Self-Control

This week’s excuse on Biggest Loser is “I lack self-control.”  Oh boy if this isn’t my exact excuse!  This is what I seem to be telling myself constantly. 

“If I only had a little more self-control.” 

“If only I didn’t have this tendency to binge eat.” 

“I feel so out of control when I get the urge to binge.”

And so on and so forth.  I am my own worst enemy in the words of this week’s excuse.  I hold myself back.  I stand in my own way.  I am my own obstacle. 

I have decided that I can no longer keep sweets, even perfectly portioned “diet” sweets.  I eat one with the pure intention of eating only one and the next thing I know, I’m not eating dinner because I just ate the whole box of sweets!  If I have to just eliminate those items from being in my house, then so be it.  I’m going to do what I need to do in order to see myself succeed.  I almost kept myself from making any progress this past week by bingeing on the box of peanut butter Girl Scout cookies.

I have to come to terms with my personal excuse of having a lack of self-control.  I have to accept it and then shove it aside.  I have to withdraw its hold over me.  I have to stop acting helpless against myself. 

I’ve lost almost 18 pounds in less than 2 months.  That’s nothing to sneeze at.  That’s amazing progress.  Why am I going to let anything, let alone myself, stand in my way of continuing to move forward and continuing to drop the pounds?  Why?  Logic states that I wouldn’t allow that to happen and I am a person of logic.  So, therefore, I want the logical choice.  I want to keep making progress.

I think my acknowledging the excuse of lack of self-control is a step in the right directions.  I think this will go a long way toward helping me toward my goal.  The first step is always acceptance and after that, everything else is supposed to be easy…or at least easier.  Everything should fall into place for me, so long as I can CONTROL myself.  I know I can do this.  This game is still in my court and I’m going to throw it down.

I have 2 weeks off from work.  I’m on vacation.  I want to use this time to my advantage.  I want to redouble my efforts at working out.  I want to stress making the right food choices with myself.  I want to change some things up.  One thing I want to do is air up the tires on my bicycle and go for a few rides.  The weather is supposed to be fairly decent most of the time I’m off, so I don’t see a reason to not go for at least a ride or two. 

I read something today in an article about binge eating on Sparkpeople.com.  It said that if you feel the need to binge, go for a walk.  I plan to do just that.  I have a trail that if I go once around the loop and the walk to and from the loop, it’s just over 4 miles.  If I go around the loop twice, it’s 7 miles.  I have my iPod shuffle charging right now with the intention of going for a walk tomorrow morning after I’ve done my workout video and then eaten breakfast.  In addition to that, if I feed the need to heedlessly stuff my face willy-nilly, then I will walk straight out the front door and go for a 4 or 7 mile walk.  It’ll be a nice change of pace for me.  I am sure it will do me some good to change things up a little bit with a bit of walking and a bit of bike riding.

I’m going to make these next 2 weeks count.  I’m going to push myself.  I’m going to make it as active as I can.  I want to have that self-control that I keep whining about not having.  It’s time that I’m just plain done with this lack of self-control excuse and I’m going to prove it to myself over the next 2 weeks.  I want to show a 4 pound loss between this Sunday and the following Sunday, so an average of 2 pounds a week.  I can do this.

Not only will I be stepping it up and mixing it up a little bit with my workouts, but I will be focusing on staying within my daily calorie limit each and every day and not just most days…which is what I’d like to say has been happening the last 2 weeks but truthfully, it’s not.  What has been happening is that I’ve been falling victim to the “I have no self-control” crap I like to feed myself and have been going over my calories each and every day for the last week and about half of the days out of the week prior to that.  Unacceptable!  I can’t do this anymore. 

I absolutely LOVE what I’ve accomplished so far with my weight loss.  I have made tremendous strides with my efforts.  I don’t want to fail myself.  I don’t want to *feed* myself anymore excuses or crap that just holds me back and keeps me from feeling anything short of fully confident and self-assured.  I can do this!