First post ever on reddit after a long career of lurking, I hope I'm doing this right. :( Made a whole new account just for this in case I pull off a big goof and need to disappear into the void forever to hide my shame.
So -- mentally, this year took me for a ride. I was at my lowest point and gained 20-30 lbs of the 65+ I'd lost over the course of my weight loss journey back. Thus, I set a goal for the end of 2018. During the last two months of the year, I would lose a little over 20 lbs and get back to where I left off. Seemed simple at the time, and at first things were going great! Despite a bad start, I crushed the second week of this plan and lost twice what I had hoped.
But now, not so much. Things have slowed down, as they always do. My weight has stalled despite extreme deficits. In frustration I reduce my intake every day as I either gain or don't lose enough to meet my expectations. Today, my goal is 900 cal. And sure, that happens every once in a while, not everyone has a huge appetite. But that's not how it is for me. I recognize this as bad habits coming back up -- 900 cal today can and will turn into 1200 cal... sum total, eaten over the course of an entire week. Assuming I eat at all. That's not something I'm going to let happen again.
I built this goal up so much. I said it was so important to me emotionally -- take back control of myself from this year after a mental health crash. Get back to where I left off with my weight. Start over in 2019, have a new start as a new me. I started off motivated and happy, eating a varied diet at 1600-1400 cal. But that's not where we are now. Am I really a new me if I get there by exploiting old unhealthy behaviors? I stayed home alone during Thanksgiving, desperate to stick to my then 1200 calorie goal. Lost 2 oz for it, but was that 2 oz worth the time spent with family that I missed? They're all I have left after this year, so I'm going to go with no.
Food is a major source of joy in my life where I have little else, and I want a healthy relationship with it back. That's my new goal, not x amount of pounds in x amount of weeks. For a truly new me I'll opt to let go of old habits and have a brighter, healthier outlook on my weight loss. I may have been way off track for the longest time, and yes it is frustrating and unmotivating at times to be so far away from a goal you previously reached, but I am on a downward trend now that I've worked hard to acheive, and that's all that matters.
I didn't fail if I don't reach my goal before the New Year, I'm not taking any of the horrors from this year ahead with me if I don't manage this -- quite the opposite, I'm going to lose weight slowly, and I'm going to be happy and feel accomplished while doing so. Therein lies my victory and success. Not by starving, weak and miserable, alone in my room during holidays, just to reach some highly variable and fluctation-prone number. I thought that reaching my weight goal was all that mattered regardless of what I had to do to achieve it, but the 'new start' I was aiming for was only dragging the scars and heartache from this year forward with me. Time to let those go.
I'll lose the weight. I'm doing a pretty great job of it so far. What's important now is my happiness and wellbeing after over a year of having precisely zero of either of those. That's my new goal.
Thanks for listening everyone. I started out typing this mourning a goal I couldn't reach and left off feeling encouraged and uplifted. It felt good to type my thoughts out and process them.
I hope I did this posting thing right, please let me know if this doesn't belong here or if I did anything wrong, and thank you for your patience with me
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2QhxSdL
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