Despite having a kind of rough week with the cold, I managed to lose about 2.5 pounds this week. So that makes for almost 20 pounds so far-19.5 really, but I like to round up ;).
I've been working hard at keeping my protein level up, and making sure to keep eating even though I don't really feel like I'm hungry right now. My nutritionist said that I'd done a really great job considering I haven't been well. She really stressed the importance of eating enough protein and carbs when I'm sick to keep my body from feeding on itself. It sounds kind of counterintuitive, as I want my body to use the fat stores, but the body doesn't burn fat alone. And she doesn't want me to backtrack on the muscle that I've been building up with my workouts.
Anyway, we decided not to introduce beans and legumes this next week, since I didn't really get a full week of adding back in dairy products that I can have, such as soy milk and yogurt.
I met with my counselor today for the third time since I started the program. She told me how great I'm doing so far, and asked how I'm feeling about all of the changes in my life. I told her that despite the sickenss this week, I've been feeling really great and I'm finally sleeping well. I went over my issues with being sick so much last year, and we discussed how important sleep is to a healthy immune system, weight loss, stress management, and concentration. I think it's a really good thing that I started this when I did, or my health could have become an even bigger mess than it already was. I've found that I actually need to exercise to sleep well at night. I don't know why I never really put those two things together before. I guess because I was always tired and wanted to sleep, but just not at normal times, I didn't really get that I needed to burn some energy to get to the right phases of sleep.
Recently, I had an important realization about how I've been living my life thus far. I can say that I've managed to keep moving up in life, and I've worked hard to do so. My job is rewarding, but often stressful and I'd deal with that by indulging in food. Additionally, rewards for my successes were often food-related. And because I have a rather healthy social life, a lot of my time with friends and family revolved around food. So, every week there was something special to celebrate or make an exception for. After awhile, exceptions were the rule and there was no signal to me to say no to another helping or piece of cake until my clothes became uncomfortable and my health started to fail.
I've now made a very conscious decision to only make exceptions when they actually apply to me - and only if I'm willing to do the work to make them worthwhile. For example, I'll have cake on my birthday (well, not this year, but in the future) but not for other people's birthdays. Once a year, I can have cake. Oh, and a piece of my wedding cake, which will be my only cake this year anyway. Holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, I will allow myself to indulge in the food and festivities on that day-not the entire season-and I will make a tradeoff. Either I only do one platefull, or I go to the gym an extra day that week (or even that day). A co-worker told me that the gym has 90-minute workout sessions for the holidays for this exact purpose.
And when I indulge a few times a year, I'll do it knowing that it may trigger some cravings afterward, but I will know that I can get back on plan and those cravings will go away. And in the end, I may figure out that it's just not worth it to have the cravings and withdrawals, and I'll stay on plan all the time. After working this hard to lose weight and get healthy again, I know that I don't want to backslide, so that will always be a strong impetus to my staying healthy. And my blog serves as an important tool for me to refer to whenever I might feel weak or wonder why I ever signed up for this in the first place. And believe me, there are times when I think of all of the time and work I've done thus far, and how much further I have to go, and I wonder if I can make it. But, I know that I can, and I will. I made a commitment to do this, and I don't take that lightly.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
If you're allowed to have them, protein shakes are an easy way to get more protein.
LOL when you figure out how to cut out the cravings and withdrawals, share the secret with me!!
Yeah, I do a couple of protein shakes a day. In the beginning, I was doing 4 a day, but each week when I get other foods back, I try to figure out how to get protein in from other sources, too. The probelm was just that with being sick, I didn't feel like eating at all, let alone trying to cram in enough protein.
Since I've started this, my cravings have really diminished. Every once in awhile, I'll see and/or smell something that I'd like to eat, but I don't get random cravings anymore. If I added back foods with lots of sugars or artificial sweeteners, I'm sure that a lot of my random cravings would return. So, that's the key. By being on this plan, it really helps to keep me from wanting to eat poorly because I'm craving something.
Post a Comment