Stay in Your OWN Lane

You do you

To each their own

Agree to disagree

Are there more sayings like this that I'm missing? The point is; there is no one "right" way to do things. I am finding myself getting bogged down in still trying to find the right way to go through my journey. But the thing is; it's just that: MY journey. 

Why am I continuing to doubt myself? Why am I continuing to try to find a way to eat whatever and still lose weight? Why don't I just believe that it's OK that in order for me to be actively losing weight I need the crutch of tracking my food?

There is so much information out there on "diet culture" and people who are against dieting. Honestly, I am starting to really drive myself crazy with all of this. I think the thing is is that I actually fall in between both of these schools of thought. But, what happens is I start to read things on not dieting and think a) wow, wouldn't it be great if I could eat whatever I wanted and still lose weight? and b) what I am doing must be wrong. It's not normal. It's disordered eating to track my food and to want to lose weight. But is it really? Yes, if you're someone who is eating 800 calories a day and exercising like crazy to hit a certain number on the scale, that probably isn't the healthiest of all things to do to your body. However, if I'm eating 1400-1800+ calories, not having any foods be "off limits", but just tracking to make sure I stay in a certain calorie range, how is that bad?

I tried. I tried for 3 weeks (yes, only 3 weeks) to not track and just eat whatever I wanted and not worry about it. The problem is, I was still worrying about it because the truth of the matter is I still want to lose more weight. I also wasn't making the healthy choices that I know would help me reach my goals. I used the excuse of nothing is off limits to justify it. I tried having things in my house so that they would be less tempting, but I still ate way more of them than I needed to. I don't know why I can't seem to just eat the way I did today when I'm not writing down my food; but that's just the way it is. I am sure there will come a time when I won't feel the need to track my food as much. Or a time when I get away from the mindset that if I'm not tracking that means I get to eat everything. I was there before so I'm pretty positive I'll get there again. I'm just not there right now.

I'm actually OK with this January weight gain; BUT, I'm ready
for it to start going in the opposite direction again

I'm not at a place where I'm willing to take the time, effort and potential weight gain to deal with my "food issues". And frankly, I don't actually think my food issues are all that bad when it comes down to it. I don't freak out if I'm going to a birthday party and there's going to be cake there. If I want the cake I eat it and move on. I may track it and eat a little less the rest of the day to make it fit; or maybe I'll track it and just go over my calories that day; or perhaps I even won't track it and take a day to just not worry about it. All these things are ways that I've handled food situations in the last few years of my journey. I don't think there's anything wrong with any of these things; but you can find someone who will tell you saving calories for a treat is wrong, or that you should just skip the cake because you're trying to lose weight. 

What I am willing to take the time and effort on right now is continuing my weight loss journey while working on my brain to believe that the way I am doing this is just fine; that there is nothing wrong or unhealthy about tracking my food so that I know I'm in a calorie deficit. That, as long as I don't become obsessive about it (which I only seem to do when I feel like what I'm doing is wrong), it's all good.

So I'm back to tracking and trying to lose weight. We are down to 40 days until Disney (ummmm...yay!!!). I would like to lose 10 pounds before we go, but one change that I am actually making is that I don't necessarily care if I hit that goal or not. Right now I just want to get back to tracking my food and staying in my calorie range most of the time. I don't want the scale to dictate whether or not I feel like I'm doing it "right". I've tracked and have enough data to prove that if I am tracking and staying in my calorie range most of the time I will absolutely lose weight. Last year I lost just under 28 pounds in 16 weeks when I was tracking my food and mostly staying in my calorie range. That's it.