A Taste Of Honey

So, here’s the thing. I was unhappy today, really unhappy. But instead of buying cigarettes, ice cream or a pile of junk food, do you know what I did?

- I walked home and then went out for another walk in the evening
- I made a healthy salad for dinner and lunch tomorrow
- I didn’t over-eat at all, but made healthy choices
- I tried to live in the moment
- I did spend about five minutes crying, but that was it

That’s amazing – I have got to give myself credit for this. I also have to give myself credit for knowing that cigarettes do not make me feel better emotionally (I haven’t smoked for well over two years). And I’m learning that food won’t comfort me. I don’t feel any worse for not overeating/bingeing tonight. I feel about the same as I would have felt. Food didn’t really block the feelings, not really.

And I’m sad now, but I’m optimistic and cautiously believing that I WILL achieve my weight loss goal and will maintain my weight loss.
 
Honey39 said:
So, here’s the thing. I was unhappy today, really unhappy. But instead of buying cigarettes, ice cream or a pile of junk food, do you know what I did?

- I walked home and then went out for another walk in the evening
- I made a healthy salad for dinner and lunch tomorrow
- I didn’t over-eat at all, but made healthy choices
- I tried to live in the moment
- I did spend about five minutes crying, but that was it

That’s amazing – I have got to give myself credit for this. I also have to give myself credit for knowing that cigarettes do not make me feel better emotionally (I haven’t smoked for well over two years). And I’m learning that food won’t comfort me. I don’t feel any worse for not overeating/bingeing tonight. I feel about the same as I would have felt. Food didn’t really block the feelings, not really.

And I’m sad now, but I’m optimistic and cautiously believing that I WILL achieve my weight loss goal and will maintain my weight loss.
Click to expand...

Hi Honey,

That is a really positive step, I am sorry you are feeling down and rubbish, but well done for staying in control and not relying on food cigarettes to smooth your emotions. Like you say, it wouldn't have made you feel any better.

I hope you start feeling a bit happier today, keep strong and these little steps all make towards a giant step in your journey.

Claire xx
 
Well done on the resistance-the more you can resist the more it will become easier. Really! I'm sure today you are waking up feeling proud that you are not on the other side of a huge binge or cigarette fest. You know those horrible guilty feelings the day after and you have avoided it. Well done!x
 
Thank you so much for the lovely comments - so kind and supportive, really appreciated. I feel horrible emotionally, but okay in terms of this journey, which is a bit of a mind mess (want to use a worse word there!), but great.

I had a great day yesterday, ate really well and walked so much. I think I’m in a bit of a plateau (is losing a 1lb a week for two weeks a plateau?!). I feel a bit anxious about the results on the scale, but I have been focused on making healthy choices and so on this week, so I don’t know what else I can do.

I think I might have been eating too much rice lately – really big portions I mean, which is ‘free’ on SW, but that’s been a difference. So I’m going back to basics and making very big salads without the carby bit for my lunches. We’ll see, but I FEEL thinner at the moment – my wrists feel small. How much of this is psychological, hmmm?!

You know the other interesting thing? It’s how many blogs/accounts of weight loss are really short-lived. I wonder how many people get to goal and stay there. Am really interested in that, and what advice I can get from long-term weight loss folk. Maybe I’ll have more of a look at the weekend, but it’s rare.

Anyway, although it’s emotionally knackering this week with ending things with P, my eating is still on target, and I’m so proud about that. It signals a huge change to me. Am hopeful that I want fall into a vat of comfort food at the weekend - have so much planned to keep busy!
 
So, I stuck to things that work, for weight loss. And here I am at the end of the day feeling bright eyed, bushy tailed and bursting with energy. And I feel revitalised.

Each setback (emotional), every struggle, all these are absolutely critical to my losing weight. It’s GREAT that it’s not easy, because then I would be learning nothing. I would be losing weight but not gaining strategies for coping for the rest of my life.

The biggest thing I have learned – it’s OKAY to make poor choices, what makes a difference is making good choices straightaway afterwards. One pizza isn’t going to make me regain 95 lbs. Eating pizza every night for weeks and weeks and months and months because I’m not perfect WILL make me regain all this lost weight.
I need to actually cut and paste all these entries into a booklet and print them out for me. Because I need to remember that things have felt tough before, they will feel tough in the future. They will feel easy for weeks and weeks at a time, and then other times I will have an emotionally difficult time and wnat to reach to food as a comfort. It’s learning to overcome that which is tricky. But nearly a year later, it’s getting better.

So, yeah. I’m trying something slightly different just now this week, which is writing down exactly what I eat for the next week, and seeing how that goes.
 
Week going well-ish. I'm realising how significant is my all or nothing attitude though, which is not that healthy.
 
I had soup in my hotel - not exactly a healthy choice, but so hard to find light choices when you're away. Am knackered. Will try again tomorrow with finding the best option!!
 
Hi
Don't forget in a hotel you can phone down to kitchen and ask if they will do something light for you like poached eggs or a wee omelette
It's usually not to much bother x
 
Glasgow girl62 said:
Hi
Don't forget in a hotel you can phone down to kitchen and ask if they will do something light for you like poached eggs or a wee omelette
It's usually not to much bother x
Click to expand...

Thank you - that's a great idea, and must remember that in future!!!!
 
I pre-tracked today and that helped an awful lot. Even more significant though was drinking just two bottles of water – that really took the edge of any hunger that I thought I might have felt, and that was really productive.

I ate well today. Somehow owning up to a small weight gain kind of gave me the fresh start and the impetus that I needed. I felt – empowered? Brave or something. Certainly each time I have a difficult time and get up and carry on it makes me feel marvellous. I think that straightforward success would not have taught me as much about myself as I perhaps would have liked. So in two weeks’ time I will have been eating healthily and losing weight for a year. It feels like I’m succeeding in changing my life. Makes me feel confident that this will continue.
 
