Thursday, August 9, 2012

The Thing That Keeps Me Up At Night


**This post is some serious mental garbage – just trying to clear the crap out to relieve the stress... So it’s probably gonna be kinda jumpy and rambling... Hang on and just go for the ride... ha!**

Stressy McStresserson.

That’s me lately.

And for the stupidest reason... I’m getting close to my weight-loss goal and I’m afraid to stop my diet! It seriously gives me major anxiety to know that soon I am going to be responsible for actually paying attention to food and keeping my weight where I want it.

It’s so dumb. Tons and tons of people watch what they eat and maintain a normal weight everyday... It shouldn’t be so daunting. But when you’ve spent too many years overweight and unhappy, you start thinking that you will ALWAYS be overweight.

Then you finally make a decision to actually DO something about it and HOLY CRAP it freaking works! But now what???

One voice in my head is super excited about getting to eat normal food again... But then the other voice in my head that makes me doubt my ability to maintain properly starts screaming FATTY FATTY FAT FAT!!!!

I know I can do this! I have to. I am just so scared of being one of those people that ends up back on the Nutrisystem Boards a year later talking about how they gained it all back and then some....

I have a plan in place in my head to stay on top of things... Once I get to the weight where I decide to stop, I have a very strict “If I gain 5 pounds, it’s time to buckle down” plan in my head. I figure that 5 pounds would be significant enough that it’s not just some sort of daily fluctuation / bloating and actually something that needs to be dealt with. No more willful blindness and unwillingness to admit that there is a problem. Get on it and put a stop to it before 5 pounds becomes 10 becomes 20......

And I also am stopping at a lower weight than I originally planned because I don’t want that 5 pounds to bump me back into “Overweight” BMI range. I am just barely into the normal range and technically I could stop here... But I don’t ever want to be overweight again. I’ve wasted enough time being someone I’m not. People have started telling me that I should stop – that I don’t need to lose any more weight. And while that may be true-ish (I technically am in the healthy weight range for my height/age), I don’t think another 5 – 10 (or maybe 13...) pounds are going to hurt and they will definitely make me breathe easier when I’m trying to figure out maintenance.

I seriously think that I must carry weight well – I don’t think people would guess what my highest weight was – or even the weight I was when I started doing Nutrisystem... And I am beyond happy that I seem to lose it fairly proportionately. I know that I look completely different now – even if my brain doesn’t always want to admit it... I have always hated my legs – my thighs and calves are just too big. I am never comfortable in shorts. And even though I know they are smaller than they were – I can’t help but hope that the remaining weight I lose all comes from there! I am happy with my face, my lack of extra chins is pretty great, and I have a pretty cute shape... “The girls” may have gotten a little small for my liking, but that’s ok, I guess... I would have looked pretty silly if they had stayed as big as they were...

The thing I am most excited about is getting new clothes.... I am SO sick of feeling like a hobo. Almost everything I own is too big. Especially my work clothes... I hate having to belt my pants down to keep them from falling off! Yeah, that’s awesome, but it sure looks dumb. And it makes me feel like I look bigger than I am... The only things I have that really fit are one pair of jeans (that are starting to get a bit too loose once they stretch out after being washed), a handful of t-shirts that I’ve bought myself because I don’t mind if t-shirts end up a tiny bit baggy after the last bit of weight loss, a hoodie/jacket I got because my other one was HUGE, a couple sweatshirts, my workout clothes, and my yoga pants that I wear as jammies... And that’s about it. Everything else ranges from “slightly baggy” to “ridiculous.” I’m literally going to have to start fresh. I’m talking from underwear on out... And I CANNOT WAIT. Three words that make me incredibly happy: ALL NEW CARDIGANS!!!! I love cardigans – they just work with everything!

I am planning on making a day of it at an outlet mall and building me a whole new wardrobe to go with the whole new me...

 See? Shiny new me – new bangs and everything!

And I recently got a gym membership again because I was getting really bored with riding my bike at home and knew that that wasn’t going to be a good long-term routine for maintenance. I need more variety... And I really want to do some weights to be more toned. I want me some “Michele Obama” arms! I’ve gone to the gym right after work every day this week and it’s been great. A lot of wonderful “people watching” to distract me while I’m running my butt off on one of the elliptical machines or pushing myself on the weights... I’m hoping to just build a routine of being healthy to keep this all going...

**Funny side story – my first time back at the gym the girl at the front desk had to check me in and set me up for the self-check-in system... When I handed her my driver’s license, she did a pretty good quadruple-take and shouted “HOLY CRAP!” Yeah... I guess I need to go get a new picture taken... It was a pretty good laugh and a fantastic ego boost...**

So... I really need to just figure out when I want to start phasing out the Nutrisystem foods... Do I wait until I am actually AT my goal or do I start now while I am finishing up?? I could always start right now by trading one meal a day with something on my own and stretching out how long the box of food that I just got lasts... Or I could stay purely on-plan until my next shipment and THEN start switching over while keeping the Nutrisystem as my security blanket in the pantry... Or I could do this box purely on-plan and not get another shipment – just cut it off and use the extra lunches and dinners that I have accumulated as my security blanket...

Or I could just go bury my head under my pillow and pretend I don’t have any decisions to make...

Ugh. And now I’m stressed again.

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