Well HELLO There

It has been a hot minute since I have blogged.

But it's now time for me to check in and get myself back on track.

I have had LOTS of fun in May and June and also threw my healthy eating out the window. Something that I am learning in my journey though is that IT'S OK. I do still get frustrated with myself because I find myself doing stupid things that I wish I wouldn't want to do. For example, I still get into that all or nothing mindset. The one thing that has changed though is that even when I get into my all or nothing thinking with my food choices, I continue to workout. In the past, that all or nothing thinking would also mean no real exercise happening. So the good news is that I have continued to workout 5-6 days a week. Both the kids have also decided to join me on various workouts this summer which is super fun.

We did a relatively small vacation in June when we went to Hersheypark for a few days. It was no Disney, but we had a good time.

If you go to Hershey you should definitely do the Trolley tour

The NSV's never get old when I do things like go to amusement parks. I never imagined that I would ever be someone who had to worry about fitting on a ride, but that was what I had become. It's amazing how different going to an amusement park is when you no longer have to worry about that. But, it's also interesting because I still have a level of anxiety wondering if I am, in fact, "small enough" to comfortably fit into rides.

Another NSV that happened for the first time last year when we went to Disney, was the fact that I didn't mind being in all the pictures that Mary wanted to take. With things like Snapchat, teenagers are constantly taking pics and sending them to their friends. I not only love the fact that my teenage daughter wants me to be in these pics, but I love that I truly want to be in the pics with her.

Of course there is the part of me that beats myself up for gaining back 10lbs over the last couple months; but the positive side of me tends to win this argument. Yes, of course it's annoying that I let myself gain back 10lbs from the lowest that I hit on May 5th. But once again I picked a number that was my aha number. The number that when I see the scale get there means I need to stop the stupidity and get back on track (and that number was considerably less than my old aha number). The scale is there now and as of yesterday I decided I need to get back to it to lose these 10 pounds and to keep going. I still have at least 25 pounds I want to lose (from that lowest weight); so it's not like when I re-lose these 10 pounds that I'll be back to my goal weight.

Last summer I lost and re-gained the same few pounds. I continued on that trend through the end of the year. By January 1st I had re-gained about 11 pounds from the lowest weight I had hit in 2018. One of my biggest goals for this year was to actually continue to lose weight during the 2nd part of the year. For the last couple years I do really well from January til May and then basically maintain my weight until the end of the year when I pack on those lovely holiday pounds.

I have no doubt I will continue to gain weight the last couple weeks of every year because I just don't see my behavior changing (I mean, it hasn't yet). I'm OK with that. I hope that I can continue to make small changes to my behavior so that I gain less weight, but I know I'll be heavier January 1st than I was December 1st pretty much every year and I'm OK with that. However, what I would like to accomplish this year is that the weight on January 1st is still at least less than what my weight was on May 5th.

Ok, so that means I need to lose the 10 pounds I've already re-gained from that lowest weight and then work on losing a fair amount more (lets say at least another 10-15 pounds) so that at WORST CASE SCENARIO I weigh a few pounds less on Jan 1st than I did on May 5th.

January 1st 2017 my weight was 13.8 pounds above the lowest weight I had hit during 2016 (which I hit in July).

January 1st 2018 my weight was 13.3 pounds above the lowest weight I had hit during 2017 (which I had hit in May).

January 1st 2019 my weight was 11.2 pounds above the lowest weight I had hit during 2018 (Which I had hit in November, but from May to November I had lost about 1 pound - so really I had hit that low weight also in May).

I've gotten better with how much I gain back,  but I want to get even better this year. Not only that, but I'd like my lowest weight of the year to be closer to the end of the year than May (or even July). I'd love to be able to say my lowest weight of the year was some time in December.

I gained weight both May and June and I would like that to stop now. I suppose the good news is that it took me 2 months to gain what I lost in 1 month (April) so that's something. But, the goal now is to re-lose that weight and continue on with losing more so I can hit a new low weight some time during the last 6 months of this year. I'm not going to stress myself with trying to lose all this re-gained weight in one month. I just need to get back to being more consistent and stop with the all or nothing thinking. I have plenty of room in my diet to eat less than  healthy things and still lose weight. I need to once again find that happy medium. I'll find it. I know I will. One thing I have learned is that eventually I figure it out and more weight comes off. Perhaps I'll blogging more through this 2nd half of the year hoping that it keeps me on track. Only time will tell, but I do know this; I will NOT gain back all the weight that I lost. I will keep fighting the fight and doing what I can to eventually get to where I want to be.