How is YOUR April going??

This month has been far from easy.

I had 5 goals that I targeted for the month of April. I have been doing pretty well with all of them, but it hasn't been without struggles.

Honestly I think the absolute easiest goal this month has been to stay away from wine. I've barely even thought about the fact that I "can't" have wine. It's more just a matter of fact - I gave up wine this month so I'm just not having it.

McDonald's has been pretty easy too. I've had some days (like yesterday and today) where I just want it for no real reason. I get into these lunch funks where I just don't know what I'm in the mood to eat. I don't really want anything, but I want to EAT because I like to eat (and I'm hungry)! Those are the times that I used to just head to McD's for lunch because it was easier. But I have continued to resist that urge. You would think after almost 3 full months of not having McDonald's this wouldn't be this hard still.

A beautiful sight before a 4 mile run.

The one goal that I haven't succeeded in is exercising 6 days per week. I'm actually totally fine with this though. Last week I had 11 miles on the schedule and we did that on a Wednesday. I didn't have my workout class that Thursday like I usually would so I decided to rest on Thursday. I then rested on my usual Saturday rest day and couldn't bring myself to get up and run on Easter morning. And now I'm having some slight discomfort in my knee so I'm planning to take it easy the rest of this week so that I don't end up doing serious damage. After doing some research today I think it's just a little case of "runner's knee". So, I will be moving my 12.5 mile training run from this Friday to next so I can take some time to rest my knee. Interestingly enough though, my knee feels the best while I'm running.

Long runs = ice baths!

I have miraculously tracked the entire month of April so far. This has been an amazing feat because I have been eating like crazy. It'll definitely be interesting to see what the scale says come May 1st given how much I have been eating.

Coloring Easter Eggs

And that brings me to my last April goal - the damn scale. It's April 19th and I'm feeling like May 1st can't come soon enough! The start of the month I was thinking it was considerably easier this time than it was back in February; but now I'm feeling it. It's funny (weird) because the whole reason I want to get on the scale is because I'm scared I've gained. I can't seem to get myself back on track this month and I think that if I get on the scale it'll just help something to click. That's probably not the case. I'm really not "off track" even though I FEEL like I am. I have been tracking all month and there have only been about 3 days all month where I ate more calories than my Garmin said I burned. All the other days that I felt like I was eating way too much (because I ate over 2,000 calories), I still had at least a few hundred calorie deficit. So IF any of these devices actually work to even estimate calories burned and consumed I should have lost at least some weight this month.

Ultimately it doesn't matter what the scale says. I know that I've been struggling to keep my calories lower this month and if the scale isn't down I know why. If it IS down it will show me that perhaps I CAN eat slightly higher calories and still lose weight because of the activity that I do and perhaps I just need to CHILL out and TRUST THE PROCESS. I am trying to remind myself and convince myself that it really doesn't matter how long it takes to lose this weight as long as I'm losing it. As much truth as there is in that statement it also isn't always helpful. I've said it before. I've said it lots of times over the last 5 years since I started this blog and yet, I STILL have the weight to lose. It may not matter how quickly it happens, but it needs to be happening.....and continue happening until I'm where I want to be....

If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time you may have noticed that I go back and forth between different "diets" or ways of eating. I hate the word diet and when I use it I just mean it in terms of what I'm eating at the time. My diet will never be perfect. I know that my diet will forever consist of tracking of some sort if I want to lose or maintain my weight. I tend to switch up the way I track and that doesn't necessarily mean I'm changing diets; but that I'm just trying to change things up to keep from getting bored. Right now I'm struggling with tracking calories. I'm not eating nearly enough fruits and veggies and am just worrying about how many calories I'm eating and not where those calories are coming from. I get into this funk when I'm counting calories. Sometimes switching to WW (Weight Watchers) and counting points helps because fruits and veggies are "free" so if I'm feeling like I want to eat I can eat lots of those and don't need to feel like I have to weigh/measure/track, etc. But, it annoys me because why can't I just up my fruit and veggie intake without having to change the way I track things? Why can't I just choose the foods that I KNOW are better for my body than the ones that aren't the best choices? And herein lies the problem. And this is my journey to try to figure it all out!

