 400 calories under my day-before target and thought I would be on track as long as I was careful for the rest of the day.

And it worked… until my nice, sweet new young co-worker said “Oh, it’s your birthday!” and insisted on getting us some Dunkin’ Donuts. I did try to say “no thank you”, but I think I was hurting her feelings and I started to feel guilty, so I agreed to my usual, a medium regular coffee and blueberry muffin. Weeelll… there’s about 500 calories I hadn’t budgeted for. Okay, Birthday Girl, what are you gonna do now??

I managed to eat only half the muffin, for starters. Then instead of going to lunch I decided to try and “make it” straight through until dinner and I went for a three-mile walk at noontime (which I wasn’t really ready to tackle, being sedentary by nature, but I survived). Then dinner at my friend’s house as planned… but when I totaled my calories afterward I found I was about 250 over. So, the next day I came in 250 under, and I think that squares me up for the week in spite of my unplanned indulgences that day.

I was kind of grumbly, “look what they made me eat”, etc., for a little while, but then I realized it was actually a golden opportunity to problem-solve, find a work-around, make people happy and still come out okay on a three-day average. It’s only once a year; the other 364 days nobody has any say in what I do or don’t eat and all the choices are my own. I started off regretting that it had happened so early in my attempt at getting back on track, but now I’m kind of glad it did. A lesson learned early on that will hopefully come in handy in the future.