186.8 - 61.8 pounds to go

I'm keeping the number the same as last week, even though it was down 1.4 pounds on Friday. I don't want to keep "cheating" by logging weights from other days, just in case it was a fluke.

My training session Friday was incredibly hard. He had me doing new things that were so challenging that I sincerely felt like it was my first day working out. I had already been thinking about my knees lately. Even though I've lost weight, they seem to crack and snap a lot more and it kind of concerns me. And then what does the trainer have me doing? Jumping up onto a bench. I was absolutely petrified every time I had to do it. All I could picture was missing the bench and landing on my face, or catching the edge of the bench with my shoe. Instead, I landed on my face when I was doing the stability ball jackknives. If you've never seen one, feel lucky!

Basically, you get into push up position with your legs on a stability ball. Then you roll the ball inward, bringing your knees into your chest. Getting up onto the ball is a workout alone, and I tried several different ways, all of them being "the hard way." I got up there the first time just fine, he second time I kept falling off. And these hurt like mad. Of course there were girls at the gym doing these at the same time, making it look effortless and beautiful. Not mine! And when I went to get off, I think I took both legs off at the same time and ended up rolling forward and falling on my face. I kept making fun of myself for it, and told my trainer it was a good thing I didn't have him taking pictures this time around. His response made it that much worse: "you looked like a crime scene victim!" I guess a little humility is good though, or something. I left that workout feeling incredibly weak and fat.

At my meeting with the nutritionist, we decided to go back to basics. I explained that the scale still wasn't reflecting a loss, the sudden 8 pound gain has stuck around, and I just can't take it anymore. I need structure, and a plan. So, I'm eating toast with PB for breakfast with some almond milk, a banana at AM snack, half a sandwich and some fruit for lunch, a fruit (and yogurt if needed) for PM snack, and a small dinner of 3-4 oz. protein, a small starch, and veggies.

Being as I am worried about being hungry all the time, she wants me to drink tea before every meal. Way back, my doctor had said she didn't want me drinking too much tea, but never gave a reason. So, we're going with maybe she was worried about the caffeine until I can ask her, and until then, I am enjoying it! She also thinks that I might be experiencing a lot more hunger on the days I work because I am associating sitting at my desk with eating and watching the clock to see when I can eat next. It makes sense, and it might definitely attribute, so I'm willing to shake things up a bit.

I mentioned my fear for my knees, explaining how they don't hurt per se, but I notice that they make more noise when I pivot or whatnot, so she suggested drinking 2 tablespoons of tart cherry juice concentrate in the morning and afternoon with some water. I had this warm the other day and I am in love! It's not cheap, which has me a little concerned, but if it helps, I am all allotting the money for it! She also suggested that I wear knee braces when doing cardio, and if I try to keep up with jogging, to find a grassy/dirt path. I'm not sure how feasible that is but I'll have to keep my eyes open. At the very least, I'm hoping the braces will help keep things compressed and comforted.

Let's hope for a good weigh-in this coming week, and a better strength session where I don't feel so weak!

186.8 - 61.8 pounds to go

Baby steps I guess. I'll take small losses over any sort of gain, any day.

I've been trying to work on being more positive, which is super hard. I'm trying to be more dedicated to exercising. I'm trying to make better food choices. All of it is so hard when you realize a lot of the hard work and effort isn't paying off. I mean it is - I don't want to go back to 250 pounds, or feeling so lazy and tired all the time, or breathing heavy after a flight of stairs, or barely being able to do a crunch, or any other number of things I could ramble off. I'm thankful that I've stuck things out this far. I'm just a bit disappointed that the one year mark came and went, and I wasn't where I wanted to be, so my mind seems to keep trying to derail me. All I can do is scream "There is no giving up!" I have said that from the very beginning and I am keeping my word. There is no going back.

I decided to follow the advice of my trainer and kick my cardio up a notch by jogging in spurts while walking. He may very well be right in that I'm not working myself hard enough. I feel like I'm going as fast as I comfortably can, but 60 pounds ago that was a lot more work than it is right now. So, I jogged. The first night, I jogged for a minute just a few times. I tried out the "Zombies, RUN!" app while out on a walk with the roommate and I think I need to look into a bit more. The storyline is okay - it's creative at the very least. But I only recall it making us run about 3 times.

