55 to go

Positives: Weight loss, less eating/drinking out = money saved, more focused on work, dog likes the extra walks.
Negatives: Feeling the need to stay away from temptation, lack of humor or witty insight.

There is a lot of extra time on your hands when you take food out of the equation…you have to make an agreement with yourself that you are going to be a little less social for a bit.  I am certainly always shocked at how much of my fun/life revolves around food and drink, happy hours, dinners, festivals, etc.  It is the default activity for most social groups.  To not engage in that anymore takes some retraining of yourself and friends. To convince a friend to go for a walk instead of a happy hour takes a lot of work.  

But such is where I am at the moment.

I have powered through the first bit, when you must become mindful of food instead of putting junk in your face cause its what your taste buds are craving. When I count up the calories and say, no really body, you have ingested 1500 calories you are good for the day. Shhhhh.  Stop your rumbling. The key for me is to set myself up for success by packing good foods for the day to ward off bad decisions.

Now I am pleasantly shifting to the bit where my body enjoys the rest from gluttony. When the rumble in my stomach is not a cue to forage, but a recognition that it can saunter over to the food stores in my belly and nom nom on some of the blubber over there if it wants to. I literally talk to myself (internal voice only) and tell my body to eat itself.  That all is well…there is no food shortage and its time to shut down, its simply time to use internal food stores rather than external.

I am down a few pounds…here is my little pantry tally system that shows the epic journey I have before me.  Sure 5lbs is good, but is just a start, and it’s the easy bit, the quick pounds that are shed in the light of true determination to not cheat.  I do not pat myself on the back and say job well done for 5 pounds. I say 55 left to go. The only thing I measure is what is left between me and my goal, not how far I’ve come. 

The next steps are to add in exercise and lots of it.

Cheers!

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