Have a think about my triggers for over-eating – what’s that all about? Be honest, whole, kind and authentic, think about what made me over-eat this weekend

Ooh, I don’t want to do this. But I’m going to have a think about WHY I overate. It was a culmination of a rubbish few weeks with a break-up (we’ve been together on/off for about five years), and travelling and being in a hotel.

I ate well on Thursday, took my lunch into work
Long train journey (about 7 hours) and I wasn’t prepared. I ate some crisps and sweets out of boredom on the train
On Thursday night, I had supper in my room in the hotel, and ordered soup – it was very high calorie, and because reception said it was really small, I had a side order of fries with it
Friday morning, I ate a full breakfast, but tried to make it healthy
Friday lunch, I ate well and healthily, made good choices (fruit etc)
Friday dinner: I needed a meal and there was nothing easy/cheap available. I ate at MacDonalds for the first time in about ten years
Saturday morning: full breakfast again
Saturday lunchtime: fish and chips with my mum – I hated them, too greasy
Saturday tea time: lovely scrambled eggs and salad – nicest meal of the week
Sunday breakfast: full breakfast
Sunday lunchtime: ate out with mum and there were zero healthy options available
Sunday teatime: snacks, crisps and sweets
Monday: long train journey, no food – over ate on train

Then I hauled myself back on track, weighed in and seemed to have put on 5 lbs (I think it’s a lot less, I’ll be interested to see how Sunday’s weigh in goes).

Okay, reviewing it – I can see that I tried, but once I slipped I kept on making unwise food choices that I didn’t especially enjoy. I felt that I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so kept on overeating. Which was a mistake, but a time-limited one. And you know what? I didn’t enjoy much of what I ate. I thought that I should, I thought it was going to be great, but I didn’t like it, not really.

So what has this shown me? Well, I guess the most important thing is that I have no problem getting back on track, and in a weird way, I kind of like the fact that I keep on going with this no matter what. I feel like I’ve learned a lot. But also, my trigger was boredom and not being prepared, and also not being in control of my surroundings. I had a bit of an ‘all or nothing’ attitude, which annoyed me, although I did do lots of walking. I also seemed to take a break from healthy eating which is interesting given that I was going back to my childhood home.

I’ll think about some alternative strategies, but it was good to review this. And also to say that I didn’t enjoy overeating, I didn’t enjoy these choices. NOTHING was as tasty as scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast with a fresh salad. So maybe I have to learn that my tastes have changed.
 
I'm pre-tracking my food this week and it's been working very well. Here's the forward planning for today:

Skimmed milk HEX A
Coffees through the day Free
Muller light yoghurt Free
Bran flakes (handful) HEX B
Frozen berries (handful) Super free
Banana x 1 Super free
Apple x 1 Super free
Satsuma x 1 Super free
Chicken curry / sweet corn / mushrooms 3 syns
Salad: rocket / tomatoes / cucumber / sweet corn / asparagus / broccoli / blueberries / grapes Super free
Moroccan cous cous (very small amount) 1 syn
Hot chocolate / cherries 2 syns
Be Good To Yourself: vegetable lasagne 4 syns
Salad: rocket / tomatoes / cucumber / sweet corn / blueberries / grapes Super free
Asparagus / mushrooms Super free
Apples x 2 Super free
 
I'm having a good week back on track and focused, so pleased about that. I've been reducing my portion sizes slightly - after a year, I realise that I can't eat as much, and so I am scaling back ever so slightly, lol. It's just about changes and so on.

I hope that I see a decent loss tomorrow. I weighed in on Tuesday and owned up to a 5.5 lbs gain, so I'd like to see about half of that gone tomorrow. I'll take whatever the scales say, but it would be great to get back on track. I dislike not having my 6.5 stones target under my belt, so if I could lose 3 lbs tomorrow that would do nicely (which would take me to 258 lbs).
 
Interestingly, I have been trying on lots of clothes and trying out different things, and although I had a weight gain this week, I feel smaller than ever. I don’t think it’s just my imagination, but everything feels smaller and more petite, my hands, my wrists, my waist, my legs, my face.

I’ve been throwing out too big clothes, and it makes me feel uncomfortable to do this – deeply uncomfortable. But I don’t want to keep things just for the sake of it. I find it weird to be so much smaller, and I find it hard to trust that I will keep going.

But here’s why I think that I will keep going:
- I’ve been doing this for almost a year, I’ve been through good times and struggles. I’ve had christmas, holidays, work, break-ups, parties etc. And I’m still here, logging on about weight loss and how I’m going to get to my goal. I don’t think that I am not going to do this.
- I am not reliant especially on anything else for this. I mean, I build in support mechanisms, I use forums and journals, I weigh in etc. But it’s not reliant on anyone else’s praise specifically. I feel that it’s very internal this time, the drive is coming entirely from me to do this. So why should that go away?
- Weight loss and feeling stronger and fitter is better than absolutely any evening of comfort eating. There is no comparison.

So I am cautiously believing that I will carry on. I definitely want to achieve my specific weight loss goal for this year, I want to get to a goal weight and maintain there for years. I want this to be something that I can do for the rest of my life.
 
You are certainly losing weight and getting fit and healthy for the best reason and that is you. You are the only person who you need to please and not relying on anyone else for support or praise is the best route. Any congratulations etc along the way will still be a nice boost but not necessary for you to complete your journey and move forward to a new life of health. You are doing great and I can definitely see you achieveing your goal and staying there.
 
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