Yesterday I proved to myself that I can indeed achieve my goals. Yesterday was the first time since the beginning of March that I was able to stay within range of my calorie limits and not eat anything that I hadn’t planned to eat during the day. That did a great deal for my feelings of self-worth. As a result, today, it was easy for me to again stay within my limits. And, actually, I had to come up with new ideas as to how to eat enough to be above the lower numbers of my calorie limits for the day. I have renewed faith in myself and my ability to achieve my weight loss goals.
I think something that has helped me is the change from the early shift at work to the evening shift. My day is now broken up in a better format. Now, instead of waking up at 4am, I’m waking up at 7. Instead of eating breakfast and then immediately going to work, I’m eating breakfast and then heading to the gym. After the gym, I’m eating a protein rich snack of Greek yogurt with berries. Then, right before I go to work, I eat a lunchmeat and cheese sandwich. During my 8 hours at work, I only take 2 servings of fruit to eat. I can eat them at the same time, around 6pm or I can eat one serving around 4 and another around 7 or 8. When I get home from work around 10:30, I eat a good and healthy dinner. And then I’m in bed by midnight. I’m sleeping better because I’m working out first thing in the morning as opposed to later in the day, so I’m truly relaxed at bedtime.
I will be on the evening shift schedule at work for the next 6-12 months. After that, I’ll be moved to the overnight shift…unless something changes and they decide to leave me on the evening shift. I’m fine with either decision.
I have renewed my belief in myself. I can now begin to look forward to my weekly weigh-ins again, like I did until the beginning of March when things began to go awry with my weight loss and when I lost all faith in myself. I can now begin to work my way down to my goal of 160 again with renewed vigor and refound hope.
I kind of got away from cooking during the last month and a half. The last thing I cooked (before today) was a pork roast that I shredded and mixed with BBQ sauce and would eat on sandwich thins bread. Today marked me cooking again for myself on a semi regular basis. Since I live alone and have no one else to feed, when I cook for myself, I cook for 4-8 days at a time. Since I’m happy with a lunchmeat and cheese sandwich (on sandwich thins bread to save over 100 calories per sandwich) for lunch every day, then I will only need to cook one dish at a time. Today, I made one of my favorite dishes: roasted eggplant parmesan with spaghetti squash. Sooooo good…and extremely low in calories. I think next I will make a meatloaf. I will use my one remaining pound of venison mixed with either ground turkey or lean ground beef. I love a good meatloaf. Another thing I’m happy with eating every day is sliced and roasted zucchini and summer squash sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Eating these two things are great because I can eat a good volume of them for very few calories.
I believe I have overcome the common weight loss excuse of being my own worst enemy by believing I can’t do this on my own and that I would only fail no matter what I did. It feels good to rediscover that this excuse is just that…an excuse. Sure I’m only 2 days back into my renewed faith in myself, but I can tell you I have definitely jumped back on the wagon.