Interesting Times

Happy Valentines Day, lovelies! I know there are at least a few of you out there. :)

We keep it very low-key at our house and don't really do anything special, so no worries about too much chocolate or an overindulgent meal for me!

Since I last wrote, I've been slightly "off". I don't grieve particularly well, and I tend to eat my feelings a lot. With the loss of Alistair cat, this was no exception. As a result, I'm back up to 275 today, but that was after NOT weighing for a few days – honestly, I was worried it would be much worse. Today was reasonable, eating-wise, so hoping that I'm getting back on track a bit.

I haven't been exercising at all. My last run was on February 5th, and then Alistair left us and then we got a brutal cold snap and... I have all sorts of excuses why not. The Alistair thing I'd give myself a couple or few days, sure, but the rest of it? Baloney. I have memberships at two gyms, so weather is not a good excuse unless it's blizzarding. I suppose the one legit "excuse" I do have is that I've been getting ready for my next art exhibition which goes up at the beginning of March. That means lots of time in the painting studio, pretty much any free time I have. It's just two more weeks of this schedule and I am looking forward to not being so frantic (my own fault, I can procrastinate like nobody's business!) and getting back to relative normal. I dare say it is difficult to have a regular workout regimen AND work full-time AND have a relationship AND get my painting in. I admit, I could be better at using my time but quite frankly I DO see value in resting my mind and body by just hanging out/vegging out and watching movies with my partner, and/or doing various internet stuffs.

Anyway. So that's where I've been, in mind and body.

I've also made some decisions about what I want to do moving forward. As you may know, I've been floating in the 270s (with some dips into the 260s here and there) since June of last year. While that's been a bit frustrating, I'm also really glad that I haven't been gaining the whole time, either! More or less, I've maintained about a 100 pound loss, and I'm really proud of and happy about that. At the same time, I was really getting stressed out about the idea of having to lose another 100 pounds and feeling overwhelmed... that it was an impossible task. Intellectually I know this couldn't be farther from the truth, but emotionally it just feels like too much to handle if I only think in terms of the big picture.

So I removed that picture from the wall, at least for now.

What I have decided to focus on is to get back to the 260s. In fact, my new goal is 260 pounds. That's it. That's all she wrote.

The reality is, I have realized that if I didn't ever lose any more weight, I'd still be pretty happy about where I am now. I have been happy! There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about at least one aspect of my life that has been positively impacted by the weight I have lost so far. I feel like I have accomplished a stabilization, even a normalization of my body. I think my doctor would agree – all my numbers are in normal ranges except my weight (for now). I can move easily and do everything I want to be able to do. Would those things be even easier if I lost more weight? (Especially thinking about running) Yes, for sure. But my weight is not stopping me from doing anything any longer, and that was the most important thing to me in the first place.

So I just thought, maybe give myself a break for a while. Well, I have, I know. But this time, a conscious one. Let my body kind of get used to where it's at for a while. And let me not feel quite so obsessive about everything. It has been a big relief to be logging every single morsel on MyFitnessPal or check in there every ten minutes to see what's going on.

That doesn't mean that I am going back to old habits (though for some recent days it was starting to feel that way a little) and gaining all the weight back. I still have some business to attend to in the form of 15 pounds (Ah! So much better than 100!), not to mention training for a half marathon! I have plenty of work to do to keep me busy, happy, and healthy. I'll revisit this and see how things feel in another couple months.

Until then, I'm exercising intuitive eating and daily weighing as my method... and of course, half marathon training.

It's exciting!