A sunny Tuesday

I've been awful about keeping up my journal, but to be honest there wasn't much to say. I've been having a lot of issues and things going on in my life, and I've been having a lot of trouble pulling things together. I gained some more weight, the exact amount shall not be spoken, since I am struggling with a lot of guilt and shame and am trying to let it go as much as possible. I've been hiding because I don't want to admit it, so I figure if I don't admit it I can find the courage to come out of hiding at least. Suffice to say that the clothes I was wearing last summer are way too snug and uncomfortable now, and that is probably one of my biggest motivators right now to get back in shape. It's not easy, but one day at a time is all you can do.

I've been attempting to get things under control for a while, but it's been a lot of start and stop. I've found myself really vulnerable to emotional eating over the fall and winter months, and it's been really difficult to stop the binging. I ate so well the year before, but I also wasn't dealing with a lot of the personal issues I've been faced with lately.

This time around however, I didn't talk about getting back on track, I just did it. I didn't want to talk about it and not do it again so I just kept quiet and put my energy into the behaviours. I'm doing really well, I've been tracking and OP for a month, after so many months without tracking at all. I've noticed the past few days that I'm finally starting to settle back into the healthy diet; for a long time there I was having fierce cravings for dirty carbs, and it was killing me some days to avoid a binge. I'm eating almost exactly the way I did when I lost most of the weight, and I'm getting to a point where I'm looking forward to my meals again and finding satisfaction from them, instead of wishing constantly that I was eating something else.

What I think I'm most proud of is that I'm back into an exercise routine! After the injury I had late last summer I just fell off track and never seemed to get back on. It took a long time to heal, but by then I was distracted by life and got just plain lazy. I tried during the winter to get things in hand, and started to get a routine with my elliptical, but then it broke and I was up the creek. But the weather is fin (getting too fine actually, I sweat buckets when I exercise now), and I'm back to walking and lifting. Last week I had absolutely NO motivation to workout, but I did anyway, and I am super proud of that. I was PMSing like crazy, much worse than usual, but I was determined to stick to my new routine and I did. I have been revelling in the feeling I get from exercising, and I'm focussing hard on making it a positive force in my life right now.

In terms of losing the excess, it is achingly slow going, to the point that I'm not really showing much if any of a loss from week to week. This can be incredibly disheartening, as I am miserable with my body as it is and I want to get back to where I had been as fast as possible. Of course after losing so much weight I know better than most that it takes time, but the thing is that it's MUCH MUCH MUCH slower than it had been before, even though I feel I am doing everything almost exactly the same. Perhaps it's because I'm so impatient to see results, but I was always impatient. I just keep telling myself to concentrate on the behaviours, and that the rest will follow in time. I'm hoping that the fact that I jumped back into doing a lot of exercise instead of gradually building from a small bit is one of the reasons the scale is being stubborn. I've been lifting for about a month, I can see more muscle tone, and that affects the scale, particularly in terms of fluid retention. I've also had a period and have been eating out (counted for in points) but I only very rarely ate out before, so while I think my routine is exactly the same, of course it isn't.

The one thing I've found I've been missing the past week is journalling here, and I think that is yet another sign that I'm getting back on track. I'm finding that I'm motivated to talk about my successes and even my struggles from day to day, it helped me so much while I was losing before. Journalling isn't something I want to force myself to do, I want it to be natural, just like I want my healthy lifestyle to be natural again. Of course, nothing is ever easy, but I'm starting to feel good, and I'm looking forward to feeling even better!