Progress in my Weight Loss Journey

I realize it has been a little while since I really wrote about my weight loss journey and there is really no reason for it other than December and January were rough. Now I know this is the case for a lot of people but for me it wasn’t because of all the Christmas treats and food but instead because I ended up quite sick.

Generally speaking I consider myself to be fairly healthy. I very rarely ever get sick and if I do generally I’m out for a day maybe two but then I’m back to normal. Well as many people have been hearing the flu that is going around this year is a little crazy. On Christmas Eve by the time I got home from visiting with people I was white as a ghost and feeling pretty miserable. I went to bed and woke up feeling like death. What followed was a week of absolutely no energy. There were moments when I didn’t even have the strength to change the channel on my tv with the remote. Needless to say cooking food and eating were not high on my priority list although I did try to make sure I was getting something in my system. I knew because of this that when I went to my weigh in at Weight Watchers that I was going to be down but when I saw the number on the scale I was shocked when I saw the number. In the week I was sick I ended up losing 15 pounds. This looks great on paper but the reality of it was that it sucks but at least it made sense why I had no energy and felt so horrible.

Sometime during that week, while I was sick, I decided that this whole flu/cold thing or whatever I had was my body’s way of restarting. I found a new focus and decided that this year was going to be the year that I set the goal of losing 100 pounds and actually make it happen. My body was giving me a head start. Hehehe. Rationally though I was smart enough to realize that the 15 pounds I had lost was going to come back because it wasn’t a true weight loss but part of me hoped I would be wrong. So for the next two weeks I watched as the numbers on the scale bounced back. Even knowing and acknowledging that the weight gain was going to happen it still wasn’t easy to see the numbers go up. It is always hard when you know that you are doing the right things and following the plan to see a setback. I was starting to feel the frustrations that come along when you struggle with your goals.

After the second week of weight gain my body was basically back to where it was before I got sick so it was time to step things up a bit. I decided to try and put a little more structure into my plans for losing 100 pounds this year. Drawing from all the knowledge I had gained at work around goal planning I set up to create a goal plan for me. I set out a specific goal with a specific timeline but I also included some very specific steps to get me there. I know that to achieve a big goal you need lots of little goals to get there. It’s like that quote, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” It was time of saying I wanted to reach the destination and to actually start moving towards it.

One of the very first things I decided to do was to find a way to make eating my vegetables easier. Like so many people I have good intentions and fill my fridge with them but they have a tendency to sit in the crisper drawers and at least half of them get wasted. So taking a page out of my brother’s book I decided to do a week’s worth of prep with my vegetables so that they are ready and I don’t have to worry. I had seen pictures online of people putting salads together for a week at a time and enjoying them with promises that they didn’t get all soggy. I wasn’t really sure that it was really going to work and was truly worried that the consistency would not hold up. What if my vegetables went from crunchy and fresh to soggy and blah? But it was worth trying.

Off to the grocery store I went with a list of vegetables and other food to keep me full all week and give me a little variety. When I returned with all my new fresh food I piled everything on the kitchen table and began to cut and chop. After an hour and a half I had enough salads made for lunch and dinner for four days, as well as my afternoon snack which is also some sort of vegetable. The base for my salads were all the same (a mix of lettuce, carrot, cucumber, tomato and broccoli) but in order to make things a little more interesting I also added a few tweaks into each container that I knew would change up the flavour just a little. In some of the salads I added cheese, in some avocado and in a few I even put some nuts. Of course I also made sure I had a few of my favourite dressings to add (and yes I do use dressing and it is the full fat versions and/or homemade with oil – some things are just worth the splurge in points).

This whole process felt really time consuming in the moment but it did give me a sense of being in control again. I enjoy having a plan and knowing that I don’t have to worry about anything. I felt motivated and excited for the week. I knew that in the morning when I was rushing around I wouldn’t have to worry about making something for lunch. I could just grab the prepared stuff and toss it into my backpack. The whole process left me feeling very powerful and excited about losing weight again. Even better though was when I went to weigh in the next week I saw a loss. Sure it was only a pound but it was the first true loss since being sick and it felt like things really were starting to get back on track. The biggest reward though was not the loss but getting to see that the results were matching to my intentions. Excited from seeing the results, I was pumped and ready to try again for week number two. I was even more motivated and prepped even more things. For week number two I not only prepped my salads, my afternoon snack but also my morning snack and a few other odds and ends. The fridge was full as was the kitchen table with the food that would get me through the week. So once again this week when I went to weigh in I was rewarded with another weight loss and this time it was just shy of 5 pounds. Effort = rewards = happy, excited me!

I feel like a warrior ready to do battle now. I’m finally figuring out the tools and weapons I need to win and there is something incredibly powerful about that. I’m tired of fighting against myself and am ready to put all that energy into moving in the right direction. I have more motivation and excitement than I have had in a very long time. I have a clear focus of where I want to go and a real plan to get me there. I’m no longer hoping for weight loss, I am actually going to make it happen.