Learning From The Past

So. Here I am again.

I had this goal when I was at my parents’ house, that I would stick religiously with my plan and come home with a 5-pound loss.

That did not happen.

I did stick with my plan, at least much more than I typically have. I ran most days on my mom’s treadmill, easing my way back to 3 miles after having taken a break from running since Christmas due to an injury. I did a fairly decent job staying away from too much fattening food and too much wine.

But I did cave and have a couple of nights of abandon, where I ate and drank what I wanted. We also took a day trip to see some relatives, and during that day I indulged in a couple of desserts, as well as a pit stop at McDonald’s, where I ate chicken nuggets and French fries.

I weighed myself every day while away from home, and I have to say it was still surprising – despite my various indulgences – to see that I hadn’t really lost anything. I would have assumed that my semi-vigilance and my pretty intense workouts would have made a bigger difference.

Nonetheless, I returned home with resolve to just dig in and do this thing. I went back and read a bunch of the posts from when I started my plan 6 years ago. One thing I noticed is that after the first month or so, it wasn’t like I remained pristinely perfect with my eating habits. I recorded more than a few stumbles along the way – where I would fire up the oven and bake garlic bread and then eat way too much of it, or where I’d do that AND drink wine.

Yet I still steadily lost weight.

I was trying to figure out what the difference was.

I think one thing is age. I’m 6 years older now, and it’s just harder to get myself into a losing pattern. It takes more to gain momentum.

Also, I think it’s easy to see the cave-ins from before without acknowledging that before I started to slip up occasionally, I spent several weeks very diligantly sticking to my plan.

I made some small yet pretty dramatic lifestyle changes, too. Like, I gave up regular half-and-half in my coffee and replaced it with fat-free half-and-half. This doesn’t sound like a very dramatic change, but I actually think it was. I think it did something to my body to send the message that it had to dip into my fat stores rather than depend on new infusions of fat each morning. (Well, no, there’s no scientific evidence for that, but that’s how I felt when I gave up the good stuff and switched.)

I was vigilant and diligent for several weeks.

That’s what I’m going for this time around.

Here’s what I had yesterday:  Special K Nourish hot cereal (190); Red Lobster grilled shrimp skewers with vegetables (450); 2 cheddar bay biscuits (150 apiece, so 300 total); side salad with dressing on side (150); Slimfast high protein shake (180). Total:  1,270.

And here’s what I ate today:  Slimfast high protein shake made in the blender (190); banana (80); Slimfast ready-to-serve shake (180); large salad with 2 tablespoons dressing (300); zucchini (100); Lean Cuisine chicken fettuccine (250); 4 tsp parmesan cheese (50); milk (90); apple (80). Total:  1,320.