The biggest change I've made is with my activity level. My all or nothing thinking used to mean that I was either eating healthy AND exercising or I was not doing either of those things. Since joining Living Lean in 2018 I have worked out consistently for 2 years. In 2019 I worked out something like 291 times. It no longer matters what I'm doing with my nutrition. I workout because I LOVE to workout and that is the "easy" part for me.
I thought I was getting better with my all or nothing thinking when it comes to food, but I've come to realize that I'm really not. I thought I was getting better because I was getting pretty good at incorporating nutrient dense food with not so nutritious food while losing weight. BUT, what I'm coming to realize is that my all or nothing thinking has shifted to tracking. I am either tracking what I eat and staying in a reasonable calorie deficit (over the course of a week); or I'm not tracking and I'm eating like a total ass. There doesn't seem to be any in between these days.
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| I really need to start believing this. |
So I've been in a very weird mental place. On January 1st I blogged about the fact that I was in the best mental space I've been in in a while. It's January 16th and I feel like I'm back into the worst mental space. Amazing how that shift happens. Wow. I just re-read what I wrote and obviously it really wasn't true.
Here's what I said: "I am ready to get myself refocused. But not because I'm punishing myself or because I don't think where I am is good enough. I'm ready to re-focus because I want more for myself. I want to see what else I can accomplish. For the first time in a while it feels like this want for change is because I deserve it, not because I need it in order to be "better". And that is a huge mental shift."
But honestly....I was talking about getting down to 150 pounds. I want more for myself...to be 150 pounds. I want to see what I can accomplish .....can I really lose 100 pounds. And the whole not good enough thing?? Yeah, I may have said that I think where I am is good enough, but I didn't actually mean that. What I meant is it's good enough for now but not forever.
OK. So on January 6th I decided that it was time to "get focused" and lose the weight I re-gained plus some more. And since that time my mental state has gone downhill rapidly. I very quickly got back into the not good enough mindset. The mindset that I had to get this weight off me as quickly as possible. I had a couple days of "perfect" tracking and I felt good about myself. But, as soon as I wasn't sure how to track something I felt guilty. The next day I ended up eating everything in my house. Coincidence? Not at all.
What I am coming to realize is that I am totally engulfed in weight loss...or more specifically....the number on the scale going down. Everything I do is with the hope and intention for the number on the scale to go down. And if what I am doing (or just did) won't result in the scale going down then I am failing. And if I'm failing anyway then what's the point?
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| Another thing I really need to embrace |
I'm saying all this to say that I am going to shift my focus. I've probably said this before, but I don't think I've ever actually worked on it. I know I've said that I'm going to "work on my mind"; but what does that even mean? I'm starting to figure out what that means. I decided yesterday that I am no longer tracking. I am no longer going to focus on trying to eat X number of calories in a day or lose X number of pounds. Do I want to still lose some more weight? Sure. That isn't going to go away overnight. But, that is no longer my main focus. I know how to eat in order to lose weight. I track to justify that I'm doing it "right" or to give me permission to eat something that I feel like I shouldn't be eating. I have spent so much time either tracking and eating well or not tracking and eating crappy that I don't trust myself to eat well if I'm not tracking. I have actually been known to pass up the "healthier option" that actually looks really good to me when I'm not tracking because I don't want to "waste it". Wow. How stupid is that? Or, I'll choose something else because the healthy option is something I can get when I'm tracking so when I'm not tracking I should live it up as much as possible. Ugh. That is what needs to change.
I am going to focus now on just eating to be as healthy as I want to be in that moment; not to try to hit X weight or to stay within X calories. It's going to be a process and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared to gain all my weight back. But, I'm not giving up. I'm not saying screw it. I'm just not
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| Dinner yesterday....yum! |
1) Eat mindfully
2) NO wine
3) workout 6 days per week
4) drink 96-128 oz of water every day
Yesterday I did not weigh or track a single thing I ate and it was amazing! I ate when I was actually hungry and in the end I ate 3 meals and 1 snack all day. My meals were healthy (healthy enough - just as healthy as I would have eaten if I were tracking). But, I found myself wanting to track it all at the end of the day because I knew it was a "good" day. I didn't. And in the end I felt great. I never felt deprived or mad or forced to make a decision I didn't really want to make. And I didn't eat more at the end of the day simply because I had calories left. I didn't know where my calories were so I just stopped eating for the day because I wasn't really hungry.
I have not yet decided if I'm going to continue to weigh in and report my loss/gain each week or if I'm really going to step back from focusing on the scale. I know what I need to do, but I don't know if I'm ready to do that yet. One step at a time......
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