Things They Never Told Me About Weight Loss: Stumbling Is Inevitable

Start Weight: 314
Today's Weight: 267.8

I am discovering that there are about a million things that no one ever tells you about weight loss. I decided to make it a sort of series on the blog. I feel like if it's something that I didn't know before getting involved in this thing, it's most likely something that most people don't really realize until they're thrown into it as well. And let's face it, it's nice to know something is coming ahead of time so you can prepare. So, my lessons learned the hard way are now your lessons learned through my journey of self-discovery.

Today's lesson? Stumbling is inevitable. We are human. Humans are imperfect. So by design, there will be a time that the journey will take a detour. It may only be one meal. It may be one skipped workout. It may be a week or a month or a year, but at some point, we will fall.

Please notice, I said fall. I did not say fail. There is a difference. And that difference is what will distinguish between reaching your goals, or not reaching them. No one ever told me this. I was always under the impression that the key to successful weight loss is catching some kind of magical bug that spurs the motivation and willpower within me, and once that switch is flipped, I will chug along steadily making awesome choices, living the lifestyle change, and dropping the weight. And the fact is, it just doesn't happen that way at all.

There continues to be a constant battle within myself between "good and evil" so-to-speak. I WANT to eat the foods that are bad for me, but I also WANT to eat the healthy foods. It is the most peculiar combination of emotions that you could imagine. It's a continuous thought process of, do I want to make the choices that will get me to my goal or do I want to indulge in this food that I know will set me back. And truthfully, sometimes the bad for me food wins out.

Where the progress comes into play is learning to make calculated decisions about what foods to eat rather than giving into impulsive decisions based on temporary emotions. That sounds like a mouthful, but the bottom line is, all too often, as an emotional eater, I am tempted to eat high fat/high calorie foods based solely on something that I am feeling at the moment. After that moment passes and the decision has been made, I enter a period of deep regret. The regret leads to a sort of depression that I did something "bad" and that sadness in turn results in further regretful decisions. It's a snowball effect.

The difference between that and what I do now, is I genuinely think strongly about every food that I put into my mouth. And for the things that I choose to indulge in, for whatever reason, are adjusted for accordingly, whether through additional time working out or adjustments in my caloric intake the rest of the day.

I posted that I got knocked down, but I got up again. And the fact is, a large part of my journey has been a series of events that I have allowed to knock me down. I keep getting back up. In the grand scheme of things, I gained back about 25 pounds of what I lost when I had initially set forth on this journey. But the good news is, in the past few weeks, I have managed to get back on track and I have lost about 15 of that, and I am within 10 pounds of being back to my smallest point.

I took a step back from blogging because I wasn't sure if it was helping me or hindering me, but I really believe that spending a little bit of time routinely hashing through my thoughts as I travel on this road is helpful to me. I also have found that your comments, encouragements, and kind words mean more than I could ever verbalize. Hearing from my readers, both the ones I have met "in real life" and the ones that I haven't, serve as a level of accountability and motivation that I can't really find within myself. That being said, as a shameless plug for this blog and to hopefully encourage my success, if you would share this blog (pin it, tweet it, facebook it... you know...) with anyone who would share the interest in following my journey, I would so appreciate the additional support. <3

Thank you all for continuing to cheer for me. You are amazing, and you matter.