Raise your hand if you’re not a big fan of Monday mornings. (raising hand) Guess what, me too! Unfortunately, when it comes to weight loss Mondays are pretty darned important.
Ever since I started my weight loss odyssey one of my goals was to change my attitude about food. I’m an emotional eater. When I get upset my craving for sugar and fat increases…but that doesn’t give me license to go eat three Snickers and a case of Pepsi. (darn it)
I’m not a calorie counter. Why? I hate counting them, period. One of my first weight-loss memories is a doctor giving my mother a big sheet of calorie information and I was only seven. I didn’t understand that he was trying to help me, I only knew he (and my parents) were taking something away from me. Something that everyone else got to have but not me. They got Oreos and I had cottage cheese and tomato slices. (it was the 70’s and people didn’t know squat about food – you wanted to lose weight then you starved yourself) Being a kid I thought I was doing something wrong and it triggered other negative behaviors like sneaking food. All I knew was that I was hungry darn it and no one would let me satisfy my hunger. This one incident would color my life for many, many years go come.
For me, counting the little buggers is a sure-fire way to increase my stress and trigger my craving for sugar. Say I’m eating 1200 calories a day and it’s lunchtime and I go out to lunch with a friend. Eating out you are almost always eating more calories then you realize. You have no idea what the cook did to your food – a little butter here, more cheese there – you get the picture. So now I’m thinking, okay, I ate 300 calories for breakfast and around 450 for lunch so I only have 35o left…
For some reason when I eat out the added fat, salt etc seems to kick my cravings into high gear but I only have 350 calories to play with and that ain’t much. Then I begin to obsess. Okay, how can I stretch those calories to ensure I don’t get hungry and eat a water buffalo…can’t have that because its 250 calories…I could have three low-fat yogurts and some fruit…what if I’m hungrier than that? You get the picture.
So I don’t count calories like a miser with a hoard of pennies but I do watch what I eat. If I go out to lunch I simply eat lighter for dinner. A salad or fruit and cheese, a low-calorie frozen meal (I try to keep these to a minimum) and some fruit, it’s no big deal. I don’t agonize over my food choices so I don’t increase my stress so my eating doesn’t start the spiral…see, there is a method to my madness!
Some people are probably reading this and thinking, man, this woman is just odd. That’s okay because my views on food and eating are more normal than most of us want to admit. We all obsess about something and it just so happens that, if I let it, my obsession is food.
So what does this have to do with Mondays?
Today is the day that I readjust my pack. I look down at my feet and make sure I’m on the path to accomplish my goal and I move forward. Last week is last week, its over, done with and set in stone. Today is a new day and it’s time to reassure myself that I’m doing what I need to do to reach my health goals. My goal is to feel better. I don’t have sizes, calories or numbers in mind. I know I want to be able to do what I want without being out of breath, getting tired or simply unable.
So now I’m headed to the pool for my morning exercise. Sixty-eight pounds down and counting!!
Tags : Weight Loss
Categories : Weight Loss Wednesday
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