As you can tell, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve tried on my goal pants.  Honestly, I’ve been hesitant about it because I’ve been fighting a lot of demons since coming home from vacation a couple of weeks ago, and was afraid I’d gained weight instead of losing.  I’ve been concerned that if the pants fit worse, I’d lose what little mojo I have right now.

I sucked it up and tried them on this morning.  They actually fit better!  They’re far from being loose, and I wouldn’t wear them for the day just yet, but they were definitely easier to get on.  Yay!  I really didn’t expect good news, but I know I needed it mentally.  Knowing that I’m still making progress is going to help me push through and get fully back in my good habits.

Unlike my first try-on pants (the capris with the “slimming panel”), these are tighter through the thighs rather than the gut.  So, it’s a changed area of emphasis for reducing.  Not that I’m trying to spot-lose; there really isn’t any such thing.  The body doesn’t lose fat uniformly, but it also doesn’t shed it in just certain places of focus.  It loses it in the reverse of how it was gained, and considering most of my recent weight has been in my butt and thighs, it’s likely that’s where I’ll be losing the most over weeks/months to come.

In other news, I got in two workouts this week, and will get a third one today.  It’s not ideal, but it is an improvement.

On another note, those who live in my geographical region can relate: over the past couple months, the heat has been excessive.  Heat has been nearly record-breaking in duration, and in my area, there was a new high temperature set last week; it was the highest recorded temperature ever, since 1878, and not just for that particular date.

Although most of us have air conditioning, I could still see and sense a difference in people.  Intense heat brings just about everyone down.  You feel lethargic, like just thinking about moving will break you out in a sweat.  It just zaps both physical and mental strength, and no one wants to do anything until the heat breaks.

Now that the temperatures are lower, and more like average August temperatures, I know I feel lots better.  This weather actually feels cool after multiple weeks of 100+ temperatures.  I feel better about moving, and I feel better about myself, too.

Finally, it’s important to me to get back to hard work.  I think around the four month point, I hit a mental failure point where my mind just keeps telling me that I should just say “screw it” and eat what I want, that there are rewards to eating things I like, and that I shouldn’t be concerned with the consequences.  That I should just relax.  That’s a very strong pull.  I have to want my goal more than the instant rewards of eating junk food and sitting on my ass.  I have to keep the thought that what I attain in the long run is much more rewarding than eating a bag of Fritos right now.  The temptation has been strong for the past couple weeks, and I need to work on leaving that behind me.

I can tell I’m not in my zone.  I have some work to do on this brain of mine, and it’s time I buckled down and did it.

I’ve been doing fine with food, to a point.  I could be doing better.  I could be doing better with every part of my program.  So, I guess this week is really about fessing up to knowing I could be doing better, and not making excuses about it, because I have already fought down a ton of excuses.  Regardless, the facts are that I haven’t put in the work that I so desperately need to during these past couple of weeks, and I have no one and nothing to blame for it except myself.  I’m letting laziness and doubt set in.  I cannot move forward unless I buckle down, be vigilant, and mean it.  Thoughts and words aren’t going to get the weight off; if that were the case, I would have been Twiggy long ago.

I realized on Saturday that I hadn’t tried on my try-on pants from Friday, and then I didn’t really care that I hadn’t done it.  I knew that they wouldn’t be any further toward fitting, since I’d just come off over a week’s vacation, but once again, I have to be vigilant.  I have to do those things because they remind me to keep on the course.  I don’t want to be obese forever.  I don’t want to continue to handicap myself by carrying so much extra weight. I don’t like being a burden.

I think, in some ways, having the vacation to work toward helped me out.  I have another event in early October; I need to buckle down and get back to work, so I’ll enjoy that event.  I was happy that I was able to do a fair amount of walking without too much pain while in Florida.  I can do that, again, but it takes getting myself dedicated to the cause. And the cause is a healthier Lisa.

Originally, I had set up a try-on goal of six weeks. I’m changing that right now.  The try-on jeans are tight and certainly not worthy of wearing anywhere.  It’s August; I should be able to reduce my body enough to make them more comfortable by the beginning of October, so that’s my new goal.

Sometimes, talking it out helps.

Flippin’ heck, my mind is getting away from me.  I didn’t post on Monday or Friday, so this post covers both.

Week 14.  Wow.  I’m thrilled to still be in this journey, and I think I’m making good headway.  But… I sincerely need to buckle my brain down.  Not only did I forget to check in on Monday, but I’ve also been dealing with some mental demons this week. And the sad part of it is — I’m doing well!  This blog is here to remind me that I have to remain vigilant, that I have made myself promises that I intend to keep, that I need to remember that the journey toward ideal health and weight loss is as much mental as it is physical.

So, Week 14 found me still fighting the good fight, overall.  I still have done well with exercise; I have yet to miss a planned session, but I’ve also been tempted to just stay in bed a few times instead of getting up and working out.  That’s a bad mistake; not only is the pool more likely to be available in the morning for swimming laps, but I just do better both mentally and physically if I get my workout done first thing.  Waiting until later in the day presents me with too many opportunities to just put it off.  While I believe my body could use a break, I’m going to have a week’s break from formal exercise next week, when we are on vacation.

As for the mental demons, I’ve found myself wishing for foods that aren’t really acceptable.  I haven’t caved in, but I have craved, which is unusual for me, and it’s a sign that I might be trying to derail myself.  I’m letting doubt creep in, as well as allowing myself to want foods and miss foods that aren’t good for me.  For the most part, I keep myself in a mental place where food just isn’t an issue, so allowing that in is a sign that, as I said earlier, I need to watch myself and not allow the slip.  That’s especially true, since we’ll be on vacation by this time next week, and I still haven’t come up with a solid approach for how I’ll handle things food-wise.  I’m going to do some thinking about it this weekend.

Finally, the pants try-on: I nearly forgot, but I did try on the jeans yesterday, Friday, which is my usual day for doing that.  Good news: they are starting to feel less constricting.  Just slightly, but there is a difference.  Terrific!  I needed that little boost.  I need to remember, especially next week when I’m wearing clothes that wouldn’t fit just a few months ago, that I’m making progress and I have much to be proud of.

There are no significant changes in how the try-on pants fit, but I would have been shocked and pleasantly surprised if there was.  I’m only two weeks in on this pair.  Even if I lost two pounds a week, a four pound loss on a 300+ lb. woman is barely over 1% of body weight, and not likely to be visible, unless I lost four pounds in my chin.  😀  And I’d take that, believe me!

Otherwise, things are going good.  I completed another successful workout week, despite not being able to exercise on Monday because the gym was closed for the holiday weekend.  I added time to three of the four sessions, so I made up the lost fifth session.  And I learned that my body just isn’t quite ready, yet, for hour-long workouts, particularly swimming laps.  On Tuesday and Thursday, I swam 50 laps, which is 4000 feet, or over 3/4 of a mile.  And believe me, by lap 50, I was done.  Still, I’m proud that I finished yet another week, and my body needs the weekend rest.

Last week, I started adding in some calories.  I did this because I had let my daily calorie intake drop far too low; my energy levels were declining.  So, I added about 200-300 calories a day back in, and I’ve noticed a difference.  I think I had hit a point of diminishing returns; the possible extra loss of decreasing several hundred calories a day was offset by not having the energy to do anything else.

My body is doing well.  Yes, my knees still ache, but I’m still a big woman.  The candida patches behind my knees are gone, I have more stamina, I’m able to just move easier, get up from the couch and other seated positions easier.