Reflections

So in 4 DAYS it will be 5 months since I started to change my life with this journey. I can't believe that it has almost 5 months.  I weighed in today, and it was a depressing 0.00 weight loss for the week. I stayed exactly where I was last week. But it's not a gain, so it's okay.  As I look back, I am surprised as to how much I have worked to keep myself on the path that I want to be on.  I have decided that I needed to change, and I am glad that I was strong enough to keep going. The biggest thing that I have had a challenge with has been the mindset.
When you start to loose the weight, you start to feel like "Wow, this is easy. Cut back on what I am eating, and it melts off!"  And yes, it does melt off when you start to cut back. But it is anything but easy. There is a constant battle going on inside your head.  There is the fight to stop yourself as you reach for that cookie during the day, and you have to ask yourself "Are you ready to stop eating them when you reach the serving size?"  If you aren't willing to stop, than the question becomes "Do you have enough points to be able to blow your entire day on those cookies?"  If you don't, than you have to ask yourself "do you have the extra points you are willing to spend on this indulgence?"  By this point, you have eaten 2 of the servings already, and decided it was worth it, right? :)
I was telling myself "This is so stupid, this is never going to work" for the first week.  I was angry, for about 3 weeks of starting this because I was telling myself I couldn't have what I wanted to have.  I was telling myself to stop indulging as much as I was, and I was trying to control myself.  This was the hardest thing, to tell myself to stop.  I can be very stubborn (I wonder where I get that from....) and it can be either good or bad. A lot of times it can be good, but with this situation it was almost a bad thing.  I was so stubborn about how I wasn't sure I wanted to do this, that I almost stopped myself before I started.  I almost quit in the 2nd week, when I lost another 3 pounds.  I had to fight back against myself as I thought "Why are you doing this?  This is so stupid... I am NOT going to count everything for the rest of my life.  I am just SO over this... This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of."  It was so negative, and I was so wrapped up in what I thought I was loosing that I didn't see what I was gaining.
Here I am going to digress...
Isn't that how we are with life?  We sit there complaining about what we don't have, and we don't see what we do have, or what we are gaining instead.  Instead of complaining about what we think we should have, maybe we should see what we do have.  Instead of worrying about tomorrow, maybe we should be more thankful for today.  So while I have a larger frame, I am not complaining anymore about being a bigger woman.  I am going to be thankful that I have my health. That I have my figure slimming down, even if it is happening slowly. Because honestly, that's the most healthy thing I could do.  And it's not like I would ever (or could even afford) to go get surgery to loose the weight. If I was getting surgery, it would be on my eyes to help me not have to depend on contacts or glasses anymore. But at the same time, I am glad that we live in a time where we have modern medicine to allow us to be able to have plastic pieces to put into our eyes to allow us to see without having the lenses in front of us...  Ok I am done.  :) I will go back to what I was saying before.
So now I am back. Laughs. I may go off on tangents a little, since that's just who I am.
It was hard to look at food as more of a necessity than a comfort.  Food was always there for me, as nothing else could be.  My family was there, but sometimes I needed more than they could give because I felt like they weren't filling that need. So I would turn to chocolate.  I would turn to sweets, and fats that I didn't need. I would turn to things that "wouldn't let me down" and I would indulge. And I didn't stop indulging.  It was a crutch, and it was killing me slowly.
It has been hard to be on this journey. Mom has her group that she can go to, and be told how amazing she is doing and get these little trinkets to show her loss. She has been able to be supported and uplifted, and I have mom.  I have my friends, but I don't tell too many people I am doing this because I didn't want to feel judged.  I haven't even told my Grandmother on my dad's side yet, because I don't want her to judge me.  I don't want to have her make her comments about if I should eat something should she see me.  We have had a rocky relationship, because she was constantly watching what I put into my mouth and judging me for it. This happened because she wasn't happy with herself, and I feel NOW that she was trying to be helpful in her own way. I didn't see it at the time, but looking back on what I had been through I can see how she was trying to help. I hope that now I am doing this FOR ME and NO ONE ELSE we can actually have a relationship where I can feel like she sees me, and not what she would like to change reflected back at her.
I will say, I can totally and COMPLETELY understand how hard this is to do on your own. I will find myself in my room, and I would suddenly think "If you have something now, who would know?" Or right now, when no one is home I can't help but think "You can eat what you want, and as much as you want.  Who would know about it? No one is home."  That's when I have to slap that stupid, annoying voice down and say "You can't talk to me like that."  If it gets too annoying, I will go and steam some more carrots.  Or maybe some squash... Butternut Squash has become my addiction.  I have a little bit of butter, some salt, and a TINY bit of brown sugar in it, and than a dash of cinnamon, and it is DIVINE!  So good... little salty, sweet, and just fabulous.
If it's the motion of chewing I want, I will have some gum and that helps. Or if I think I am hungry, I will get some water.  Sometimes the brain confuses the messages, the body needs water not food and we interpret it as hungry again.  So it's important to get to know your body and what it REALLY is asking for.
And I digressed again. I am good at that. But, having your family support you in your decision is very important.  And ignoring the media.  The media will brainwash you to think you NEED to eat something, and it is not something that you need.
If your body is craving it, than eat it.  There is a reason that your body needs it, and take small, slow bites.  It helps to realize that the craving is being acknowledged, and is taken care of.  It validates it, and it allows your body to stop craving it.
So I have decided to allow myself to grow and be free.  Once I gave myself the permission to be free, to loose the attitude, and to stop using food as a crutch, I found myself able to dedicate myself to what I am doing.  I had to give myself the permission to let go.  I had to tell myself it is okay.  I am doing what I need to so that I can be as healthy as I can be.
This journey has helped to shape me,and helped me to be strong.  I need to allow myself to continue to move forward and stop holding myself back.  The hardest thing about loosing weight is admitting to yourself that you did this to yourself.  You punished yourself, for whatever reason.  You felt that you did something, and you didn't deserve to be happy so you punished yourself with the one thing that you could control and make yourself "feel better."
My life has changed and will continue to change.  I need to allow myself the permission to keep going, and stop holding myself back.  And I have decided to stop. And will keep stopping myself from holding myself back.
And one last thing... I had a friend ask me yesterday what changed because I had a sparkle about me.  Something to think about.  :) You sparkle....