plateau-related schizophrenia

[jaeclectic]

I'm at one of those extremely sticky weights*, where my body is obviously very comfortable and not going to shift unless I do something drastic. (Shift down, that is, shifting up is never all that hard.)

Meanwhile, just this week, I have started feeling extremely fat. I mean, I'm just walking around with this heightened awareness of the flab around my belly, as if I've ballooned. Yet rationally, I know that I am wearing the smaller-size clothes that I just bought recently, which felt so good when I bought them, since I was swimming in my old standbys. I mean, I'm actually wearing jeans, which I just can't do when I'm really heavy. And nothing has changed on the scale. So it can't be an actual change in my body, it's got to all be in my head.

At the same time, this past week I had a total failure of will-power regarding food. It was partly the work situation: we were observing beta customers who were in for training, so I was surrounded by free food, most of it sugary. Plus I started the week by overindulging at Z&D's party, so I had that stupid, irrational (yet hard to avoid) reaction of feeling like I'd already blown it, so what the heck. I actually stopped recording what I was eating, which is very, very bad.

Of course, we all know the rote answer: exercise more and eat less. I am pretty much maxed out for the amount of time I can spend exercising, which means I've got to do something on the food side of the equation. And therein lies the rub: I've been going on the theory that it is better to go very slow, and not feel deprived, because then I will be able to keep this up for life, which I clearly need to do. So, I haven't been forcing myself to be extremely careful in social situations, I've just been trying to balance that with being careful the rest of the time. But it seems like that approach will not get me past this point. And, it's getting harder to keep up even that, when I don't have the positive feedback of seeing any results better than stasis.

In short: I have been doing exactly the wrong thing, while feeling exceptionally dissatisfied with my current state -- and I know that I need to somehow do better, yet I am not seeing how to get myself on that track.

[*Note: when I talk about a weight, I always really mean a range of weights, any variation within a 3 pound range (i.e. some weight +/- 1 pound or so), I don't count as change, that's just noise.]

Comments

[jafitz.livejournal.com]

Well, it's more that over the long haul (since last spring) I've done well, but the past several months have been torturously slow.

Yes, definitely, beating oneself up just leads to a downward spiral. But it does feel good to vent occasionally...