Maybe everyone is like this? Maybe its just anxiety. Anyway this is my thing. I am forever discontent. I had hit a sweet spot for a few years but my issue is pretty consistent. I want to do something and instead of just doing the thing I will analyze it forever. I will research every possible option and I will bail on the options ruining all possible choices. And I do this for every aspect of my life. If I get a job I will immediately feel not good enough and start job searching. I will apply for every job in the 8 million mile radius. Exhausting options. I did this for school for me. School for kid s. I never settle down I bought this stupid ass condo and now I am misery. But I always feel not content. I dont know how to reel this in. At my work I can get free school and I considered doing this to keep myself busy. I don’t know. How do I just enjoy what I have an live in the now. This really has been an ongoing problem for me. Its weird I feel like my last job was never a thing.

Weight loss is very slow, okay so is weight gain but its more challenging on the down that because you want to be fabulous for your hard work and you know the saying a watched pot never boils. The key is monitor your progress in various ways. I used photos, measurements, and the scale. I know there are some who are against the scale but it works well for me. It can be discouraging but weight loss in general can be. One thing that helps is keeping in mind it is not a sprint but a marathon and you need to realize even after you hit the goal you still need to operate on the 80 / 20 rule. 80% of your meals need to be healthy and dessert is an infrequent splurge, though I do enjoy having ice cream once a week and chocolate daily. My gut was was rather large when I weighed 165, it is finally slowly starting to reduce. This is exciting 🙂 My waist is still big and my jeans are not fitting lose but they are just starting to fit instead of being a tight muffin top hanging over the edge. I did the thing they tell you not to do and I bought myself I size smaller cute jeans because I winter is coming and I want to wear them later and I plan to be smaller. I can get them on but they are tight still. In about 5 pounds they will fit better. I am guessing about a month or so.

AND maybe just maybe this year I will be able to fit into my wicket witch costume! LOL it is so tight, but the end of October has the potential of being in the 140s?? Wishful thinking but that would be nice. It was tight when I wore it years ago but I will hope that I will get to wear it again….

One of the biggest challenges I faced with weight loss was consistency. If you are impulsive it is very difficult to be consistent. I’d start the day out strong and at the end of the day I’d throw in the towel because I was hungry or wanted something sweet or salty. That could easily turn into days, weeks, and months of eating whatever I wanted to beat myself at the END of every day! If you can relate to this, I want to share with you what I did that changed my life. It is 9:24pm as I write this and I have been dieting, so its the end of the day and I am hungry. Because you will be hungry when you are trying to lose weight. It’s only natural. While you gained you were always full and sometimes overly full. The only way to lose is to cut back. Anyway the point of me sharing this is because I am not going to get a snack because I don’t care. If I did it would be something very small because I don’t want to ruin my hard work. And I don’t feel deprived, because I am not. I ate well and was healthy all day, just because I am hungry right now means nothing. I am not dying and I do not need stuff in my mouth because I am done for the day. I am fasting until at least 7 am.

So what changed that has made me less impulsive and erratic? I stopped drinking 2-4 cups of coffee a day. I used to think in order to exercise, and or even lose weight I needed that coffee. Instead it gave me anxiety, fatigue, and increased heart rate. It also depleted my self control by making me tired as the day went on. You might think it sounds silly, or that you cannot do this but I assure you that you can. Go to youtube and look up people who have quite a lot of coffee and when they talk about why you should. It is a mood altering drug that is sold at a mass scale. And socially normal. It does horrible things to your body and skin. The effect it had on my impulsiveness was an unexpected result. 4 days after stopping I decided to try to be healthier overall and it just got better. The mental clarity is amazing. I am not perfect by any stretch but I do have a clear organized thought process and can stay focused on my end goals. What does success look like ?

Losing 22 pounds, but more importantly being more fit. In particular my cardio and muscles. I’d like to be stronger.

My goal is to eat this way but having to be at the calorie deficit that I am at is very difficult. My meals are usually no more than 400 calories each and I have two snacks during the day. There are certain food items I cannot eat either, or else I will see weight gain even at a calorie deficit. If I eat foods high in sodium, foods that are frozen (like pre-made frozen dinners), or canned foods. I will see a jump up in scale the next day. I am not saying it is a permanent weight gain but it causes inflammation or retention of water. For example yesterday I had ice cream for dinner and the scale went down still. Today I had bacon and turkey in a chef salad and a small brownie for dessert. I stayed within reason in terms of my diet but I will notice a bounce up tomorrow. I am trying to get below 150, but it has been very challenging.

Please let me know what recipes you love that low calorie and high volume.

Actually it was a strange two weeks last week I easily dropped two pounds and this week I gained them back while not doing anything different. It was odd because there was a day during the week where I felt very sluggish and the next day the scale was up. Last night I went for margaritas and nachos and gained another pound. Hopefully I can recover. One thing that changed is my intake number was 1200 instead of 1154 and I get a big lax no matter what so it could be the overage of calories. I trimmed back but still ate well. Consistency is key I feel trimmer and healthier too but boy is this weightloss slow! It’s been 60 days and I am down 6 pounds total. It was 8 but that fell apart. I will stand strong and keep going. One challenge I face it find variety.

This morning I woke up feeling hollow. Blank stare and empty. It sucks ass feeling like that. Tomorrow I have an interview. I was listening to a show this morning and in the show they asked what success looks like I think I need to identify that completely.

Great news today the scale reflected less that 160 pounds. I am at 159.8. I am not sure what it will say on my official weigh in and photo day tomorrow but I don’t care. So what I find fascinating is without coffee I have a stronger resolve, like I don’t care about the craving or the change and I will just plan my day to include the things I want. And I don’t feel weak. Its fascinating to me that is removed that added impulsivity and it happened almost immediately. Tell me caffeine is not a drug? Seeing the differences without it, I am done with it completely. I will never drink it again. On the weekend I have been treating myself to matcha latte’s but that has been it. I don’t love them but its something different and I feel like I am getting a treat. Monday my kid starts back up with Math. I don’t think she will be happy with that; but I think she should start and give herself time to get used to just that course. I am pretty excited and I am hoping she will enjoy the program so much that we will keep it next year as well but do a live class. I hope. I have been contemplating swtiching things up at work so I can do the weekly bowling thing. I am going to use planner with her again this year too.