Christmas Obstacles - Revaluation Time

So I am in Week 9 of this 12 week plan and as I am approaching Christmas, I felt like I needed a little bit of a regroup. Don’t get me wrong, I am doing great on the plan, but I just wanted to refocus before the obstacles come my way. Before I started this plan, I was the heaviest I had ever been. I think there is a point in each of us where we say, “This has to stop here”. So I put on the brakes and buckled in and committed to “12 weeks for a better me”. So I am nearing the 20lb weight loss marker and 3.5 inches gone from my waist and I feel lighter and happier than I have been in a long time. Wow, in nine weeks I have unloaded almost 4 bags of flour. I don’t want to get complacent though and not finish the race or allow Christmas obstacles to hold me back. Also, somewhere in this program I realized this has to be a life change for me, not a diet to reach a magic number and then go back to old ways – only to watch the weight creep back up again.
Since mid October I have not touched a real slice of pizza. At this point, I know this is trigger food for me so better to not try at all. I only fell off the program once with a piece of my daughter Halloween candy about a week after Halloween (Butterfinger – to be exact) which led to a downward spiral week and a slight gain. I have to note here that eating that candy made me sick. The sugar hurt my stomach and turned me off of chocolate. In a warped way, I’m not too disappointed about that. Thanksgiving Day I was in control and allowed myself to indulge in a “taste” of my Dad’s homemade pumpkin pie and believe it or not – that was enough. I think I was the only one who did not go home feeling bloated & stuffed like a turkey (no pun intended). During these past nine weeks, I battled with my internal self to recognize emotional eating from actual hunger. I realized that years of Splenda did some “temporary” damage. This opened up my eyes to the real impact of foods. I learned to not walk through a supermarket aimlessly and without purpose. Ironically, I used to hate food shopping, now it has become like a game of seek and find, and there is a certain thrill into finding that “hidden gem” in an aisle that fits into my 5/2 count that I didn’t know existed.
Would I like to have lost more weight by now – sure. It’s funny because before I started this plan, I said, “If I could only lose 20lbs – it would be a start to my goal – it would be more than what I have been able to do on my own”. Now that I lost almost that weight, it gets you excited (maybe a little impatient) to think “well, what about another twenty?” and “if I reached my goal by the Springtime, I’ll actually have a Summer that I like what I look like in shorts – dare I say even a bathing suit”. I’m not sure if it is so much about impatience or it’s like a snowball effect – only this time I am snowballing in the right direction and for the right reasons.
Can I say that I will NEVER indulge in ANY foods that exceed my 5/2 count? No, but I can make the sacrifice till I reach my goal weight and be modest thereafter? Absolutely, I can – it is a small amount of time in the big picture of it all. I wasted much more time gaining the weight and feeling lousy about myself. There will be other Christmas’ that I can allow myself a “taste” of a gingerbread or in the summer walking on a boardwalk, I may enjoy one slice of “real” pizza, but I won’t go back to the way I was before. These holiday obstacles are just little “road bumps” that I made look like “large boulders”. I will not give them that much meaning in my life. The meaning of my life is in the people I have around me, and the time we share. You never know how much time you have with anyone – so Holidays are not about the foods you eat, but the memories you make. This year, I will be “present” in any pictures we take (just like at Thanksgiving – my halfway photo that I can actually say I liked). There will be no hiding because years from now – when I look back on this holiday, I can say to my daughter, “That was the year that Mommy took control of her life and when she made herself more important than the food around her.” “Look how happy we were and still are”!