No End in Sight

Andy looked at my blog last night and said "Isn't your journey almost over?" I had to remind him that weight loss is a never ending journey. It's a lifestyle. There will never be a day when I wake up and can stop caring what I eat. Not even at 130lb. I've seen how fast the weight can come on when you stop caring and it's scary. People look at the super morbidly obese and wonder how they got to that place, but I complete understand. I've had some weeks that were so bad that I gained almost 5lb! Just think about that over the course of a year. A lot of people don't even realize how bad the things they're eating are. I had a friend once who chose chicken fingers over pizza because of how bad she thought pizza was. Of course, neither of those things are healthy, but chicken fingers are battered and fried, which leads them to have more calories and fat.

Just thinking about eating this way for the rest of my life is like a cloud over my head. I'm always thinking about what I'm eating and how it's going to affect the scale come the end of the week. It gets to the point where you learn how to work the system in your favor. I officially weigh in on Saturdays, which means that I can be slightly bad over the weekend because I can spend the rest of the week being good and still have a loss. People might think that's cheating, but in my mind, as long as the numbers keep going down week after week, it's not cheating. I know that 10 times out of 10 if I use any of my extra points on Friday I will have a gain, regardless of how much I exercised or how well I ate. Your body reacts differently to certain types of food and it takes time to realize that.

I am slightly addicted to weight loss reality shows on TV. The Biggest Loser in on break until fall, but right now there's a show on ABC called Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition and it's on Mondays at 10PM. Each episode follows one person over the course of a year. The trainer lives with them for the first 3 months to teach them how to exercise and eat and then they are on their own for the rest of the year. Their trainer pays for their groceries and even pays for them to have skin removal surgery if they hit 40-50% weight loss by the 9 month mark. Last night, the woman they were following started at 433 and lost over 200lb in a year. She also got caught up on the fact that this is a lifestyle and not a quick fix. She said something that resonated with me. She said she thinks one day at a time. I can't say I think can only look at each day, but I can look at each week. I'm a planner and have our meals planned out until early September (only dinner, I'm not that OCD). I know which days are going to be challenges and plan my exercise accordingly.

Exercise is another thing that I get caught up on. When I first started my journey 5 years ago, I lost 40lb with diet and hardly an exercise. Three weeks before my wedding, I got serious and hit the gym and tracked like never before, which led to 5lb lost in only 3 weeks, leading my dress to be too big (a story for another day). After that, I didn't work out again until after Brady was born. I was serious for a while before we moved, then slacked off again. We joined the YMCA in mid-May and since then, I go at least twice a week if not more. I hit the elliptical, stationary bike, and weight machines. I have seen my endurance increase and have had to up the weights on many machines. I even was able to up the resistance on the elliptical. I know that the more you work out and the less you weigh, the more you have to work to lose the same amount. I know that my body is now used to the exercise and if I slack off now, it will probably lead to a gain.