TODAY'S WEIGHT: 136.6
TARGET: 128
POUNDS TO GOAL:
8.6
I'm not making a lot of progress.
On the one hand, I managed to hit the gym four days each of the last two weeks.
On the other hand, my diet keeps falling apart after my workout, because exercise increases my appetite.
I need to step up my efforts on both fronts.
It's not easy.
I keep reminding myself that I did it before. Yes, I had help from the diet clinic counselors and a personal trainer - but I'd like to think I learned enough from them to do this without the hand holding.
So for inspiration, I'm turning back to the blog I wrote at the time. After nine days on the original program, I had lost six pounds (and was down to 178). But I was still trying to fight the fact that it wasn't going to work without exercise, and I was feeling resentful of my husband's unasked-for advice:
July 27, 2007
...The only thing that marred my feelings of accomplishment was my husband’s daily interrogation: How much did you walk today?
Not much, I growled. I finally told him to get off my back.
So what DID you do today?
I worked on the computer – that is what I do, you know.
Doing what?
WRITING.
Ahh. Well, he doesn’t consider the words I put down into my little blog a proper use of my time. He will never understand that writing is something I need to do as much as he needs to constantly be on the move.
I KNOW I need to exercise. I KNOW that walking 10,000 steps per day isn’t asking a lot.
But it’s harder than it sounds.
It’s not hard for him – he has an endless supply of nervous energy that has inspired some of his co-workers to describe him as “twitchy” (a description he hates, by the way). He has a job that requires him to be out and about in the great outdoors – and he loves it.
I don’t possess that energy thing. My idea of a dream day is to curl up on the couch with a pile of books. Especially when it’s hot outside. By the time I returned from weighing in this morning, the thermometer already registered 90 degrees – and it was only 10:00. The last thing I want to do is climb the streets in our hilly neighborhood in that kind of weather.
I contemplated driving to the nearest air conditioned mall with the idea of just walking it back and forth a few times, to work up those steps. I didn’t do it, because there was a blog post I wanted to finish, and as it was, I ended up leaving it as a draft because it was time to make my lunch.
The diet itself is a hindrance to getting out and about. Because everything needs to be measured and apportioned so precisely, I don’t want to be too far away from my kitchen.
We dropped the argument, but I went to bed last night, vowing as I have every night, to do a better job...
...The nurse who counseled me today scowled when I got on the scale. I weighed the same as yesterday...
“No exercise?” she asked. Other than the 6,000 steps I walked, no.
I want to scream. I GET IT. The diet won’t work without the exercise. It doesn’t look like I’m trying, but I am. Believe me, I am.
After all the money I spent on this program, I want it to work. I’m not really trying to sabotage myself. Not consciously. I am determined to walk today, even if it means that my other projects suffer...
I am [writing this] at a hotspot at the mall... I will now spend the next hour walking back and forth, bored but in air conditioned comfort. I’ll eat my two cups of lettuce and 3.5 ounces of chicken and pick up my daughter.