TOWPATH TRILOGY - 5 MILER

A race report?!?!?! WHAAAAAATTTT????

I haven't written a race report since 2012!!! I have only participated in one race since that time. Back in 2014 I did a Glow Run 5k with the kids. It was horrible. I mean, it was fun in that it was at night and we all had things that glowed on us (glow sticks, glow shoelaces, glow rings, etc). But, the race part of it sucked. I was pretty close to my highest weight ever. I was in a very negative place and was still having issues with my Crohn's. I attempted to run some of it, but just really couldn't. We walked the majority of the 3 miles and I think it took us almost a full hour to complete the 3.1 miles.

I have tried many times to get back into running since getting admitted to the hospital in January 2013. I would get started and then would get too sick to continue. I mean, in 2013 I registered to do the Columbus Half Marathon. By the time the race came along I had to drop out because I was too sick to train. That was the last race I even registered for........until now!

I started Entyvio in April 2015. By September 2015 I was pretty certain that Entyvio was "my drug" and I had felt better than I had felt in 3 years. I gradually started back to exercising and run intervals as I was starting to feel better. By June 2016 I was back to pretty regularly running after convincing my mom to start intervals with me. We did that pretty consistently until maybe October, but I continued with the running on my own. Around November was when Leslie and I started running together and started talking about training for future races.

Back in 2012 I completed the Towpath 10-10 and the Towpath 10k. For whatever reason I didn't do any distance in the April Towpath race, but if I had I would have completed the Towpath Trilogy. When I was making my goal list for 2013, completing the Towpath Trilogy was on that list. We all know how 2013 turned out for me. It is now 2017 and I still have not YET completed the Towpath Trilogy. I quickly decided this year would be my year to try. The April Towpath event is the Half Marathon, but it has 3 mile and 5 mile distance races as well. I decided to sign up for the 5 mile event since it is a distance I have never "raced" before so it would be an instant PR regardless of how slow. I also had it in my mind that it would be easy to PR again later because I would likely be quite slow since I'm still early in the year.

It didn't matter that I didn't have anyone signing up with me. I was determined to complete this race and have a good start to completing the trilogy this year. I was talking to my mom about it earlier in the week and she ended up signing up to do the 5 miler with me! She had never run 5 miles before, but since she has lost a ton of weight and does her elliptical for over an hour every day I figured she could handle it no problem. I told her that I am SLOW and if she just stays with me I'm sure she'll be fine. But, I never asked her to do it. She wanted to do it so that I wouldn't have to do it alone. My mom is awesome. Did I mention that she just turned 70 in March!?!? No? Well, yea, she did!

Anyway, so we met there and froze our butts off while waiting for the race to start. It was such a beautiful day though. Chilly to start, but then perfect running temp for the rest of the race. The sun was shining and I can't even express how happy I was to be back out there at a race! It honestly did not feel like 5 years since I had done that.

When I signed up for the race I decided to put my estimated finishing time at 1 hour and 9 minutes because I hadn't done 5 miles faster than that in all of my training runs. And, I felt like I have been going slower lately (which you know was really making me mad). It ended up being such a great day and even though my legs felt like lead when we started; we finished our first mile in something like 12:14! I knew I wouldn't be negative splitting this race because I didn't think I could go much faster than 12:14, but I didn't care. I felt good pretty much the entire time. We kept our 2/1 intervals (run 2 minutes/walk 1 minute). There were people we kept leap frogging until we eventually just passed them for good around mile 4.

Official results......1:03.42!

