I Ate Less and Lost Weight
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Like just about everyone struggling to lose weight, I constantly find myself engaging in mental gymnastics that really, if life were fair, would burn a bazillion calories and hour. It goes like this:
I know the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than I consume. Since I hate to exercise and spend most of my day either at the computer or at the desk in my family’s homeschool classroom, the only other way to accomplish this is by limiting myself to, say, one Cheerio per week. With water, not milk. Yeah, I burn that few calories per day.
Unfortunately, I have absolutely zero willpower when it comes to making food choices, and that’s where the mental gyrations come in. I find my stomach trying to convince my brain that because I had onion, tomato and lettuce with my cheeseburger on a multi-grain bun, I really did something good for my body. After all, that’s a serving of veggies, dairy and protein, and two whole servings of grains. I’m supposed to eat that stuff, right?
Of course, the truth is usually far too obvious the next day as the dial on my scale ratchets up a notch (and so does my belt). That’s when I engage in even more mental gyrations as I try suspending my disbelief over various diet products that promise I can eat all I want and still lose weight thanks to their magic pill, gizmo, subliminal tape or whatever.
Yes, I know better. But look, I still half believe in Santa Claus so the fact that I get my hopes up over new diet products shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise.
Thanks to that whole Santa thing, I was unbelievably busy over the weekend getting our house decorated for Christmas. We have so many decorations that it takes two full days to put everything up — on top of which I also had some shopping and gift-wrapping to do.
As a result, I didn’t get to the grocery store and our cupboards, fridge and pantry were all but bare. Oh, there were plenty of the things my husband and son like to eat: PB&J sandwiches, deli meats, bread and a smattering of fruits and vegetables. But we were completely out of the things that I like to munch on: Blast o’ Butter popcorn, chips, pretzels, crackers, bacon and cheese. I can’t count how many times I opened the fridge over the weekend in hope of finding something to nosh, then wound up settling for carrot or celery sticks and cantaloupe cut into chunks the size of cufflinks to make it stretch.
Meanwhile, since our boxes of Christmas decorations were crowded together in the kitchen — blocking my way to the scale — I didn’t set foot on the darned thing all weekend. Then Monday and Tuesday were packed with appointments and errands, so I still didn’t weigh myself. I did, however, manage to go grocery shopping, but last night I was too tuckered to bother cooking dinner so the boys had PB&J (again) while I had a bowl of soup.
I woke up this morning knowing that I really couldn’t go one more day without weighing myself. After all, I’ve seen my weight jump up 5 pounds in one week when I haven’t been vigilant about stepping on the dang thing. I dreaded what I’d discover this morning, but I just couldn’t put it off any longer.
The good news: I lost three pounds. Three!
I see a lot more PB&Js — and an empty fridge, cupboards and pantry — in my family’s future. A lot more.
4 Responses to “I Ate Less and Lost Weight”
I know how this is gonna sound (because I hear it about every other area of my life) but good GOD you need to give yourself a break.
You’ve got to deal with the mental anguish first (or at least along with your weight.)
Nothing’s worth that amount of torture.
If mood has any affect on health at all you’re doing yourself far more damage with your stress level than you could possibly be doing with a couple pounds.
Who, me, stressed? Ya think?
No, you’re absolutely right. I know for a fact that stress is the primary reason behind most of my less-than-healthy habits: smoking, overeating and drinking, to name three.
The good news is that over the Christmas holiday we’re fixing up my home office. Actually, not “fixing it up”, exactly: we’re moving it. To the guest room.
As a result, we’ll no longer really have a guest room. Oh, we’ll have a futon sofa in there for guests to sleep on, but the rest of the time it’s going to function as my combined home office and gym. My exercise bike’s going in there along with my computer, my desk and a TV. It’ll be my little place to get away from them all.
I intend to do yoga in there. I also intend to shut myself in there behind a locked door on a daily basis and giggle over the fact that whenever my in-laws announce they’ll be staying at my house, they’re in for as much of a pain in the ass (thanks to the futon sofa) as they give me when they’re here.
Who, me, stressed? Not for much longer!
I do the same thing with the exercises in rationalization. Clearly this sushi is good for me because it has fresh fish and seaweed in it, right? Nevermind the half ton of sticky rice I am consuming along with it…ooops.
Just found your blog, really enjoy it!
Oooh, I love sushi. I’d find it harder to give that up than chips. Then again, I don’t find too much good sushi here in Kansas, whereas there’s a bag of chips in every store.