I'm feeling really cross with myself, really binged on chocolate & biscuits this morning (all in the name of essay procrastination - so doubly unhelpful, in that I've not made so much progress on the essay and I've eaten loads of chocolate & biscuits that I went and bought from the co-op.)
Thanks for the useful link Divster:
http://www.minimins.com/bring-your-.../449-why-soooo-different-2nd-time-around.html
I think this is helpful for me. This time last year, I was so large, and really really really needed to lose the weight. This year, I'm on the border of overweight and obese - which is feeling like quite a good place (much better than I've been for years); so I'm finding it harder to really be focused on why I'm doing this.
I know, it's all excuses really; and I have got a bit of a perfectionist streak - which really isn't helping me. I know that when I see things as black & white, that I'm either on 3 packs & strict, or I can jump off and devour chocolate. For me, learning balance (both food wise and life wise) is really important for me at the moment.
Life wise, I'm learning the balance between work, study, family and friends - and learning what's good enough (this time as a student, I can't pull an all nighter to get an essay done - as then I'm wiped for a week, as I can't have a lie-in with a 2 year old, to recover from it... she just doesn't get it!)
Anyway, I'm waffling around. I know I really do want to have achieved this goal (back to my achievement focus); but I'm still a bit nervous about having actually having achieved it and just getting on with life as a healthy person. However, I know that following a healthier lifestyle is rewarding for me in so many ways; not least that it means my asthma is a lot better, and I therefore have the energy to do the other things that I want to do in life.
So why, oh why, do I keep sabotaging myself? I think some of it is that somehow I feel I 'deserve' it, and I don't like to feel 'different' or 'deprived'... which is such crooked, wonky thinking. No-one that I consider normal or healthy thinks it's OK to go to the Co-op, buy a packet of biscuits, come home and hoover up the lot of them one after the other. So how do I catch myself when I first think 'hmmm, wandering to the Co-op and buying a biscuit is a good idea'. I think I need to go back to Beck, and really engage with the exercises again. I need to convince myself of No Choice, rather than accept my very feeble excuses for why today is a different day, and just one will be OK. I need to plan what I'm going to do with all the meals out / celebrations over Christmas, and what I actually am going to eat / want to eat, and actually stick to the plan I come up with.
I want to find a way to hold on to this, that is about me and about being healthy; that doesn't need the approval / nice comments about my looks / weight from other people to keep me going. Especially as I get closer to the healthy weight for me, as I'm nervous that people will start saying more negative things, and saying that I've lost enough already. Hmmm, this is really silly, as now I'm pre-empting the negative things that people might say (haven't even said recently), and using that as an excuse to not get on with what I've already decided that I want to do.
Hmmmm, I really am waffling lots now; Somehow I find it easier to waffle round the houses on here to try and work out what's going on in my head. Now it's just finding a way to use it to keep me going forwards, to keep me heading towards my goal, which really is about being healthy and being able to therefore do the things in life that really do matter to me - in particular being there for my daughter, and having the energy to do my studies at the moment.
OK, so line drawn again - no point drawing it for tomorrow morning. What's done this morning is done, but I can at least have a pack later today and water, and NO MORE CHOCOLATE!