OLD HABITS DIE HARD

I've been off on a bender for the last three days.  Ya know, like an alcoholic or drug addict would do, but with food.  What precipitated this downward spiral you may ask...??  Basically, I worked my but off last week.  I Went to the gym five times.  I shoveled snow three times.  I ran on the treadmill.  I did the Elliptical machine.  I lifted weights.  I did abdominal exercises.  AND I ate salmon soup for half the week.  No alcohol and no sweets and even in the face of my mother-in-law's lasagna, I was a good girl.  So I fully expected not only a weight loss this week, but a pretty impressive one.  I was so certain of this that I weighed myself a day early (Monday) preparing to make a great announcement on "Weigh-in Tuesday."  When I stepped on the scale and saw that I lost not one single pound, I flipped out!  I went berserk!  Now being a bit of an English buff, I always like to check and see if I've used the right adjective.

Ber * serk: adj 1. Destructively or frenetically violent 2. Mentally or emotionally upset; deranged 3. Informal  Unrestrained as with enthusiasm or appetite; wild: berserk over chocolates.

n. one that is violent, upset, or unrestrained. A berserker.

Yep!  Correct usage!  Dead on, in fact!  I can confidentially say I went berserk!  I know I have established a bit of a pattern- lose one week and then generally no weight loss the next.  I have been perfectly content with that until the weight losses started going from four and five pounds at a time to now just one and two pounds at a time.  Seeming too early to plateau, I believed that if I kept my nose to the grindstone I would have another weight loss this week, and a potentially good one that would make up for last week's so-so weight loss.   When that didn't happen, I saw red- as in red velvet cake, red saucy lasagna, and red-skinned potatoes.

I broke my own rule.  (see "BREAKING THE ALL OR NOTHING HABIT")  I didn't get what I wanted and like a big baby I threw a tantrum.  I basically said, "F*ck it."  "You don't want to let go of the pounds when eating soup and running, how's about some sofa riding and bagels then!"  I said "f*ck it" to my body!  Now as you can imagine this really hasn't gotten me anywhere.  In fact, it's put me at a two pound deficit, as I've gained back the pound I lost plus one more.

So why do we do it??  Especially, when had I just hung in there (like I preach in the post, "BREAKING THE ALL OR NOTHING HABIT") it is likely I would have dropped some more pounds.  If not by Tuesday, then Wednesday, or Friday, or whatever.  So why..........?!  Because old habits die hard!  Sometimes even when we know what to do, we still do the wrong thing!  I am disappointed at both the outcome and my response to it.  I'm sure you are disappointed as well.  But this is real life!  This isn't "The Biggest Loser," where you get swept away to a ranch to train 24-hours a day with celebrity personal trainers.  This isn't fat camp or rehab where you are isolated from your normal routine and receive professional help.  And I'm certainly not a celebrity where I have a live-in chef and full-time trainer.

This is just me taking what I've learned and my life experiences and applying them in a rudimentary fashion; every day trying my best to change a bad habit or apply a new behavior, psychoanalyzing myself and my collection of issues the entire time.  I'd love to see the pounds melting off, ten at a time, every week, but that isn't reality.  Well, it isn't my reality.  I am just a regular girl fighting an insulin problem right now.  And in case you forgot, let me remind you and myself at the same time, that means my body is converting every calorie to fat despite what I do or do not eat.  This week the insulin problem is kicking my ass!

Just because I am airing my dirty laundry does not mean I am without failure.  Putting out there all these details about my experience does not mean it will work.  I could fail at this!  I just have to believe that could fail, is not will fail.  Tomorrow is a new day.  I will find my power again and push forward.  Maybe all this is just bad gym karma from all my unkind words this week...LOL.  I did feel the pressure of doing the blog this week, especially when I did not have any good news to share for "Weigh-in Tuesday."  I needed to take a few days off.  But next time I go missing for more than two days and it's not a weekend or holiday- come looking for me!!  It just may mean that I've gone berserk! ;-)      

"Perfection is impossible.  However, striving for perfection is not.  Do the best you can under the conditions that exist.  This is what counts." -John Wooden