That's a 12:44 minute/mile average pace! I am BEYOND happy with that! Considering my absolute best race pace was 11:03 m/m for a 4 mile race (back in 2011 when I was at my PEAK) and my best half marathon pace was 12:20 m/m (again, back in 2011 at my peak); I am beyond happy with 12:44 m/m in my first 5 mile race back! When I completed that half marathon and 4 mile race in November 2011, I also weighed probably 15 lbs less than I do right now.

Needless to say; I am EXCITED and I am BACK! Next up.... Cleveland Half Marathon!

Trickery

In my last post I discussed my April goals. I put together some pretty good goals for April (I thought). But I also thought that putting together those goals might bleed into other areas as well. Here's exactly what I said:

"I'm not even trying to be "perfect" and stay within my calories every day. I am simply challenging myself with tracking every day. I know that if I'm tracking every day the chances that I will go over my calories is lower than if I'm not tracking. "

That statement still holds true. The goal is NOT to be perfect, but to track what I am eating every day regardless of what that may be. But man, I really thought putting that particular goal out there would trick me into actually staying within my calorie range the entire month. It's stupid, really. If I really wanted to challenge myself to stay within my calorie range all month than that is what I should put out there. 

Also, I didn't talk about the fact that I made a change with my tracker, which would make the challenge of "staying within my calorie range" even more challenging. I used to have my Garmin and my tracker "communicating". I have the Garmin Vivosmart HR+ and I LOVE it. I wear it 24/7 and pretty much only take it off when I have to charge it. It calculates my calorie burn throughout the day regardless of the activity I do. On days when I don't do any exercise (like the Monday I had my infusion) it tells me I burn around 2300. When I fill in the information on MFP or Sparkpeople or any other calculator you can find online I usually get around the same number of calories burned in a day based on my height and weight so I trust that my Garmin is fairly accurate (as accurate as any of these trackers can be). 

On days I workout that calorie burn goes significantly higher. On days I run my end of the day calorie burn is higher than days I do other workouts - even if the calorie burn during the workout was similar. Interesting to me. I believe that I DO continue to burn more calories, even at rest, on the days I run than the other days. I ran on Sunday, only 3 miles, ended up covering over 5 miles that day with my other steps and my calorie burn at the end of the day was 3383. When I had Garmin and MFP communicating those 1378 active calories would be added to my calorie allotment for the day. So, if I had my "net" calories set to 1300 (which I did), it would mean I could eat up to 2678 and still be considered in range. 

Towards the end of March I decided that I needed to be even more strict with my calorie deficit and the way I should do this is to disconnect MFP and Garmin. I would only enter the calories burned during a specific workout (which is nothing compared to what my Garmin says I've burned by the end of any given day). I upped my "net calories" allowed because I knew that I pretty much never ate only 1300 calories. I didn't want to see RED numbers the one day a week I didn't workout; or even the days that I didn't burn many calories in my workout. Anyway, I set my new number to lose 1lb per week (still totally fine with me) and that put me at 1560 calories/day. Of course April not only starts on a Saturday, but the ONE day a week that I rest. I knew keeping my calories even below 2000 on a Saturday would not be easy, but I didn't let it bother me since I knew my goal was to just track everything. Saturday I ended at 1626 calories. My Garmin had my calorie burn at 2165 (yea, I take my rest days seriously! LOL). MFP has my "base" calorie burn at 2350 so it wouldn't have given me any extra calories on Saturday so I would have gone over regardless. 

The picture on the right shows a day with a long run. Not only did I have a 9.5 mile run to start that day, but I had a busy day and did not do a TON of sitting for the rest of the day. I ended the day having taken over 24,000 steps. I ate probably 3,000 calories that day,  but was still 2,000 calories under my max goal. Now; I don't really believe that if I ate 5,000 calories that day that I would still be losing weight. BUT, I do believe and know that I need to consumer more calories when I burn that many in a day. 

