Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Frustrations With Weight

I spent all of 2006 overweight. Not a lot, but heavier than I had been my entire life (excepting my pregnancies, of course.) So when March of 2007 came around I finally decided to do something about it. I started being very careful of what I ate and when I ate. I picked up on my exercise a little bit (always a sporadic thing for me.) Over the course of six or seven months I had lost ten pounds and was at my goal weight.

After spending two months (give or take) at my desired weight, I was more than a little nervous for the upcoming holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I made it through Thanksgiving just fine and jumped into Christmas feet first. I made countless dozen cookies, made dessert for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and attended a cookie exchange with ten other women. I was so proud of myself for making it through the 25th of December with no change on the scale. And I ate desserts and cookies, but I was sensible and careful.

Then came my downfall. We loaded the kids into the van and went to Ohio for Christmas with my family. Because we are coming from so far away, we got there the night before (the 28th of December) and spent the night. Fine. But on the 29th, the day of the party, there was lots of good food. Not only did I bring my Christmas cookies that I continued to refill throughout the day, but there was all kinds of snacks left out to munch on. Good snacks. Chips and salsa. Fruit with chocolate dip. Cheese. Chocolates from the local ice cream store. Cocktail weinies (ok, I didn't eat these, but they were there.) I grazed much of the day. Then after dinner there was pie. Good pie. You get my drift.

And had we only been there for that one day, it probably would have been fine. But of course we stayed the night on the 29th (along with most of the rest of my family). My mom got up and made quiche, a tea ring, and had kringle. I of course had two pieces of tea ring (a cinnamon roll like creation) and some other good stuff. Then later in the day I had the last piece of pumpkin pie (mainly because the pecan pie was all gone already.)

When we finally packed up and went home, I knew I was going to be in trouble when I stepped on the scale again. And sure enough, I had added 2-3 pounds. The worst part as that I didn't fix my eating when I got home. I kept indulging, more than I should have. I finally stopped when the scale tipped four pounds more than my "happy" weight.

What was I doing? It had taken me six months to lose ten pounds and I was ruining it in the span of ten days! So now I am two pounds over and still struggling. I really want it to go away, but know that I have to put in the hard work to get rid of the extra pounds. I plan on doing it; I am not going back to being ten pounds overweight. But it still sucks.

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