Day #76 - What Consistency Can Buy You

I woke up at 6AM Saturday morning; I guess when you don't drink alcohol your body thinks it's just a normal day.  Anyway I got on the scale to see that I lost 7 pounds over the week and Mrs. FogDog lost 4 pounds!  I'm now back out of the 340's.

This is what consistency can buy you... consistent weight loss.  Yes, those numbers seem a little high for a week, but half of that is water weight so the numbers feel real good to me.  Now that I've managed to remain consistent day to day for a week, my next step is to stay consistent from week to week.

Remember, consistent doesn't mean perfect.  One night during the week I ate an extra 1 or 2 ounces of chicken at dinnertime.  I couple nights during the evening I was still hungry so I had a handful of nuts.  I even had ice cream Friday night, and I spent every evening after work on the couch.  I was far from perfect, but I didn't let those small, insignificant events give me an excuse to fall apart.

Interestingly, my proudest moment of the week isn't the amount I lost or the fact that I didn't drink last night.  It's actually the discovery I made about using my mood as an excuse to be unhealthy so much that it turned into a habit.  From that point on every time I felt like I was getting moody I reminded myself that my mood was not a good reason to go off plan because staying on plan or going off plan had no effect on my mood. 

Next on my agenda is devising a way for me to measure my consistency week to week.  Remember, this is about total health, not just weight loss.  The idea is that at the end of every week I should be able to tell how I did compared to other weeks.  The goal is to remain consistent from week to week.  I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do, but I want to make sure it's something that's easy but also worthwhile.

As I mentioned yesterday, my top priority this weekend is to not drink.  I already made it through Friday night, I just need to get through tonight.  Today I plan to spend the morning working on my bathroom and then the family is going on a hike in the afternoon.  Normally we hike on Sundays, but today is going to be much warmer than tomorrow.

Day #76 is in the books... oh wait, no it's not as I'm blogging in the morning.  Day #76 is underway, wish me luck.

Stay Strong!

Day #72 - The Bad Mood Habit

I woke up this morning in a bad mood.  It wasn't lack of sleep, it wasn't that I was jolted out of bed by screaming kids, I simply just woke up in a bad mood.  As I was sitting there on the bed I had a startling realization... whenever I try to do something healthy I end up in a bad mood.

When I quit smoking I was in a bad mood for almost a whole month (just ask my family).  When I tried to quit drinking a few weeks back I was in a terrible mood by the end of the week.  Whenever I go a day or two eating healthy I end up in a bad mood.

As I thought about it more and more, I started to realize that I've always ended up in a bad mood when I tried to do something healthy.  In fact, I can't remember a single time when it wasn't the case! 

So it got me wondering why?  I thought about this morning.  I wasn't feeling hungry or deprived when I got up.  I wasn't aching to have a huge unhealthy breakfast and knew I couldn't.  There was really no reason for me to be in a bad mood.

Then it hit me; it's a habit.  I've quit smoking and started diets a million times.  Time after time after time I would convince myself that I was miserable and should just give in.  Yesterday, I wrote about my top 5 excuses, but never really thought about my mood as my ultimate excuse.  Year after year of using my mood as an excuse has essentially trained me to associate healthy behavior with misery.

Have you ever said "I would rather be fat and happy than thin and miserable"?  I know I've said that many times before.  There's a problem with that though... I'm fat but I'm not happy; It's just another excuse.  In fact, there's no guarantee that I'll be happy when I'm thin.  There's no correlation between happiness and weight.  Weight is a physical measure and happiness is just a state of mind.

Fat people can choose to be happy or not and so can't thin people.  To some of you this might not seem like that big a deal, but this was one of those really amazing self discoveries that has me astounded that it took me 42 years to make this connection.  Granted my world isn't flipped upside down, but it's still a big deal to me.

Anyway, my mood improved quite a bit after that and I had another really good day following my eating plan, walking a mile at lunchtime, and getting my gallon of water in.  That makes 2 days in a row and I need to keep pushing for the consistency.  Now when I feel like I'm in a bad mood, I'll have to ask myself is it real or is it habit?

Stay Strong!

Week #5 Weigh-In

8/24/14 Starting Weight: 347.8 lbs

 

Last Weigh-in: 329.4 lbs

Current Weight: 327.6 lbs

Period Weight Loss: 1.8 lbs

Total Weight Loss: 20.2 lbs

  
 

OK, so this is one of those weeks where I have to tread carefully.  On the one hand I am happy to have lost some more weight and I know that crossing over 20 pounds in just 5 weeks is a great accomplishment.

 

On the other hand though, I know that I am fully capable of much more.  During the week I could see some of my "old" habits creeping to the surface.  This early in my transformation I should lose more than 1.8 pounds and I know it.

 

However, one of my other "old" habits was beating myself up for not being perfect.  I certainly wasn't perfect this week in any stretch of the imagination, but that shouldn't be cause to feel guilty, get depressed, then go on a bender.  I recognize simply this... I wasn't perfect, but at the same time it wasn't good enough either.   I need to pick it up a little.

 

I did have couple more small victories... My Boss's Boss brought me a bowl full of homemade cookies to give to my team for all the hard work we've been doing.  I left the bowl in my office for 3 days before all those cookies were gone; I never ate a single cookie (Small Victory #18).  I also had a working lunch on Thursday.  Instead of eating a box lunch from Panera, I ate my own lunch (Small Victory #19).

 

I also reached my first milestone!  Now looking above you might think my first milestone was to lose 20 pounds, but I'm not a very traditional person.  My first milestone wasn't really about pounds (directly anyway).  My first milestone was to be able to get back on my Wii scale!  I like my Wii scale because you can't just step on it; you have to turn it on, push buttons, wait for the darn thing to tall you how fat you are, etc.  This is a good thing because you have to really want to weigh yourself if you are going to go through all those steps, it helps me to reduce casual daily weigh-ins.

 

Anyway, the Wii scale tops out at 330 and even if you're close to that number then it will give you an error (I tried last week at 329.4 and it didn't work).  Today I was able to get on it and it told me that today was my 1999th day using the scale.  WOW! that's over 5 years.  It also told me that it has been 212 days since I last weighed in.  That's how long it has been since I've been able to get on that scale, sad isn't it?

 

Highlights:

1. First milestone reached!
2. Water goal met every single day
3. Worked out several nights after work
4. Recognized the need to be accountable but also recognized I can't beat myself up either

Lowlights:

1. Nightly snacking on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday... out of plan
2. Still not exercising routinely
3. Little too much TV (see lowlight #1)

 

I did have some more victories this week and even when I slipped up a little, I did manage to contain the damage (the nightly snacking consisted of just some pretzels and a couple of granola bars).  What has me feeling good right now is that I'm beginning to recognize the things that typically derail me (like beating myself up or feeling guilty about a slip).  Feeling guilty tends to lead to more failure; instead, accept your actions for what they are, address it, and then move on.  This is why I said I have to be careful; I need to hold myself accountable without beating myself up too much.  It's a tough balancing act!

 

Stay Strong!

-FogDog

 

 

[Photo: Flickr / Timothy Chris Plascik]