This is a long post to basically say that my plan of trying to trick myself into eating less calories has completely back-fired. I have eaten WELL over 2,000 calories for the last 3 days straight. And it doesn't frankly matter if my Garmin and tracker were communicating or not. I don't want to eat more than 2000 calories more than twice a week. And, frankly, that's only if I'm doing a good job at staying around 1500 calories the rest of the days. It's just interesting that when I try to put a little more pressure on myself I go so far in the other direction. This is nothing new. I wrote this post back in 2013 about sabotage. I was basically talking about how as soon as I started stressing about losing weight I started gaining. It is 4 years later and I'm STILL doing this to myself. 

I know partially why this is happening this week, but this is the worst string of high calorie days I have had since January. It needs to stop now. I'm not weighing myself so I can't see what damage I'm doing, but I can feel it today. I feel like my belly is more bloated than it's been. Tomorrow is a new day. It is NOT about perfection; it is about persistence. I will continue to meet my April goals. I will not stress about high calorie days and I will get back to my lower calorie days. And perhaps I will re-link my Garmin and my tracker.......

April Goals

Time to talk about more GOALS! I think this might become a new "normal" post for me. I like setting goals to strive for at the start of the month. And it's fun to look back and see how I did. Let's start there, shall we?? If you recall, I posted on March 1st about my March Goals. To remind you; here are the goals I set for myself for March:

1. Continue to avoid McDonald's. Other fast food places are OK because none of them are the trigger that McDonald's is for me. 
2. Limit wine. 
3. Stay OFF the scale until my infusion on March 27th.
4. Workout 6 days per week. 
5. Track my food at least 6 out of 7 days of the week. 

Let's see how I did with those goals this month. 

Goal #1 - NO McDonald's

Success!! I call this goal a success because I have not had a MEAL at McDonald's since January. I will confess that I had a caramel sundae at McDonald's after my son's music program. I didn't count that because the only reason we went there is because there is NO other ice cream place for us to go at 8PM on a school night when we want to get the kids in to bed. My kids have learned that when Grandma and Grandpa come to watch a concert, production, sporting event, etc. there will likely be ice cream afterward. In the summer it's no big deal because we have a yummy place that is outside. However, any time that's between October and May becomes more of a challenge. Anyway, so I don't count getting ice cream at McDonald's as having McDonald's. Not only have I had no McDonald's this month, but I also haven't had Burger King, Wendy's, or Taco Bell. Again, those aren't big triggers for me, but I find it funny when I give up McDonald's that the others seem to naturally go away too. 

Waiting for ice cream at McD's

Goal #2 - Limit Wine

Hmmmm.....I guess it all depends on what your definition of "limit" is. If you think that means drink wine only on the weekends then I succeeded at this one. If you think that  means only drink once or twice the entire month than I failed at this one. In my definition I failed at this one. I had wine every weekend this month. With that considered I'm thinking I should be happy with ANY weight loss this month! 

Goal #3 - Stay OFF the Scale until March 27th

We already know how this went. FAILED. But, I haven't consciously used the scale to sabotage myself so that's good. 

Goal #4 - Workout 6 days per week

Success! The only week that I didn't workout 6 days was this week. I didn't work out Monday because I had my infusion and I don't workout on infusion days (I think that's fair). I'm still calling this a success because if I didn't have my infusion I would have worked out on Monday. Also, I almost didn't workout last Sunday but I found myself on the treadmill because I knew it was a scheduled workout day. 

Goal #5 - Track my food 6 days per week

Another fail. I would say I consistently tracked my food 5 days per week. There were several weeks this month that I succeeded in tracking 6 days, but not all month. 

 

So March wasn't great in terms of meeting my goals. I think staying away from McDonald's was a biggie though and I'm happy that I have continued that one. Working out consistently is also very important so that's great! But, there are definitely areas that I need to continue to work on. 

Let's move on to the goals I have been thinking about for April. 

Goal #1 Continue with NO McDonald's

You knew that was coming, right? This one continues to be huge for me. I know the longer I go and the more weight I lose I will start to think I can handle it again. I need to remember that my past has shown me otherwise. Again, other fast food is OK because nothing is as much of a trigger as McDonald's. 

