Sliding Off The Wagon

    Well I've fallen off the wagon.  Maybe not a full fall, more like I slightly slid off the wagon.  You may recall my New Year's resolution to take better care of myself.  A large part of that was to begin counting calories.  No not a diet, a change.  I have done without nothing, I have just been counting my calories and trying to sensible.  The main thing that I have done is to drastically reduce my Coke intake.  I LOVE Coke!  For me it is liquid pleasure.  I love the way it burns my throat with it's sweetness when I chug it.  Oh I love it, and it loves me, it loves me so much that it wants to stick around in the form of fat.  I have cut back on my Coke intake, one a day.  I so savor that beautiful gold at night after the kids are tucked into bed.  For me nothing will stall weight loss, or really anything more than that feeling of being deprived.

    I've been diligently counting calories.  The first two weeks I did not loose a single ounce.  I was a little discouraged, but I was doing this for my health, so I could just wait this out, there is no race.  On week three I lost 2 pounds.  Each week after that I lost 2 pounds.    I was so excited.  Immediately being me, I began to long- term forecast my weight loss.  Oh in my head I was imagining myself thin and golden walking down the isle for our renewal.  In my head everyone would turn to the person that they were sitting beside and whisper "Oh My God she looks Great!")  I was so excited... and then I hit the wall.  I would hop on the scale and see no change, or a weight increase.  My weight would fluctuate by two to 4 pounds.. each day.  That just wasn't possible.  I thought it was my scale, so I bought a new scale.  The new scale did the same thing, so it was not the scale.  At the beginning of this month my life became stressful and I decided that it was just to stressful to worry about counting calories.  I have not done my usual however.  In the past this would have been permission to throw myself back into my old habits.  In the past this would have been permission to STOP.  This would have been permission to just give up, it obviously wasn't working, just give up.  I haven't.  I haven't been as strict, but I haven't thrown it all away either.

    I have decided to stay the course.  I'm going to go back onto the counting of calories, add in some exercise   If I slide off the wagon, that's o.k., I will just hop back on.  This is not a race, its a journey (maybe if I tell myself this often enough I will really believe it).  Sure I would love to see some quick results.  I'd love to loose like 20 pounds in the first month, but I'm realistic.  I'm not willing to stop everything I love because then I will not stick with it.  Being over weight did not happen in a month.  It took me years to perfect this kind of weight gain.  It's realistically going to take a while to take it off, and not have elephant skin.

    When I first began this resolution I was drinking water.  Plain boring water.  Did I mention that I HATE water?  I then decided to add slices of lemon.  That way I'm getting vitamins and some taste.  Lemon water has helped me to keep to my Coke once a day rule.  Lemon has made the water drinkable.  To help myself and to prevent excuses I buy my lemons wash them and then slice them all up and put them in a Tupperware container in the fridge.  This works out great, lemons on demand. 

    Last night I decided to up my game.  I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper, and then laid my lemon slices on the cookie sheet.  I then flash froze them, and transfered them into a Tupperware container.  My thinking was that it was instant ice, but it had an even better side effect.  By freezing them it made the lemon taste stronger.  There was however one slight problem that I had overlooked.  The frozen lemon slice did not fit into my glass.  Solution.. simply break it in half (next time I will slice them in half before freezing them).

   

   So as is the case in every aspect of my life, nothing is simple.  I could not simply reduce calories and loose weight, oh no there has to be some secret formula that I have to spend hours to discover.  As is also the case in my life, I am too stubborn to take no for an answer.  When I get pushed down, I get back up (some may rightfully argue this is because I am too stupid to stay down and simply lick my wounds).  I am not having instant success at this weight loss game, but as I have already mentioned, I did not instantly put the weight on.  It's time for a change, and change does not come easy, not for me at least.  I'm going to keep plugging along, success or not.