Impatience in NOT a virtue!

It appears I have a LOT to say today. Consider yourself warned for an even longer than usual post!

You know what is really funny? Reading through my old blog posts one right after the other. It is hilarious how often I contradict myself or change my tune. It's great how many times since 2012 I've said that THIS time is going to be different. I do like that one time I finally said I have no idea if this time will actually be different.

So, I left you last with my post about maintaining through a difficult time. Initially I was perfectly happy with maintaining my weight. The problem was (is) that it is always a slippery slope for me when I'm no longer focusing on a certain strategy. The strategy may be to eat healthy 4-5 days out of a week and not focus on the weekend. It may be to calorie count all the time and try to stay under a certain number of calories. It may be to fast a couple of days a week and then eat to maintain the rest of the time. Whatever it is, I need to be following some sort of a plan. When I start to fall short of whatever plan I'm on at the time, I obviously lose my focus and start to slip more and more.

Prior to my mother in-law's death I had started a new plan. I hadn't discussed it on the blog because it's kind of a controversial way to lose weight and I didn't feel like having to defend my decision. I had done a ton of research on it prior and was confident it was a good decision for me. And I still think it wasn't a bad one. I followed IF (intermittent fasting) for about a month. If you google IF you'll find lots of information on it and lots of different programs you can follow. The one I followed was called Eat Stop Eat. Basically I was fasting for 24 hours 2 times a week and then eating to maintain (so like 2000 calories) on the other days. This was working quite well for me. I lost almost 9lbs in the month that I did it. But then my mother in law died and I lost my focus. I was back in that limbo phase of not really doing anything, but still kind of trying to lose weight. That's not a good place to be.

On Mother's Day we got together with my family and I saw my sister after she had been on Nutrisystem for about 6 months. I have not seen my sister look that small in a long time. So my mom looks awesome because she's lost a bunch of weight and my eldest sister looks great because she's lost 30+ pounds and then my other sister has also lost about 30lbs since the beginning of this year. Obviously as I was still focused on dealing with Marty's death I wasn't concerned about any of this at this point.

Fast forward to the days after the funeral and the need to get things back to "normal" and I found myself researching Nutrisystem. I have tried MANY weight loss programs. Basically ALL programs work for me (and for anyone for that matter) as long as you're able and willing to work them. It's finding the program (or programs) that will continue to work for you forever. I think what I'm finding is I may need to forever change things up a bit to keep me from getting bored or something.

Sorry for the language but this one was too perfect!

The IF was working great and I was happy doing it. But, I found myself slowly eating more and more on my eat days. It was likely just because I lost focus, but when I lose focus on the program I'm currently doing I tend to find it hard to find that focus again. I felt stupid (and still feel stupid actually) even considering doing Nutrisystem. I mean, I keep trying all these new things and NOTHING seems to work for me. Why would I think that this would be any different? And it's not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. I have never done something like Nutrisystem or Jenny Craig before because I refuse to cook and eat separate meals from my family. But when I was talking to Drew about it I thought perhaps that's part of the problem. I'm not willing to try something that might actually work for me because I'm too focused on taking care of everyone else but me. So what if I use Nutrisystem to lose weight and the rest of the family needs to fend for themselves for a few months? If it means they have a healthier, happier mom/wife isn't it worth it?? What appealed to me about Nutrisystem was the fact that I wouldn't have to think about it. They send you food and you eat that food along with fresh fruit/veggies and you're good to go.

Drew told me that if I was going to do it he would do it with me. That made me feel a little less stupid because it made me feel like he at least was supporting me and not thinking I'm being ridiculous by trying yet another weight loss program. I justified the price by taking it out of our food budget for the month and hoping that the rest of the groceries I need won't push us too far over that budget.

Remember this. Always keep looking for what works for YOU.

On June 1st we officially started Nutrisystem. With the Turbo10 program the first week is VERY strict and it's designed to help "jump start" your weight loss. I am back to weighing myself every day because I realized that when I lost all that weight in 2011 I weighed myself EVERY DAY (minus a day here and there) for over 6 months! I stopped weighing (and recording) my weight every day and I gained the weight back. When looking at my numbers from back then I realize that the number on the scale each day must not have bothered me because there were days I was up multiple pounds in a day....and I just kept going. So, I track my weight daily again, but I also plan to look at my weight on a weekly basis (since the daily weight fluctuates so much). I started Nutrisystem on a Wednesday so that means Wednesday's will be my official weigh in day.

I have not yet decided how long I am going to stay on Nutrisystem. I have to do it for at least 2 months because you basically get a "discount" when you sign up for the auto-delivery program. If you cancel after only one month you end up having to pay a $99 fee since you are paying back that discount. It's expensive enough that I refuse to pay that extra $99. So, 2 months at minimum. My guess is Drew probably won't need much more than those 2 months so perhaps he'll stop after that and I'll keep going for a little while. Perhaps 2 months on this will be the kick start I need to get myself back into the habit of not only counting calories, but keeping my calories around 1500 a day (which is about where I was in 2011 when I lost weight). I know I don't NEED Nutrisystem to do that since I've done it in the past. But, if it helps to get me totally back on track finally (after 5 years!) then so be it!