Slipping Down That Familiar Slope

It started on May 21st. That was the day I gave up trying for a perfect record. I had already been struggling with a touch of complacency for a couple of months before that, and had actually noticed a loosening of the reigns as far back as the start of the year. But that girls’ night that I overindulged at two weeks ago was really the main catalyst for the problems I have had staying on track as of late.

I never wanted to aim for perfection. I am what a good friend has called an ‘excellentist’; I have many of the over-achieving qualities of the perfectionist, but am thankfully tempered by a relatively adaptive personality and the ability to accept when things don’t ultimately turn out as I would have liked. I also think that the folly of attempting to be perfect sets one up for eventual failure, not to mention a very boring existence.

That said, what I was achieving with having such a long-standing steak of weight loss up until the morning following my girls’ night was a very helpful series of benchmarks. Knowing what my smallest losses were always gave me something to aim for – something to try and outdo. As soon as I had that gain, my benchmarks were obliterated and my attitude changed.

Now I don’t think about trying to do better than my worst because my worst is that I gained 4.6 pounds in a week. I’m pretty confident that I can do better than that and unfortunately it shows. My efforts have dwindled to next to nothing because I would now be hard pressed to mess up worse than I already have.

I am really having a hard time. I looked down at my stomach this evening (after eating a huge helping of Chinese food and prior to going for ice cream) and was sad about how much it was sticking out. I am not really worried about going back to where I was, but there is a tiny part of me that wonders if it could happen. More than that though I am just upset by the fact that I know I am still not quite where I want to be. If I never reach my updated aim of 133 pounds I am okay with that, but I really want to have my original goal of 150 as a red line which I never cross. However, this morning I was over it again because of the last couple of days of munching and I certainly am going to be worse off tomorrow due to all the damage I did tonight.

I talked to my husband about this and asked him for his help in keeping me accountable. I have been giving in much too often and allowing myself far too much leeway. I started this journey knowing that it needed to be sustainable and that it couldn’t be about deprivation. But I think that for the next little while I really need to try to actually put up a few guidelines if I want to stop myself from continuing down this slippery slope.

FOOD & BEVERAGES:
- 8 glasses of water
- 1 wrap on a soft tortilla shell with deli turkey, cheese, dried cranberries, spinach, fat free Miracle Whip, mustard, and pepper
- 3/4 cup fat free peach yogurt with 1 cup pecan granola cluster cereal
- 2 1/2 cups pineapple
- 3 1/2 cups spinach salad with cubed cheese, croutons, dried cranberries, and calorie-wise Greek feta and oregano dressing
- 1 toasted raisin English muffin with light peanut butter
- 1 glass pomegranate and elderflower sparkling water
- 3/4 cup fat free strawberry yogurt with 1 1/2 cups almond oatmeal and wheat flake cereal
- 10 sea salt potato chips
- 1 pear
- 4 cups low fat butter flavoured popcorn
- 3 cups chicken chow mien
- 3 sweet and sour pork balls
- 2 cups beef and broccoli
- 1 fortune cookie
- 1 chocolate Florentine cookie
- 1 mug coconut steamed soy milk
- 6 tiny ice cream and sorbet samples
- 1 scoop green apple sorbet and 1 scoop gingerbread ice cream in a waffle ice cream cone
- 2 1/2 cups sourdough bread with spinach dip
- 1 mug hot chocolate
- 1 orange filled chocolate bar

EXERCISE:
- 10 squats