Goal #2 NO WINE

You read that right. No wine. Not even on Easter. It may suck but I am an all or nothing person. I was originally going to say I could have wine only on Easter Sunday; but I have a bad feeling that if I did that it would balloon into more. I mean, in March I was only going to have wine at my mom's birthday dinner and my birthday; that morphed into starting on March 1st at dinner and continuing every weekend throughout the month. 

Goal #3 Track EVERY day in April

This is a pretty big deal. I've tried this goal before and have yet to succeed in it. Back in 2014 I did the Whole30 and that still has been the only time I have completely stuck to something for 30 days with absolutely NO "cheats". When I finished the Whole30 I was struggling with staying on track. I wrote this blog post about how I was going to stay totally strict on the Weight Watchers program I was doing for at least 30 days to compare my results so when I did the Whole30. I can tell you I didn't meet that goal. So here it is again. I'm not even trying to be "perfect" and stay within my calories every day. I am simply challenging myself with tracking every day. I know that if I'm tracking every day the chances that I will go over my calories is lower than if I'm not tracking. 

Goal #4 Continue to workout 6 days per week

This one should be easy enough. 

Goal #5  That DAMN scale

This one is by far the hardest goal. Isn't that funny? So here's my plan for April: on April 1st I am going to weigh myself and take my measurements. I am then going to stay OFF the scale until May 1st when I will get on the scale again and take my measurements again. 

With all these things in place it will be interesting to see what the scale reflects after 30 days. I have 7 weeks until the Cleveland Half Marathon and I really want to see how close I can get to my lowest racing weight. It's not realistic that I'll hit that weight, but I can get close to it. If I work hard I can be smaller than any other time I've done the Cleveland Half (in 2011 and 2012). 

Catch 22

My posts have been really positive and happy lately. This one will be a little less so.

You know from my recent posts that things are going pretty well. I'm back to running. It's slow, but I'm out there doing it. I've worked up to 9.5 miles, which I did last Friday. 9.5 miles is certainly nothing to sneeze at. AND, those 9.5 miles were covered at a faster pace than the 8 miles 2 weeks prior. So not only am I increasing mileage, but I'm increasing my speed as well.

Sidenote: I feel really funny still using the word "speed" or saying "faster" because my pace is so slow; but I did increase my speed and I did go faster Friday than 2 Fridays before so it's an accurate statement. LOL

Here's where the frustration comes into play. I have Crohn's Disease. This is not new information. I've discussed this nasty disease on my blog several other times. In April 2015 I started on yet another new medication. We are about to hit the 2 year mark of this medication. This is the longest a medication has worked for me since starting my flare back in 2012. (Prior to that, the meds I was on from 2008 worked great). This medication has brought me back to 100% and has been a literal life-saver (or at least colon-saver!). I decided it was really time to ramp up my weight loss efforts and start training again since I had been pretty well in "remission" for the past year.

I am obviously very sensitive to cues my body gives me. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the fact that I have Crohn's Disease. I have been feeling really good in that regard, but I still think about it on a daily basis. Having said that, whenever I feel the slightest stomachache I worry about what that might mean. In the last 2 weeks I've probably had 3 days where my stomach has felt off. It doesn't seem like a lot, and for me (when I'm flaring) it's NOTHING. And, it's not even like my stomach hurt the entire days those days either. I shouldn't be worried, but that's what I do.

I get pissed even thinking about the fact that I could possibly be doing harm to myself by trying to lose weight and workout. I mean WTF?!?! WHAT am I supposed to do? Being fat and unfit is bad for everyone; but trying to get thinner and fitter is bad for ME!?!?! I sure as hell hope not. But sometimes it feels that way since as soon as I start to get myself back on track I tend to start getting stomach pains. Back in January I had a week where I worked out 8 times in 5 days. That Friday night I felt like absolute crap. I decided at that moment I would not be doing 2-a-day workouts anymore. Losing weight is important, but not important enough to send myself into a flare.

