Starting over!

CatchMom11

I joined last January as a result of my sister’s successful persuasive nature. I wasn’t on board though. I wasn’t in the frame of mind that I needed to be in. By mid-March I was there. My weight loss started slowly but I was happy. I discovered that there is a way around those plateaus that we all hate and complain about. Every time I hit one, I was able to move past it within a week. I was on my way!
By mid-June I had lost a total of 30lbs and was feeling awesome. I was 3lbs away from my first goal: the weight I was when I got married. While this number was in no way where I wanted to be in the end, it was a time where I definitely felt better about myself that I did when I started this journey.
My summer semester for school had just started and between that and working two jobs, I was feeling the heat. A summer semester is a normal 16 week semester crammed into 8 weeks. I found myself choosing between going to the gym and studying. I chose studying; I had to. I am not a chemist and nor will I pretend to be, so I needed everything I could to comprehend what I was reading. That didn’t mean that I had to completely give up though; but that’s what I did. I didn’t just start eating whatever I wanted, but little by little I started allowing myself to eat things that I knew were killers for what I had achieved so far. It didn’t happen as quickly as I took it off, but eventually I put all of the weight back on; 15 over the course of the first 5 months and 15 over the last 3.5 months.
So here I am, a year later and exactly where I started from. I will not make excuses. I will not say that it didn’t work. I will own it; I didn’t work. The system works only as well as you allow it to, is what I’ve learned. I’ve also learned that regardless of what anyone tells you, if there are things that you absolutely know are deal breakers for you, avoid them like the plague! My family is on the go a lot and so there are a lot of fast food nights. What I’ve learned is that rather than feeling that “Quick dinner night” is running to the drive-thru of choice that night, it’s much healthier and cheaper to whip up tuna sandwiches and salad. My family doesn’t eat fast food because we’re too busy; they eat fast food because someone was too lazy to prepare for that moment. That’s changing!
In light of baseball/softball season starting, I’ve decided to make a list of all the “Quick Dinners” that my family enjoys that are healthy and THOSE will be the options when grocery shopping.
I’ve also deleted all of my previous weigh-ins; having to see them on a daily basis has done nothing but make me hate myself for allowing the weight to come back on. I have to forgive myself and move on. Kicking myself on a daily basis is only hindering my progress. I’m starting fresh and this time, I’m taking what I’ve learned and using it to my advantage.