Week 21 Progress Report and Lament of the Holidays

I was so cute.  I thought I could breeze through the work holidays without gaining an ounce.  "Heck, I might even lose some weight this week, " I thought.

Yeah......that didn't happen.  I tried to be good---honest, I did.  But then there was a Ruth's Chris lunch....and a company Christmas party complete with 4 courses of gloriousness, and then there was the work party hangover which only greasy goodness could cure.....

I be like.....

I slipped.  I admit it.   The damage: 

WEIGHT: 133.2

WEEKLY NET CHANGE:  +1.0 LB  (I guess it could have been worse). 

Total Weight Loss: -28.6 lbs. 

And to make matters worse, work is completely insane now which means longer hours which means it's going to be that much harder to get to the gym to undo the damage.   =( 

Ugh. 

Jiggle All The Way

It's here. 

The week I have been dreading since the beginning of this blog.

The most decadent and tempting week of the fiscal year. 

It's "Christmas week" at the office.

The office....

I've only been an office worker for 2 years now, but that is long enough to know that Christmas at an office is the most disgusting, secular, commercialized and gluttonous version of the celebration of Jesus's birth in the entire world (and that's coming from someone who would probably be struck by lightning the next time I step foot in a Church).

When I was in school, I never understood the people who got all bent out of shape about remembering the "Reason for the Season."  I'd leave my show choir rehearsal (which was always chockfull of Away in a Manger's and O Holy Night's) and think, "Uh, duh. Of course Jesus's birth is the reason for the season. Who said it wasn't? Could everyone just relax please?"

But then I graduated, got an office job, and quickly learned that the office world treats Christmas much differently than the rest of the world.

The rest of the world donates money and toys to charities to bring a little holiday cheer to those in need.  The office world wants to make sure your end-of-year reports have been submitted.  The rest of the world gathers with family and friends to sing carols in hopeful anticipation of the coming holiday. The office world reminds you that there's only two more weeks to make your end-of-year-quota. 

The rest of the world buys heartfelt gifts for the people they love to symbolize the greatest gift of all.   So what does the office world do to try to have a sense of occasion during this festive time of year? 

It eats.

Well, eats and foists a stupid Kris Kringle gift-exchange upon the entire staff during which everyone trades assorted $20.00 gift cards that no one actually wants (seriously....why can't we just all agree to keep the 20 bucks and skip the damn Kris Kringle?!)   But I digress.

You can't blame the office workers for the problem.  Everyone wants to do something special to mark the occasion, but there's no room for any of the beautiful things that truly make the holiday season great in an office. There's no room for joy, love, magic, and hope. 

But, I'll be dammed, there's room for multi-course lunches.

There's room for plates of snicker-doodles.

There's room for cakes and cookies.

There's room for candies.

There's room for cheese and deli meat platters.

There's room for those giant tins of popcorn never-quite-perfectly-separated into three different flavors.

And then, finally, the Pièce de résistance: there's room for the company Christmas party.



(I am convinced that no one in the world actually likes the company Christmas party.  Even if it's a lovely party, it's just awkward. Like.....on the one hand, there's a bar and a band and all the trappings of a really sweet time.  But on the other hand.....your boss is there. And your weird co-workers. And creepy Joe from the HR department. And the forced conversations......*shudders*).

But here we are. Smack dab in the middle of Christmas week 2013.  I've already had two very decadent lunches. I am starting to freak out. I don't want Christmas Week to take too great a toll on progress thus far, but I also don't want to be the office Grinch.

I will just have to work extra, extra hard on the treadmill this week. It's my only chance. Otherwise, I'll just be jiggling all the way to adult onset diabetes.

Week 20 Progress Report

Ahhh! I've had such a busy week with the holidays and end-of-year stuff at work that I haven't had time to update the blog! 

On Friday, I did a weigh-in as I always do. Here are the results: 

WEIGHT: 132.2

Weekly Net Change -3.0 lbs 

Total Weight Loss: 29.6 lbs

Half a pound away from a 30 pound "carrot."

