Falling off the wagon

As I stated in my last entry, I may have fallen off of the diet wagon over the last week or so… oh who am I kidding. I not only fell off of the wagon, I pushed the wagon to the edge of a very high cliff and shoved it off busting it into a bazillion pieces! The result was a 2 pound weight gain. So when my friend Layla told me she could get free tickets to a local wine tasting event, I thought “What the hell!” The catch was that I promised myself I would hop back on my diet the following day. Okay so that didn’t happen, but I did get back on track Monday. Since my re-commitment I have lost the 2 pounds I gained and am feeling much better. I should be getting my new food order on Monday, which makes me very happy since I am out of bars. Hopefully my next blog will have me raving about FINALLY reaching the 20 pound weight loss goal!

Stress is no friend of a girl on a diet

The last few weeks have been kinda rough for me. I think it started when my “wedding date” came and went… without a wedding. I knew it would be hard when Oct. 17^th rolled around and I thought I was prepared for it. I was wrong. My first mistake was thinking I could drown my sorrows in gin. Of course I played it off like my fiancé and I were just having a couple drinks together for the first time since I started my diet, but deep down I knew I was trying to drink away the sadness. My fiancé had no clue I was doing this, but he has a good excuse… he’s a man. Well I got my karma the next day! I spent practically the whole day in bed nursing the worst hangover in a very long time. Not only had I forgotten that I haven’t been drinking the last couple months, but I am also consuming WAY less calories on a daily basis than I was before. Needless to say I have learned my lesson.

Although I have learned my lesson about drinking while on this diet, I have reverted back to my old habits of forgetting to eat when I am stressed or depressed. Most people think “Well if you aren’t eating, you can’t gain weight.” Unfortunately that isn’t correct for most people, especially me. When I go too long in between meals, my body goes into starvation mode and hangs on to any fat and instead burns muscle, so I either don’t lose weight or even gain some. With this diet it is even more important that I eat every 2-3 hours. However I haven’t been as diligent as I should be or have been since I started it and I can tell. This past week I only lost .6 pounds and I feel extremely tired. I know this is because of the stress and change in my eating habits. I know I only have myself to blame for my lack in progress. A few days ago I did decide to increase my calories as suggested by the Medifast diet plan so I could begin exercising, which I did the other day. That did help, but I am still “forgetting” to eat as often as I need to. Everyday I say to myself “Today I will get back on track!” Then of course I go without eating for 4 hours again or realize at the end of the day that I skipped a meal or didn’t have enough calories. I know it could be worse. I could’ve completely lost it and eaten a whole bag of chips or half of my son’s Halloween candy (although I did have 1 piece).  But it all makes a difference when you are struggling to lose weight.

When I began this eating plan I started off strong, losing just over 7 pounds in the first week. I was ecstatic. Then week 2 came along and I only lost 1 1/2 pounds. I began thinking that maybe I was destined to be fat forever. That maybe my metabolism was so screwed up from years and years of dieting that I would have to start looking into a career entertaining patrons at Six Flags alongside Shooka the whale. Since then I have lost an average of 2 1/2 pounds a week, totaling 19 pounds in 8 weeks. Now don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with having lost that much weight and being able to fit into jeans I haven’t seen for quite some time. However, when you are overweight and lose 19 pounds, it isn’t the same at being a size 8 and losing 19 pounds. The reality is that I am still overweight and I still have a long way to go.

The stress and depression hasn’t wavered, but at least I am aware of my self-destructive habits. Hopefully I can learn to stop myself before I get completely off track and gain back the weight I have lost. I still have dreams of not being a chubby bride and looking beautiful on my wedding day.