Maintaining through a difficult time....

Two weeks ago today my mother in law passed away. She fought lung cancer like a beast for 10+ years and about 3 weeks ago she ended up in the emergency room with pneumonia. 6 days later she was gone. Even though we were blessed with 10+ years of time with her that we really didn't think we would have; this death still came as quite a shock to all of us. One week before winding up in the hospital she was watching my daughter's spring concert. Just 3 short weeks before she passed, she planned and hosted a huge family get together for a memorial for another family member.

Picture taken October 2010

All that being said it has obviously been a pretty tough 3 weeks for my family. When dealing with a difficult time it is SO easy to just slack off on any healthy eating plan. The week that she was in the hospital my husband was rarely home for dinner so I found myself not cooking for the 3 of us. I think part of it was I was feeling stressed as well and didn't want to be bothered with it. I was focused on how he was doing and on just doing what I needed to do to take care of the kids and prepare them for the inevitable. I tried to stay on track as well as I could and I was totally fine with that. 

November 2015 - last Christmas card picture taken

In my last blog post I mentioned that on April 29th when I got on the scale I had officially lost 11 pounds from my "recommitment" weight on March 20th. My scale said 229.6 on that day. The next week (on May 6th - the same day we lost my mother in-law), my scale registered 229. I managed to still lose .6lbs when dealing with this terrible time in my family's life. Well, the hard times were just beginning really. As hard as it is to wait for the inevitable to happen; after it happens you have a whole new world to deal with. My children have never experienced a death in the family before (other than a pet). To lose a grandmother is ALWAYS hard;  but to lose a grandma whom they saw on pretty much a weekly or bi-weekly basis is something I can't even imagine. It was hard for me when I lost my first grandparent and they lived in a different state and I probably saw them once or twice a year! 

Ok. So my diet/exercise/healthy living plan/whatever was the LAST thing on my mind starting May 6th. Obviously when dealing with death you quickly realize that there are more important things than how you look. However, you also realize how SHORT life is and you want to do whatever is possible to prolong that life. Interesting concept. 

For the week after her passing while we had to deal with planning a funeral, celebrating not only Mother's Day on the 8th; but also the fact that this year Mother's Day would have been her 68th birthday; and then ultimately having the funeral, I did not worry about my food choices and did not track anything. Did I drink wine? You bet I did! Did I stop at Wendy's to get lunch prior to going to the funeral home to help plan the funeral? Yup. Did I feel guilty or stressed about any of the decisions I was making? Nope! I still got on the scale on the next Friday and miraculously I saw staring back at me 229. I managed to maintain through probably the hardest week of my life (so far). 

On to this past week and I felt a renewed sense of motivation. I got right back on track. I went to jazzercise on Monday, got on the treadmill AND went to my strength class on Tuesday, went back to jazzercise on Wednesday, and got on the treadmill AND went to strength class on Thursday. I got on the scale this morning and still saw 229. Of course there was a small part of me that was disappointed that it hadn't gone down; but I keep in mind that I took the ENTIRE week off last week. There was more eating and drinking than usual and although I got back on track on Monday; that was only 4 days ago. 

So I'm happy. I'm happy that even when dealing with this particularly difficult time I have NOT gained weight. I have not stressed about my weight and whether or  not that scale jumped back above 230. And even though I've thought about it (because obviously I'm focused on losing weight), I have not stressed about how maintaining for 2 weeks in a row (and only losing .6 the week before) is slowing down my "average weight loss". I really DON'T CARE! I am trying really hard to just focus on the fact that if I can be on track more than I am off I will lose weight. I am trying even harder to not stress about it. When I stress about it or when I start to think about wanting to lose 20lbs overnight is when I inevitably fail. I know I've said it before, but when I am STRESSING about losing weight is when I GAIN. So, the goal is to keep trying, but NOT stress. Even if I average "only" 1/2 pound per week, I will weigh 26 pounds less in a year than I do now. It may not be 50 pounds, it may not be all the weight I have to lose, but it will be 26 pounds less than I weigh now and that's all that matters.