The second night, I decided to jog every 5 minutes and I ended up pushing myself to go for 2 minutes. Two whole minutes with three minutes of rest in between! I was super proud of myself, even though I felt bad that I was slowing the roommate down. I was thankful he was so supportive and helped spur me on. I'm a little afraid of hurting my knees though, so I need to figure that out.

187.2 - 62.2 pounds to go

I've not been so good at getting my water in, or eating the right foods, or exercising. So, if I'm not changing things, "how did the scale go down" one might ask - and I have no idea. I'm frustrated, and angry, and confused, and just generally tired of not seeing any changes. More water, less water, more food, less food, more workouts, less workouts - it really doesn't seem to matter much. Just as soon as I think I see a change, the scale goes up the next week. So, I'm happy that it went down, but I'm not holding my breath. I just need to figure this all out and get out of this ditch.

189.6 - 64.6 pounds to go

And back up we go....

I've been trying to work on being more positive. When I go for walks with our roommate, he voices similar negative feelings about things in his life, and the social worker hat goes on. I tell him how normal some of those thoughts and feelings are, and we discuss steps to changing things in his life to make those feelings of inadequacy go away. I tell him to start recognizing those thoughts and immediately countering them with positive thoughts. And then I laugh: not at him, but at myself. These are the very same things I used to tell some of my therapy clients, the same things the nutritionist told me, and the same things I have told myself time and time again. It comes so easily to tell someone else to stop being so hard on themselves, to look at the bright side, to make mini goals to achieve an end result and to stop looking at the forest instead of the trees. Yet it's so hard to enact in my own life.

186.6 - 61.6 pounds to go

The scale is just not cooperating with me, and it's really starting to weigh on me (ha! see what I did there!) I met with the nutritionist and came clean about my lack of good decisions lately, but even with the slip-ups here and there, neither of us can explain why the scale suddenly jumped up 9 pounds a few weeks back, or why it's not going back down.

Emotionally, things have been really rough for me the last few months. After deciding that my relationship with my mother was nothing short of toxic and making the decision to estrange myself from my parents, I've been on a huge emotional roller coaster. I've had days where I'm fine and things seem clear to me, and then I have days where I seemingly cry for no apparent reason. It's one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make and it's constantly bubbling beneath the surface.

During my meeting, the nutritionist and I discussed what could be causing the scale to not reflect my efforts. Sure, I've not been diligent about getting in my 12 glasses of water per day. Yes, there have been days (more than I'd like to admit) where I was over my calorie goal. Of course there are also days where the food choices I've made were not so stellar (birthday week wherein I had cake every night for 6 nights!) And unfortunately there have been days where I've neglected going to the gym or getting out for a walk. But for the scale to suddenly bounce up 8-9 pounds is unexplained. My belief that it was only water weight from a weekend of bad food has since waned after watching the scale stay up for weeks.

And then she asked about my thoughts and attitude toward myself. Let the waterworks begin! As I sat there blabbering on about my mother and how I am allegedly a "horrible daughter," I saw myself get smaller and smaller. Contrary to how I would describe myself, mentally I am horribly negative and tough on myself. And while there is no explanation as to why the scale is being so unkind lately, one thing was very clear: I have to learn to be positive.

My homework for the next few weeks is rough, but absolutely necessary. First, I need to identify my keys for success. One of the examples we wrote down was that I'm able to get my 12 glasses of water in when I'm mindful of the time and set time limits (e.g. 3 glasses by noon.) The second thing I need to do is to negate all of the negative thoughts I have by immediately countering them with a positive. So instead of repeatedly telling myself, "You only managed to lose 59 pounds in a year," I need to tell myself "But I lost 59 pounds! And over 40 inches!" Lastly, she suggested I focus more on picturing what I want the scale to read, rather than on what it says. Every night and every morning I step on the scale. This is hugely not recommended. I, personally, like seeing the difference between the two numbers and I know the reasoning behind those numbers enough to not freak out. Could I stop? Absolutely. That's not where my problem lies. My issue is that the numbers are not going down. Since the beginning of the year, I've lost roughly 15-20 pounds, which is barely even trying in my opinion. And lately, those numbers are bothering me. There's no explainable reason and it's starting to negatively impact how I view this journey. So instead of focusing on "the scale said X this morning," she wants me to envision stepping on the scale and seeing a smaller number and being excited about it.

