I think, from time to time, it pays to review what you’re doing and whether you’re staying true to the program and the intent.  Those things are related to goals, which I think are supremely important; why get in a car and drive if you don’t know where you’re going? The same holds true for keeping yourself on course, for diet and exercise.

I haven’t been as good as I could be on the weekends. I’ve let the amount of carbs I’ve been eating to creep up.  I can tell, because a tried-and-true result of too many carbs in my system is that I have strong hunger the first day I’m back to my low carb/low calorie course.  I tried to ignore that during the holidays, and then told myself I’d improve now that the holidays are over.  Well, they’re over, and I didn’t improve this past weekend, or the weekend before it.  And the plain facts are — I have a goal, and I can’t get to that goal if I’m going to piddle around with the map.

I also can’t do it if I’m not going to put in 100% effort on exercise.  This last week started with me telling myself that I would work out five times during the week.  The final total? Three times. I let other things get in my way far too easily.  I have to commit myself to working out whenever possible, because exercise has made a tremendous improvement in my day to day life, and I would be a fool to slack off on it now.

I’m also willing to admit that I made a mistake in judgment.  I knew that the holidays would add a challenge to my plan.  The mistake was in not finding a good system of measurement to help me through the holidays.  I have my black goal pants that I’m working toward, but because there’s such a big size difference between them and the last pair of goal pants, I haven’t had the positive reinforcement of knowing, for sure, that what I’m doing is working.  Honestly, I could have really used that, especially since it’s been two months since I’ve hit a goal, and the pants are tight enough that I know it will likely be at least another month before there’s a chance that they’ll fit well enough to declare a goal.

That’s three months of no positive reinforcement.  Because I have lost so slowly, and for the most part can still wear many of the clothes that I wore when I started this diet, very few people have commented on my weight loss.  My brain is taking this information and whispering your goal jeans aren’t anywhere close to fitting, no one’s noticing your loss, and you can’t be sure about your loss yourself.  No measurable success = failure.  Why are you doing this, again?

This is just how my brain works, and since it’s been my brain for the last 50 years (oy!), I should know by now when the voice of doubt will be its strongest, and that’s where I’m at.  I have strong days and weak days.  I need more strong days.  And I need to keep pushing so I do see some measurable results, and soon.

I have already promised myself that I will finally take progress pics with the black pants on this Friday, since that’s my normal try-on day.  I should be able to tell by photos what I already know, and that’s that there has been a loss since my last goal pants.  Heck, I’m wearing them right now, and they are comfortable.  The black pants wouldn’t come anywhere near closing or zipping when I ended up selecting them.

I’m going to keep the black pants as goal pants; they’re at the fitting point where I’m most of the way there.  I just need to persevere, and I need to be careful about how I select my next method of measurement.