Beating Demons... The Experiment

[If you are reading this, you will just have to bare with me! I have a lot to say and not much time to say it so here goes!]

Four weeks ago, I got up on Saturday morning and prepared to do my weekly weigh in. I look forward to Saturday mornings with great anticipation. I actually look forward to getting up and weighing. Weird.. right? But as I prepared to step on the scale, a thought suddenly hit me completely out of the blue.... What if I didn't weight for a whole month? Four weeks.. no weighing. No. Too long. Too much. If I didn't weigh every week, how could I possibly know what kind of loss or [God forbid!] gain I was having?! The thought hit me like a brick wall and I sat down on the bed and thought about it... and I knew what I needed to do.

I needed to practice disciple. I needed to not use 'Saturdays' as my measurement of how I would eat through the week. I blame human nature, but after weigh in on Saturday mornings, I would find myself eating a little more like I shouldn't. Why not? Saturday was a week a way! As the days of the week would pass, the closer to Saturday I would get, the closer I would watch what I ate. Do you see what I am trying to explain? The psychology of it is pretty crazy.. but that is exactly what I am referring to when I use the term 'fighting demons.' I am succeeding in losing weight. I am succeeding in making myself more healthy. But.. I still have demons to fight. I still have the tendencies to think and eat like I did before I started this journey.. just in moderation. Those tendencies are what I fight.. sometimes hourly.. but definitely daily. So in my quest to become more disciplined and to get away from playing games with my own head, I made the decision to not weigh that Saturday.. and I didn't weigh again.. for 4 weeks.

Let me tell you.. it was not as easy as it sounds. That second Saturday I had to fight with myself to keep from weighing. After all.. who would know if I did? It could be my little secret!... See? There I go again.. more head games with myself. UNBELIEVABLE! But somehow, I kept myself off the scale!

After the initial anxiety wore off, and at some point at the beginning of the second week, I made an even bigger leap to up the ante of this experiment.. I stopped tracking my calorie intake all together. [I know, crazy right?] Clearly.. I was setting myself up to fail at this ridiculous experiment.... 

I stayed on track every day. I trudged forth, using the knowledge I have gained during my journey. What to eat.. what not to eat.. focusing on moving forward.. remembering where I used to be and focusing on where I want to be.

So today... WEIGH IN DAY! I couldn't wait to get up and get my feet on that scale. My alarm went off this morning and as thoughts started to roll through my still groggy mind.. it hit me for the first time: What if I failed? What if I didn't lose?! What if I GAINED? Oh, Lord in Heaven.. help the scale show a loss! The head games started and eventually I crawled out of bed and prepared for my weigh in. Heart palpitations aside, it took almost a full minute for me to get the nerve to look down at the weight on the scale... by then the numbers on the scale had timed out I had to step off and do it all over again! LOL. Anyway.. I was finally successful and I am happy to report an 11 pound loss. :)

I did it. I DID IT! Pretty darn proud of myself to say the least.

I haven't decided when I will weigh again.. but I am tracking my calorie intake again. I proved to myself I could do it. Experiment over. However, after the weigh in this morning I started looking at the calendar I use for tracking my weight loss and made the decision that I will no longer be focusing on how many pounds I have lost. I will now only focus on how many pounds I have to lose until I reach my goal weight. Why? I'll tell you. The actual number of pounds I have lost just keeps getting bigger. Honestly, it's a lot of weight that I have lost and just saying the number is hard for me because it is a big number. But I realized that I have passed the point of where I am far beyond 'half way point of reaching my goal weight! So, if you check out the tab 'Pound To Go' on this blog, you will see that I have deleted the weekly weight loss I was documenting and replaced it with the number of pounds I have to go to get to my goal which is... 89 pounds. Yay!

And, as a major 'WAHOO' we took my son to the Monster Truck show at the Spokane Arena today. I was having MAJOR anxiety over being able to fit my rear in the seat. But guess what? IT FIT! IT FIT! And.. with even a little room to spare! Double WAHOO!! 

So.. I will move forward on journey with the goal not just to lose weight, but to kick those demons right in the face when they start trying to sabotage me. I've said it before.. I will say it again.. I. WILL. DO. THIS!

Happy Trails!