Fail, Fail, Fail......and the saga continues

I almost gave up a few days ago. I did not have a successful sugar free week. I just wanted to crouch under the doona (also known as duvet outside Australia) and never wake up. I seem to be quite addicted to the sugar monster and I do not think that the gradually giving up sugar theory that I prescribed to is working. Indeed even when I decided to give up sugar for a week there was this feeling that at least sugar would be waiting for me after the one week. The burning desire to succeed in not having sugar for at least a week did not burn that brightly after all. Maybe I meant it only in the blog although I can swear in earnest that while I was writing the blog I did mean every bit of it. Maybe I am one of those bloggers that will never lose weight and will always just write about the various things I am trying to do without actually fully doing them. Possibly a lack of commitment? Or is it really the true challenge of losing weight and its associated emotional battle. I will admit a large part of this thing we call will, desire, commitment, strength is all indicative of the power of the mind.

As I was thinking of closing the blog down I got my first ever comment on the paleo loaf recipe I had published in the previous post. With it was the writers blog address (k-lossfitness) for future recipes should I desire to experiment. I went on to her blog and did a bit of reading. Journeys of people that are successful or getting to where they want to be always interest me as I wonder what worked for them and the way their mind worked through all their battles. One comment in this blog stuck with me and rang true. I quote: If you feel you are not getting longer, leaner muscles from doing weights, then you arent lifting heavy enough and you are still eating wrong. I think while my body has changed considerably over the last 6 months, I was initially under the impression that my nutrition was not that bad and that although there was room for improvement it certainly was of the stage where results would still show. Hence, the desire to stop having sugar which was the one element of my nutrition without which my eating would be several notches higher than it currently is. I thought about this comment for a while and considered whether I had been doing enough weights. I knew without a shadow of doubt that I was definitely doing enough weights and heavy weights. I knew that in my case it was about eating wrong. Then I thought about what my trainer does as I still like to take a peek at whatever he is eating. He said to me that Monday-Friday he treats food as fuel, something he has to eat as he needs it. Over the weekend he tastes food and enjoys it. Whilst this philosophy may not work for a lot of us, it works for him and I needed to find my philosophy.

The desire to lose weight is driven from various directions:

• Lose weight to live longer for my lovely daughter and have an active life with her.
• Lose weight for myself to be healthy and happy.
• Banish the myth I grew up with: you can never lose weight as this is in your genes. (I wonder where my genes were when I wasn't obese?). Although I hate admitting it, to an extent it is to prove that you can change your life and body around instead of just giving up and blaming it on genes. 
• Do the active things I have wanted to without the fear of looking ridiculous. For example it hurt the other day when at work drinks a girl was talking about fielding a work netball team. She needed six people and we were seven around the table. She automatically bypassed me and asked the rest if they wanted to join in to form team even though at least three others had never played the sport. While I know for a fact that she did not intend to snub me or judge me, the fact that it happened so naturally and with the assumption that I would/could not be interested was annoying.

The way I saw it, there were two options. Either I give up and forget about this battle, or I don my armour again and set off for the next battle, a little bit wiser and smarter. I compared how I feel now versus how I felt all those months ago when even walking to the station to catch the train to work huffed and puffed me out. The days when I felt as though I would die on my way to catching the train. My husband would look worriedly at me as I must have looked like death trying to make it to the train. I would also snap at him for making me chase the train by not leaving early enough. Those were the days when I needed 15 minutes for the 500metres to get to the train station. Now, although I still don't like it if I have to run to get the train if we leave late, I actually get there and I am not dead or dying.

So, I have decided to rise again. I do not know what my strategy is but I will try again. Whether I like it or not, I will have to cancel sugar in almost all forms. Exercise is going well but I will ensure I continue the commitment to exercise (this is the easy one). One of the obvious things to do is to plan my meals and measure them to ensure the quantities are balanced and who knows keep a food diary. So for the moment, I am back in the running. Lets see what I can do. 120.1.