Losing a part of me

I know that I have hit a plateau on my weight loss journey. It is not a physiological plateau, rather a mental one. I am not sticking to the program as well as I need to in order to continue to lose weight. I need to stop cheating, and I need to start exercising daily… or at least near daily.

I feel like I have turned self-destructive since my trip to Montreal began. That my weight is not up more than two pounds since I left for Montreal is astounding. I need to figure out what is wrong with my head, and why it is that I cannot stay on track. Only then will I be able to get back onto the track and keep losing weight.

The psychology of weight loss is not a simple one. I love food. I love losing weight. I love eating. I love being slim. I hate dieting and starving myself and being fat and gaining weight and wearing big clothes and above all I hate that I am not completely in control of my own self, that I cannot just will myself to succeed with my weight loss program. If only there were a recovery program, like there is for drug addicts. I remember the scene from The Sopranos where Chris goes into the treatment centre. They take away even his candy bars because the caffeine in the chocolate is equally a drug to the cocaine or whatever he was doing. They encourage his smoking though, which is one of those dichotomies that Hollywood does not properly explain. If I could be committed to a facility where veering from the program was not an option, where I was given 1,000 calories per day, where I was forced to exercise… but I do not have that option.

The option that is available to me is that in five days I will be getting onto a plane to see my wife, and when I am with her, I have the support and encouragement that I need to make the right choices… and that’s really what I need. I need to make the right choices every day, and if there is a day when I make bad choices, then I have to come back the following day to make better ones.

To be clear, these last two weeks I have made a lot of bad choices… but none of them have been massive. I had some crackers and popcorn a couple of days. I had an extra salad and popcorn another. I bought bread for the prayers, but not the huge loaf. I suspect that the first sentence of this entry used the right word… I am on a plateau. It may take a few days, but I will resume my downward descent. It is not a valley, where I have hit my lowest (best) weight and am now on my way up. No way. I will get back on this weight loss horse and keep losing the weight.

What is it that I have to do then? Leslie has been encouraging me to schedule cheat days. Whether they are weekly or monthly, there can be one scheduled day that I can look forward to when I can go a little crazy. I don’t mean ‘a big plate of wings and a large pizza’ crazy… maybe a reasonable meal on top of my one reasonable meal. Maybe I have to break up the monotony of the chicken and salad (which I really and truly do enjoy) with more fish, or even beef. Maybe it is a bag of chips. I don’t know what a cheat day should look like, I only know that I am going to give a lot more thought to how it should look, and how often I should take them.

This morning, on top of my meal replacement shake, I finished the challah roll. It was very good, and I do not think it was the worst cheat in the world. As long as I do not snack the rest of the day, I do not think I will be punished for it. Starches and carbohydrates are fuel, so what I need to do is to burn them off throughout the day. I’ll do that.

This afternoon I am taking Her Floofness to Ryan’s for a few hours. I am looking forward to seeing my buddy, and only hope that his sister’s classless boyfriend is not there. I hate that I was either seeing my friend or not based on whether or not that guy would be there. I am done avoiding him. I can easily sit in a room and ignore his racist moronic crap… even if it is aimed at me. I will do my best to not be goaded into a fight… either verbal (which I would certainly win) or otherwise. How often have I advised people to never enter into a battle of wits with the unarmed. I have to follow my own advice. It is not always so simple.

We are not going to leave for Cambridge until after lunch. I will make my meal and will hit the road on a full stomach. Otherwise, I would be tempted to stop along the way to pick up a handful of peanuts, or I would snack at Ryan’s place. Going on a full stomach is the smarter play, and one that I have not played a lot. The last few times I have driven out there, I have planned to eat when I got home. That is just a bad idea, considering how peckish one can get when breaking their meal plan.

Have a great day folks!