I'm Back...again!

I have been absent from my blog for quite a while.  First I had Jamboree in the Hills, but I never really got back to blogging since then.  This is a perfect example of me.  It only takes a day or two of not doing something to stop doing it all together.  For me to succeed at anything that I set out to do I have to make sure I do it.  Anytime I give myself an excuse or a break it causes me to go off course for an extended period of time, or, in the past, for a couple of years even.

Let me catch everyone up to speed as to what I've been doing since I stopped blogging.  I have done nothing.  Well not nothing.  I still have my family and my job, but in regards to being active...yeah nothing.  I've gone from working out everyday to working out maybe once a week at Zumba.  I was doing Zumba DVD's every other day and at least 1 live Zumba class.  I was also taking walks during my lunch breaks at work.  I'm not sure where or when or why  it happened but for some reason I stopped doing that.  I either didn't wake up early enough to workout, or my foot hurt too much to do the walks, or who knows what.  Either way I can assure you that whatever excuse I used, they were terrible excuses. 

This past weekend I traveled out of town to a wedding.  I had every intention of not cheating or eating off plan.  I thought to myself "if I can survive a 4 day country music festival, I can survive this".  Well I didn't survive it.  I only have myself to blame.  I gave into my temptation and had a big fast food meal from Sonics on Saturday night.  It was awful.  The burger was squished and greasy, the french fries were not fully fried so they were soggy.  The only good thing I had was my Oreo ice cream.  I didn't just cheat with a tiny bite, no I cheated hardcore.  I gave in really bad.  There were 2 good things that came of this cheat.  The first being that the food was not good so I didn't enjoy it.  This would help deter me from eating like this again.  Secondly,  I didn't even eat 1/4 of my ice cream treat.  Not because I didn't want to, I had every intention to, but the husband put it away in the fridge...so it melted.  At least I didn't eat the whole thing...it was a very large ice cream treat.  I ordered the small, but Sonics version of small is quite large.

After Saturday's bad decision making it continued to be that way.  It started as a single meal cheat, then turned into a "I'm still on vacation" cheat.  It took me 3 whole days to get back on track with my eating.  3 days!  Honestly I am amazed at how easy it was to just keep eating.  I am amazed how all my past sugar cravings came to the forefront with a vengeance.  It was almost like I needed to make up the last 4 months of not having any sugar.  It was crazy.  I am amazed at how I had believed all the excuses I gave myself to justify the food that was being digested.  Wednesday was weigh day and needless to say I have paid for my bad decisions.  Before I went out of town I was 1 pound away from my 20 lb. loss goal.  Now I am not only far from that 20 lb. loss goal, I have undone my 15 lb. loss goal.  In short, I gained 5 pounds in 3 days.  OUCH.  Hopefully some of that is water retention from all the salty greasy food I ate...yeah right.  How fast the weight goes on. 

As I mentioned before all it takes is one to two days to really throw myself out of a groove.  I need to re-ignite my fire.  I have no intention of giving up.  I just need to get some jumper cables and re-charge.  I need to start working out everyday.  I am returning to Induction phase.  I have to clean my system and get back into Ketosis.  It took me 3 days to undo 3 weeks of work.  This is a valuable lesson.  It is something that shouldn't have happened but I can at least learn from it.  It's happened before in the past.  I start a healthy lifestyle and I lose weight and start feeling great but then I become complacent.  I start feeling smug that I've been so successful so far, so smug that I get lazy and distracted.  In the past I would just stop being healthy and give up.  I would be happy with the progress I had made.  I'd forget about my goal.  This cannot happen this time.  I won't let it.

I also gained a lot of confidence.  I have been so happy with how I'm starting to look.  I'm making big changes physically and it's awesome.  I also know the numbers that I am losing.  This confidence can be damaging...I know that sounds weird.  I've become complacent (definition: pleased, especially with oneself or one's merits, advantages, situation, etc., often without awareness of some potential danger or defect).  I am so pleased with my success thus far that I have lost some of the strength to fight temptation, or have lost the fight to workout everyday.  I have a big goal.  It is going to take a while to get there.  I will get there.  I have to fight complacency and laziness.  I made some terrible choices recently that has undone some hard work.  I have to remember this.  I will succeed.  I can only get better and learn from these mistakes.

I don't know what's different about this time around.  In the past after a big off plan event like this past weekend I would just give up.  I would stop working out all together.  I would stop eating healthy.  I would stop everything that I had started.  This time around though I have no desire to stop.  It's just the opposite.  I want to keep going in the right direction.  I'm kicking myself for the bad decisions but it is what it is.  I've learned from it.  I'm stronger for it.  I don't want to give up.  I want to succeed.  I can't explain why this time is different.  It just is and I'm happy for it!