Only 2.2 pounds away from my original goal of "130 in as long as it takes"

6.2 pounds away from The Big Carrot trip to NYC.

And 9 pounds away from my wedding weight. 

Forward, ho!!! (ho ho)

AHHHHH!

 Okay. So even though this completely contradicts my last post in which I insisted that there's nothing exciting about getting into the habit of this lifestyle change, I am completely stoked to report not one, but two  awesome (and unexpected) weigh-ins. 

The day after the weekly weigh in I decided to just check.




And I was very pleasantly surprised to see this number.



Then today, thoroughly convinced that 133.6 was a fluke, I decided to step on the scale again....just to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

And HOLY THIS, Batman!!!






Do you know what this MEANS?!?!!?!?!?   I am a mere 0.2 pounds away from thirty pounds gone. That's, like, TWO overweight cats.

And! And!  I had to get new jeans yesterday because I was swimming in the 10's.   I am now a size 8 in pants.   Single digits!  Thank goodness for this cold snap because I am going to torch those 10's.  And! And! And!  I've dropped three bra sizes. 

So sometimes habits can be exciting after all. 

Motivation and Habit

I once found an incredible tumblr that slapped trite and stereotypical fitness motivational phrases on top of pictures of people drinking.  It was pretty hilarious.   But in spite of the fact that it was meant to poke fun at the fitness motivational phrases themselves, one of them actually stuck with me and I'm still thinking of it many weeks later.

Ready for it?

Here it is.

This phrase would be annoying as hell if it were pasted over some stock photo of a person jogging.  Notice how the whisky instantly elevates it.  Click on the link above for more of these gems.

I've been thinking about this phrase a lot lately, and about motivation and habit.  

At the beginning of this blog, I felt an almost "other-worldly" force inside of me, willing me forward to do this.   It was like having a manic urge to succeed.   It was like crack.  I couldn't wait for my next weigh in. I couldn't wait to write my next pithy blog post.  I couldn't wait.   It was exciting.



I think that what I was actually experiencing was "motivation."  I was taken over by something bigger than me and that's what gave me the initial boost to get off the couch and start making a change.

But eventually that fire faded.  I guess it always does. And then "habit" gradually takes over.

I've been diligent about going to the gym and (with the exception of this past weekend) I've been very good about adhering to my new lifestyle.  I don't do it because it's fun.  I just do it because it's "what I do."  And I suppose that's a good thing because it should yield results. Predictably. Slowly.  But results nonetheless.

But you know what "habit" isn't?  Exciting.    There's nothing at all exciting about "habit."




I keep telling myself: focus on The Big Carrot!  That's your motivation!    But even The Big Carrot, while definitely helping me stick with the program, cannot compare with the feeling I had at the beginning of this---with the "motivation phase."

The motivation phase of this lifestyle change seems to have run its course.

Sometimes I think the motivation phase is really just the "denial" phase of the lifestyle change.  Like....at the beginning I was doing things that were so out of character (working out?  not eating pizza all the time?!) that I could still envision a "some day" when this "weight loss thing" would be over when I'd get to go "back to normal" and enjoy ALL the foods again and not have to spend time working out......but magically be skinny and hot while doing it.

But then after doing this long enough.......I realize that this is the new normal...or at least it has to be if I want this to work.  Unless I want to be unhealthy and slide right back to where I was, there will never be a time when I can just eat whatever the hell I want and not go to the gym.   This is a lifestyle change.  A new way of doing everything. And there's no end in sight.

I think I understand now why most "diets" fail and most dieters regain all their weight.....to have life-long success, you have do this long enough for motivation (aka: denial) to die and for habit to set in...and it takes a really long time for something to become a legitimate habit.  

I am going to define "habit" as not simply doing something over and over again, but as doing something over and over again so many times, that any hope or glimmer you've ever had of things getting "back to normal" has completely died out because the habit is what's normal now.