I had my last infusion on 1/30/17 and things were just fine. I had my infusion today so I'm going to be paying close attention to how my body continues to react to things. My stomach wasn't too happy with me for doing 9.5 miles Friday, but then I was completely fine the rest of the weekend (and, it was completely fine for the duration of the run. It only became angry when I went through the bulk of the rest of the day before I replenished the calories I had burned. It stopped hurting once I actually ate a good amount of calories). It's so hard to know what is "normal". Lots of people get gastro distress after (or during) running long distances. Maybe that is all that was on Friday. But, I can't mess around with it. I have to pay attention and be extra vigilant about what my body might be telling me.

So listen up Crohn's Disease; I don't have time for your shit. I have BIG goals this year and I am determined to meet them! I AM stronger than you and I WILL beat you! 

But, let's end things on a lighter note. I had a goal I wanted to meet for this infusion today. If you recall; I was going to wait until today to weigh in. We also know that I didn't meet that particular goal. BUT, my other goal was to lose between 8-16 pounds since my last infusion (averaging 1-2lbs/week lost). I am happy to report that my weight loss on the scale today was 10 pounds (an average of 1.25 lbs/week)! Given how many times I let myself have a little too much freedom during these last 8 weeks, I'll take 10 pounds and run with it! Also, when I think back to my goals in the fall of 2015 I was trying to lose 5 pounds a month and was successful with that for 3 months (until the holiday's hit). If I can continue to lose 5 pounds a month I will be down another 45 pounds by the end of this year, and closer to my goal weight than I've been since right after Mary was born.....and, yea, she just turned 13! 

My goal for my next infusion will be the same - be down another 8-10 pounds. Obviously anything over 10 would be phenomenal, but I will be happy with 8 - that equates to a 1lb/week loss and frankly anything less than today's weight is still moving in the right direction. 

Reflection

I was trying to think of what I wanted to post about or if I was going to post at all. Then something amazing happened and I decided I wanted to share it.

I spent some time today reading some of my blog posts from the past 5 years. It's funny because in one of them I talked about how I wasn't going to focus so much on getting to a certain number by my 40th birthday and I'd just be happy if I didn't weigh what I weighed that day. And, today, I am happy to report that I do NOT weigh what I did last year. And, the number is smaller and NOT bigger!

You know how much I love my comparison photos! I can't express enough how much these help me. It might pain me to put those "before" pictures out there, but it shows me how far I have come even when I feel like I haven't gotten anywhere. It shows me that even though I still have a LONG way to go, there is a big  difference between 240.6 pounds and 215 pounds. It shows me that I AM DOING THIS!!!! 

For the first time today in a very long time I was proud of the reflection I saw staring at my in the mirror. So proud that I decided it was time for a pic. The pants I'm wearing in this pic were ones that I bought at Target yesterday because several of my current exercise pants are getting too big. The 2 pairs of workout capri's that I've been wearing the most are a 2x from the women's department at Kohl's. The capri's below are an XL from the workout department at Target. 

Remember in this post back in February I said I was thinking about making myself a deal....NO MORE Plus size clothing. If the XL or whatever size in the "regular" department doesn't fit, I don't get to buy it. Well, I am sticking to that. I don't think I mentioned the fact that I decided I wanted to try a pair of non-plus size jeans. Now, here's where things get a little sticky with semantics. When I say "plus size" I am talking about having to specifically go into the "women's" department and buy a 16W or 18W, etc. If the ladies section goes up to an 18, to me that's not "plus" size because it came off the rack of the regular section of the store. However, there are plenty of people who would say that anything above a size 14 (or even 12) is plus size. I'm not one of them!