So, do I think a mental overhaul will help the numbers come down? I'm not sure. The mind is a powerful thing, I won't deny that. While I don't think it's the only reason the scale isn't moving, I'm up to trying whatever I can in an effort to get back on track. Plus, I could use a little less negativity in my life!

189.4 - 64.4 pounds to go

Ugh! I just cannot seem to get back on track lately. It seems like everyday includes either eating too much, or making bad food choices, or both. It also didn't help matters that last week was birthday week. Since my birthday was on Tuesday this year, we decided to invite people over on Saturday. But we couldn't just do nothing on the actual day! So we took the roomie to a local coney place we had never been to, then decided on a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner - not tons of sodium hiding there! No sir! And since I am a huge slacker when it comes to my birthday (denial maybe?), I didn't bake a cake. And since that isn't acceptable at all, we headed to a local grocery store bakery to pick one up. Since the roomie decided we should get a 13x9 cake rather than a really small cake, you know, because he would eat it all, I happily obliged. Stupid me! That really just meant that all three of us had cake every single night up until the weekend when I made a cake for the party. So, not only did we eat bad on my birthday, and a couple days after that, but we also had cake for dessert every night from Tuesday through Sunday, as well as some of the cookies I made for said party, plus all the traditional store-bought barbecue food because with all the baking I did (3 types of cookies, a 3-layer cake, and ice cream), I didn't have time or energy to care about making things like potato salad - though I did make baked beans!

So, the scale being up, *again,* should really come as no surprise, it's just a little defeating. I see the nutritionist this weekend and I am really ashamed just thinking about going and telling her how awful things have been. I also have a training session that morning and being as I haven't been since August 24th, I'm really not looking forward to the butt-kicking and soreness that will inevitably occur. Okay, I lie, I kind of am, but talk to me about it Saturday and I may sing a different tune!

188.6 - 63.6 pounds to go

This backward slide has got to end. I figured that the issue was excess water weight from all the sodium in our not-so-great food choices lately, and maybe it still is, but I thought that the scale would reflect that by now.

Our camping trip was far from what I had expected. Since we hadn't been camping in probably 8-10 years, we ended up renting a little cabin in a state park. I had no idea you could do such things! When we got there, I initially thought the place was kind of cute. It was a small cabin with just a main room with the beds and long table with a mini fridge and microwave on top, and a decent sized bathroom. We unpacked, ran to the corner party store for some firewood and ice cream sundaes, and decided since the fire would take a couple hours to build and put us eating dinner at around 10:00pm, we'd head into town and grab dinner. What a joke! The bar we ended up going to was the only place we saw that was open (that wasn't a pizza joint) and was packed with people watching football, snacking, and drinking beer. I had assumed since it was so busy, it had to be a good sign. Instead, we left aggravated and wishing we had walked out. My food was barely room temp, our fries were cold, the waitress came by only to take our order and give us our food. I think we were there over an hour, easily. If it hadn't been for the fear of someone catching us walking out on our tab, we would have done so, especially when two different waitresses told us to have a good night (before giving us our tab) and asked if we had been given our tab.

Once we got back to the cabin, I started noticing all the little things I didn't like: the vinyl-coated hard-as-a-rock mattresses, the dirt/sand-coated floor, the lack of any sort of cellphone signal. Our bed sheet didn't fold under the corners, which meant that every time we moved, the sheets came off, leaving the vinyl exposed. Earlier in the week, I had pulled a muscle in my lower back, and the mattress did a wonderful job making it worse. Now add in there that my husband forgot his CPAP mask, meaning he would be snoring in addition to me being paranoid about the sheet coming off and my back being angry.

We ended up leaving the campground a day early. In fact, we really only stayed there from about 8:00pm Friday until 3:00pm Saturday, just enough time to unpack things and then re-pack them. No hiking (too many darn mosquitoes), no beach, just a fire to make grilled cheese sandwiches while we tried to decide when to leave. At least it was the best grilled cheese sandwich I've ever had! And I learned that I am apparently not nearly as outdoorsy as I wanted to be. I hate bugs, I hate germs (the vinyl mattress cover), I like clean floors I can walk around on barefoot, I like having WiFi or at least a signal so I can do things. I never felt more prissy in my entire life.