Today I blew it food wise. I was tired of leftover turkey and trimmings, so we ate McDonald's.
I worked on designing this blog today. I do not know how to make it as attractive as other people's blogs, so this will have to do for now. As I go along, I will learn more and be able to do more things with the blog's appearance.
I have so many ideas running through my head as to what I want to do and say on this blog. Mainly, I want a place to make myself feel accountable. The first 65 pounds I lost, I did with myfitnesspal. For some reason that is not working this time.
When I lost the first 65 pounds, I call it the first phase of this journey, it just happened. I didn't plan it, I just got up and went for that walk and everything just fell into place. I didn't use willpower, I didn't have cravings, I didn't feel like I was punishing myself by starving. I just went for that walk, came back and did the next right thing. From May 2015 to November 2015. I honestly did not feel like I was 'dieting'. I was just living, one healthy minute to the next.
I had tried Weight Watchers a couple of times. I enjoyed the meetings and the people, but never could get on the food plan. I always felt hungry, so it didn't take but a few days to revert back to old habits.
Starting in May 2015, however, I lost 2 and a half pounds without fail every single week. I did not dip below eating 2000 calories a day. And I only walked for my exercise. I ate real food, clean food, and I used recipes from my cookbooks spanning the early 1900s through 1970 mostly.
When I started in May 2015, I could barely make it down the block and back. I couldn't bend over and pick anything up off the floor. If I dropped something in the store, it was way too embarrassing to try to pick it up in front of people, so I would just pretend I didn't notice I had dropped it. I would walk away and leave it. No matter what it was. I was so self conscious, I hated being out in public. I felt ugly, worthless, a nobody. So I stayed home, making myself a prisoner in my own home.
During the summer of 2015, as the weight just pretty much melted off of me, I would find myself doing things I thought I would never do again. One day I dropped my grocery list in the store and I bent down and picked it up without even thinking about it. As I was driving home, it hit me - hey! I was able to bend down and stand back up like a normal person. And, yet, I was still well over 100 pounds overweight.
Just by starting the 3 minutes an hour walking, my whole body benefited. It was gentle exercise. I did not start off trying to walk a marathon. I gradually added another 3 minute walk every 3 days. In 30 days I was walking every hour there was sunlight, and some hours I would walk every half hour. Just 3 minutes, once an hour, is equal to a 36 minute walk. I didn't have to change clothes, get in my car and drive to the park, the gym, a school track, or the mall, walk, get back in my car and drive home, and then change clothes again. I've gone to the park to walk before -- it took a good chunk of time out of my morning - driving there, walking, and then driving home.
And now that I haven't been walking for 8 months, I am really feeling it. I can't sit on the floor anymore and jump right back up. Bending over to pick up something is becoming an embarrassment again. Walking down to get the mail at the bottom of our hill is a chore. All these things had been so easy 8 months ago.
Funny how we forget how far we came, until we slide backwards. Even then, the slide is so gradual that we do not notice what we are losing until one day we can't do something again.
Me when I was in my 20s.
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