Monday, December 26, 2011

Cutting Myself Off

Tomorrow I am cutting myself off. The eating must stop. At least the kind of eating I've been doing. The holidays have been killers this year. I feel like I have been perpetually too full since I came home from the hospital with my newborn son on November 23rd, just in time for Thanksgiving dinner. I did fairly well controlling my intake for about a week, and then the fatigue from being up around the clock to nurse Noah blurred my senses, and I started to eat for all kinds of reasons that felt vaguely familiar. I had a sensation of dajavu as I ate because I was bored, because the TV was on, because I'd eaten a meal so fast I forgot to taste, because I was lonely, because the food looked good, because the food was there, and because no one was looking. Surely if no one was looking, it didn't count. Those are the kinds of mindsets that had me at 210 pounds in 2009, and desperate to lose weight. I've heard it said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so here I am to learn!

Currently, I have no concrete plan, other than to get back on the weight watchers program that I came to know so well in 2010. That I have no plan yet is significant, since I am the kind of person who has a list for everything. So what's the problem? Well, YOU try having a new born who eats every two to three hours, a busy five year old boy and three year old girl, home schooling, keeping house, doing laundry, and having a house on the market--all at once--and see how effectively you construct a list. Heck. If you can do all that and manage not to lose your list paper by ten in the morning, I want to know your secret!

Today, my only goal was to open up my old blog, and be reminded of how it all started. What I saw there, was that I really didn't have a well thought out plan back in 2009 either. The blog was a way to clarify--to start on a journey that didn't have concrete direction. So that's the plan. I'm going to start reading the old blogs, make one change at a time, and slowly return to the lifestyle habits that transformed me from a 210 pound-sedentary-size 20, into a 146 pound-active-and-athletic size 8/10.

So what's change #1? I'm going on a goody-fast. Although I do also plan to get back on the scale and back on Weight Watchers tomorrow, I don't expect perfection out of myself this week. My schedule with a hungry newborn is very challenging, but I know that cutting all the sweets, cookies, and desserts out of my life for the next month will likely accomplish two things. 1) It will automatically diminish the amount of points I'm taking in and leave me more points for good filling foods. 2) I know for a fact I've developed some sugar addiction issues that are only going to go away if the sweets do, so

Adios chocolate, stocking stuffers, cookies, left over Halloween candy, stollen, pumpkin pie, coffee cake, ice cream, baklava, pecan pie, whipped cream, ginger snaps, brownies, syrup, cheesecake, doughnuts, danishes, fritters, hot cocoa, fudge . . .

You get the idea. Until I regain some self control, yep, I am cutting myself off.