I don't think I am completely there yet, but I do think I am getting close.   Sometimes, in my weakest moments, I envision a time when I don't have to budget at least an hour a day to work out and when I won't have to worry about calories.  I feel like for this to truly become a habit, those thoughts have to be completely gone.

So I'm somewhere between motivation and habit right now....and leaning more towards habit.  I know this because at this point this has become less and less about "getting a trip to New York" and more and more about "how do I make sure that this is a permanent change?"

I am trying to think of the best way to get over this less-than-exciting hump....and more importantly how to keep my posts interesting.  It's not easy coming up with material for this stage of the process because so much of what I am doing now is just the day to day drudgery of trying to make this a habit.

Motivation is flashy and lends itself to shiny gifs and instant gratification like on the Biggest Loser.

Habit is the boringest of all boring things in the world.   Thanks for sticking with me through it.

Week 19 (Lack of) Progress Report

WEIGHT: 135.2
WEEKLY NET CHANGE: Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
TOTAL WEIGHT LOSS: -26.6 lbs



This is so depressing.

As I mentioned in the Damage Control post, I got a little cocky this week and thought I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted.   I am honestly surprised that given all the indulgences I allowed this week that I didn't have a weekly net gain.

I can sort of get on board with having a week without weight loss when that week happens to coincide with a holiday, but what disturbs me more than this is that lately I feel like I am losing some steam.....I am more worried about keeping my motivation up than about just one lousy weigh-in.

Damage Control

Something bad happened.

No.

I take that back.

"Something bad" didn't just turn up out of the blue and "happen" to me like I was just some unwitting pawn in this game of lifestyle change.  And saying "something bad happened" is not taking ownership of the situation.

I did something bad.

And now I am paying the price.

So remember last week when I was writing about Thanksgiving and I was saying stuff like "It's a holiday!" and "Lifestyle changes allow wiggle room on holidays!"  and "It's okay to gain a little weight on Thanksgiving....it would be so unfair to do a weigh-in the morning after!"

Well, as it turned out, I did do a weigh-in the morning after.  And much to my (very pleasant) surprise, I didn't gain an ounce.  Nada. Nothing. Not one little tiny bit.

It was as if the gravy and wine and cheese and mashed potatoes and turkey and ham and rolls and whatever else I ate had never even happened.

So what's the problem?

I got cocky. 

 

I figured I was invincible.   If my gym habit and newly revitalized metabolism could handle a Thanksgiving feast then surely it could also handle a lovely little lunch at Chilis....followed by some samples at Costco.....and a little Alfredo for dinner.  I mean, that's like nothing compared to a Thanksgiving feast, right?

 

 

 

Wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

 

As of Monday morning, the damage from my Thursday-Sunday of cocky gluttony (cottony?) had been done and I stared back at a horrifying 137.0 on the scale.   Oh sure, it's less than 2 pounds gained over a weekend that's known for far worse crimes against waistbands than that, but that's back to being overweight according to the government!!

 

And to make matters worse, I thought Thanksgiving was going to be my holiday-Everest. If that were the case, I could breathe a sigh of relief that the worst is behind me and move forward full steam ahead.  But it turns out that there's NOTHING I have ever faced during this blog that will be more challenging than the two weeks I have ahead of me.

With work functions alone I am looking at lunches at Ruth's Chris, Café Adelaide, La Pavillion (x2), and Broussards.   That doesn't even include anything that friends or family might want to do to celebrate the season.*   

*I'd like to take a moment to apologize for complaining about what might be the biggest first-world problem.  Ever.  And I am grateful to be blessed with a job that comes with perks... .But these events tend to be hosted with prix fixe menus...which means I will be severely limited in my ability to eat well during them. =/

I am officially freaking out.

The rest of this week is dedicated to damage control. Gym. Very light lunches. Predictable--but safe--dinners.