IT’S SO EASY

It has been 18 days since I last counted my calories or worked out. That was 4/9, the day before we went to mom and dad’s for Easter. I knew it would be a tough weekend, but I turned it into something much worse than that. We left on a Friday, and though I had planned to get up and work out that day, I don’t think I did. I don’t remember for sure, but am about 95% sure I didn’t. I find that when I try to think about it, my memory gets hazy, like I’m trying to think through fog. Anyway, I went out that night and drank a lot of beer and ate bad food (cheese balls, hamburger and pizza at midnight). I tried to do better the next day but then we went to monicles for dinner and I ate way too much pizza. The next day was Eastern dinner and I took moderate portions to begin with (only 1 roll) but then kept going back and ended up eating 3 rolls, more ham and two deserts. The next day on the way home, we stopped and ate pork tenderloins and I had some really bad jalapeno poppers. Then more crap at home. The next day, it was off to La Crosse for three nights where I didn’t work out there either and ate pretty much whatever I wanted and drank a couple beers each night. Back home for daddy/daughter breakfast and from there I was on a mission to gain all the weight back. I started indulging those cravings for bad food, we ate out a lot and I came home and had snacks right before bed time. I still did good for breakfast and lunch, but from there, it was anything goes. Once, I even bought two candy bars and ate them on the way home from Benders to get milk. That confirmed that I was really in trouble, but I still didn’t do anything about it. And to make it easier on myself, I didn’t keep track of my calories the entire time.

I was starting to give up. I didn’t get near the scale and knew that it was going to say I had gained some back, how much I didn’t want to know. More important than that was how I was feeling about myself and the progress I had made. I was giving it all back, giving it away to the fat person who didn’t care, who only thought about those moments of putting food in my mouth and how yummy it was. I knew it was bad, knew it was the wrong thing to do, but I just didn’t stop it. Until now. It’s 7:04 and I did my bootcamp work out this morning after getting up 1 hour ago. It was hard and there were moments when I wanted to stop, but most of the time, I knew I was doing good again, that I was doing the right thing now. Next, it will be getting back on the wagon on food and eating the way I should again.

Net loss, or gain in this situation, is 1.63 pounds. Not bad considering all I’ve done to wreck my progress in the last 18 days. I’m lucky that I was able to stop it after only that much back sliding and I’ve learned a lesson. You can’t take a day off. You can’t stop counting the calories no matter what. You can’t stop weighing no matter what. You can’t stop exercising no matter what. It is SO EASY for one day to turn into 2 and 2 days into a week and a week into two weeks, or 18 days. It would be SO EASY to fall back into the same routine as before, eating not just whatever I want, but continuing to eat, even when I don’t want to anymore. Trying to make myself feel better with food when what I know it is doing is making me feel worse. Not just worse over the long haul, but worse right that moment, as soon as I swollow whatever sweet things was in my mouth. And for that bad feeling to hang on until the next day, where I try again to feel better by eating something else that I know I shouldn’t. It is almost like a sickness, a mental breakdown that keeps doing the same bad thing expecting it to be good, but knowing even as I’m doing it that it won’t and that it makes things worse, a little worse each time.