Did you miss me?
I’ve been unmotivated. I stopped writing. I stopped exercising as much as I should. I was eating too much sugar.
I’ve been traveling a bit lately, and it’s always hard to stay on track when I’m out of my environment. For one of my trips, I had an expense account, so heck, why not get an appetizer? That chocolate caramel pyramid? Yes “free” food isn’t free, but it was tasty.
But I’ve gained 10 lbs. I’m exploring how I feel about that. Is it the number on the scale I care about? Not really; I didn’t much care about that when I weighed (literally) 100 lbs more. Do I care about what other people think? No, they haven’t noticed, or if they do they haven’t told me, which is fine. Most of the time, when I’m worried about what other people think I realize I’m really projecting on to them my own feelings.
Given I don’t care about the scale or what other people think, why start working on weight and health again? I’d say this is the upper limit of what I personally feel comfortable carrying on my body. It’s harder to get my legs up kickboxing, and the fat moves in ways that are disconcerting when I’m moving.
If I gain much more weight, I’d have to buy new clothes, and I’m really tired of shopping for clothes (I know that’s hard to believe!). When you’ve had to replace every single scrap of clothes in your wardrobe several times, it just gets old.
But most of all, I’m not enjoying being controlled by my cravings. I’m sick of always being on the lookout for the next treat. What a boring life, if that’s all I have to look forward to! I’m tired of being insatiable. Food just can’t do what I’m trying to make it do, whatever that is.
I’ve realized that the exercise helps me regulate my mood so I don’t crave sugar and carbs so much. I’m committing to at least 30 minutes of something every day. What are you committing to?
Things I’m wondering about…
Why is a raw sweet potato 4 WW Points, but a cooked one 3 points? Would anyone eat a raw sweet potato?
babs
June 27, 2010 at 11:18 am
Yes, I missed you! : ) And yes, I understand what you’re going through. I like when I’m on program, living my life, and food is simply nourishment to do just that, not an emotion-laden thing to deal with. In those times, a treat is simply a treat, and I move on. But I don’t like when the sugar cravings hit, or stress/ boredom/ unhappiness/ anger makes me fall into the habit of trying to use food to solve what food cannot solve. And then I start to feel out of control, even like an addict. And I feel stupid, b/c I’ve been here before and know that it’s not the answer. Excess food, of whatever kind, just saps my energy, and makes life more difficult in so many ways. Good luck with committing to doing what works for you. My commitment is to go to bed early so I can get up early and exercise, which given my night-owl tendencies, is a real struggle for me.
As for the sweet potato, I imagine it’s a density issue: more water in the raw potato, that gets released in cooking, so the cooked potato has higher calories per ounce.
~babs
Wendy
June 27, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Wee! Thanks for writing, Babs. Did you ever think about rolling with your night owl tendencies and try to do a later schedule?
What I don’t like about the sugar addiction is that it’s never enough. So I have the cookie; I want another! And another! Sure, I imagine at some point I’d be satisfied, but it would be after I felt sick. Past experience has taught me that letting myself eat until I felt sick doesn’t discourage me from doing it again, so I’ve got to nip it in the bud.
As for the sweet potato, the raw is MORE points than the cooked, the reverse of what I’d think. I’m not trying to get wrapped up in the point minutiae, though; just tracking in itself is good enough for now.