So, as I was saying.....I decided I wanted to see if a pair of "regular" size 18 jeans would fit me. The
ones I have been wearing are either a 20W or 18W. The 18W that I have were starting to feel a little big so I thought there was a good chance they would fit. And you know what?? They DID! So I bought them. And every time I bring home a new pair of pants, I put a bigger pair in my giveaway pile. I really do not want to ever need those clothes again. I want to continue going in this direction. I haven't gone this much in this direction since 2011 when I went 40 pounds in the right direction. But even back then I didn't continue. Even in 2012 when I was continuing my fitness craze and completed and trained for a triathlon and marathon (and other races); I was gaining weight rather than losing. I want and need to figure out both. And I feel like I might actually be on my way to doing that.

Size 18 jeans! :) And a 1x shirt that is actually too big!

Complacency

Well. I'm officially 40. And I really don't mind being 40.

Clearly, we had a good time at my party. The shirt that I'm wearing has some significance. Back in 2015 when we went to Disney I saw a Star Wars t-shirt that I absolutely loved. It was like a baseball jersey with the number 77 on the back (since that is when Star Wars first debuted). Given that 77 is the year I was born I REALLY wanted that shirt. But, alas, the shirt only went up to an XL an we're talking "ladies" sizing so I knew there would be NO way it would fit and it would just depress me. Last summer when I hit my lowest weight since 2012 I regretted not buying it. 

Fast forward to December 2016 and we were back at Disney! I gained back about 10lbs that I had lost, but was still almost 20lbs lighter than the previous trip to Disney. I found a different Star Wars shirt with the 77 on the back. This one came in an XXL and since it's still a ladies cut I figured it would absolutely fit! I tried it on as soon as I got back to my room (after buying it, mind you) and I almost cried. There was NO WAY I would wear it in public. I told my husband I was going to return it. He told me not to. He said it would fit better soon. This was my goal. To be able to wear the shirt on my 40th birthday. It's still tighter around my arms than I'd like, but I wore it! 

So I mentioned in my last post about how when I got on the scale last week I was initially not happy. I  had thought the number would be lower because my clothes were fitting better. I mean, there was a week where every day I was able to pick something else from my closet that I hadn't worn yet because it didn't fit when I originally got it. Drew had gotten me clothes for Christmas 2015 because I had lost weight and was planning to continue. Yea, those clothes didn't quite fit back then and they were winter/fall type clothes so even though they probably would have fit last August, I hadn't tried. I've now worn all of them. 

I always thought the scale was my only source of sabotage, but I realize now it's not the scale as much as it is just ME. Even before I knew what number was on the scale I was already starting to feel complacent! CLEARLY I have lots of weight to still lose so there is NO reason to be getting complacent already. But, I found it harder and harder to stay on track as I was fitting into more clothes from the back of my closet. I actually think getting on the scale last week really helped this complacency. When I saw the number staring back at me I realized there was nothing to be complacent about. 

This week I have struggled. My food has been on point and I've had calories "left" every day; but the mental battles have been horrible. I wanted to get on the scale yesterday, but I was SO afraid it would be up from last week because Saturday and Sunday I didn't track. I decided it wasn't a good idea to get on the scale because I was already struggling and didn't need any extra ammunition to add to my struggles. I was going to wait until Friday, but this morning I decided to just get on the scale. I had to have a nice little pep talk with myself to prepare myself for what it might say and that it doesn't matter and I'll just stay the course. 

Well, I was pleasantly surprised to see what number came up on the scale. I didn't believe it. I thought maybe the scale that I thought was broken was actually broken. I went downstairs to get on the trusty scale we have that has worked forever. The number on that scale was only .8 higher than upstairs.....and the number was low enough that .8 didn't matter to me! The number is officially the LOWEST since 2012. It puts me somewhere around 1-2 lbs heavier than when I finished my marathon in 2012. I am NOT complacent. I am happy. I feel motivated. I feel validated in my efforts. Now to continue to not feel complacent and to know that I still have a long way to go......but I CAN do it. I AM doing it.