After 5 months of keeping the 110 pounds off, I went on vacation - to my mother-in-law's house no less. Three weeks of yummy home made EVERYTHING, from muffins to rolls and bread to chocolate cake for my hubbie's birthday, and voila! Up 8 pounds. (And I was walking an hour a day, and eating 10 fruits and vegetables and keeping up with my HMR® Shakes and Entrees - it just goes to show you how important environmental controls really are! - Oh and can you imagine what the scale would have read had I not had such good skills in place?!)
Alrighty then. Up 8 pounds. No problem - just get back on track and go back to exactly the same behaviors I was doing before my vacation. Only now the peanut butter is calling my name, and now I'm back to eating more bread, and sure enough - the weight is not coming off a few weeks later. What to do? Do I just give up and accept that I'm now a few pounds heavier - no one else really seemed to notice the extra weight... After some internal debate (and the unbuttoning of some now too tight jeans...) I know what I need to do.
I need the structure of the weight loss class. The extra support and accountability, the meal replacement and physical activity assignments, and being in a room where everyone understands what it's like to try losing weight in today's society are exactly what I need to get back on track. I'm looking forward to the "decision-free" atmosphere also. It's hard standing in the grocery store when nothing is off limits and trying to make healthy decisions. Being "in the box" means that the biggest decision I have to make is which blue box to rip open, and which vegetables do I want to add to it? There are no bad choices to make when you're "in the box".
Now, as I'm writing all this down, I'm on my fifth day on the diet. It's as easy to follow this time as my first time around. There is comfort in knowing that I've done this before, and quite successfully at that, but also in knowing that I can make the transition to weight maintenance after the 8 pounds (or more - I'm thinking of losing another 20 pounds this time) when I'm ready. I know that in the weight maintenance phase I'll be able to keep on building my skills with regards to physical activity, environmental control, high levels of fruits and vegetables and using meal replacements to offset higher calorie foods.
Well, that's it for now. I'll keep posting every week, and hopefully be able to share some tips and tricks that are working for me. I'd love to hear from anyone else out there who has good ideas to share too!
take care,
Patricia
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