I think I won the Super Bowl of eating yesterday.
All joking aside, yesterday was not a good day, eating-wise, for me. I went to a Super Bowl party, and this party included a Super Bowl cookoff. And people cooked it off, that’s for sure. There was a ton of amazing food, and I ate all of it. Maybe not all of it, but my share and your share and a few other people’s shares too. And there was no good reason for it. Not that the food wasn’t good; there were some amazing things there. And I wanted to try all the dishes, but that wasn’t really the problem either.
The problem was that I just kept going. I packed myself so damn full that I felt sick, and then I kept eating. I could easily have tried every dish, had some snacks and treats, and still have avoided Fatmageddon. But I didn’t. I actively chose not to eat the way I should. Now, of course, I have to really think about the answer to why that is.
I know what I should be doing. I spent seven months doing exactly what I should and I had the results to prove it. Since then, though, I’ve been in a holding pattern. I’m not doing all the things that got me to 400 pounds, but I’m also not doing all the things that got me to 270. So what’s changed? Why don’t I seem to have the strength that I had in the beginning?
Really, I’m finding that I’m not challenging myself the way that I did before. I could have held back yesterday, tried everything there was to try, indulge just enough to satisfy myself, and I could have felt good about it at the end of the day. But I wanted to eat a pigs in a blanket two at a time more than I wanted to lose weight this week. That would be fine if I felt like I’m where I want to be, but I’m definitely not. I’m getting complacent and self-satisfied, and that’s not OK with me.
This has extended to my workouts too. I spent about a week and a half doing very little – first because I was on a trip and I was lazy, and then because I had a nasty flu that forced me to take it easy – and it’s taking a long time to get back. I had plans for a six-mile run on Saturday and that didn’t happen. Oh, I started running intending to run six miles, but at the two-mile mark I started walking. In the end, it turned into a relatively good workout; I alternated walking and running, walking around a quarter mile followed by running a half-mile or a mile. But I was running six and seven miles before and to pull up at a third of that is frustrating.
The worst part is that I can do it. I believe that I could have pushed through if I wanted to. Part of the problem is that it only took a couple of weeks for my body to completely forget how to regulate its speed. I can run at a ten-minute pace fairly comfortably, but for some reason when I started running on Saturday, I was pushing up to a 9:15-9:30 pace. So I can’t say I’m too surprised that I sputtered out after two miles.
So what’s the solution? I’ve lost 140 pounds, and I have at least 50 to go. To do this, I have to work out a lot, eat things that aren’t terrible for me and eat a normal amount of them, and…well yeah, that’s it. Like my favorite refrain, “Simple, not easy.” I just need to do it.
Anyway, there is one bit of positive news to report. I bought myself a new pair of jeans this weekend, size 38x32, which is my first pair of jeans in the 30s in at least ten years. This is all well and good, but if I don’t get my ass in gear I’m going to be back in the 40s, and I have no interest in that. What I want is to be closer to 200 pounds than 300 pounds. I want to feel like I’m pushing myself, not like I’m giving less than my best. That’s going to come down to me.
