Destined to Lose Weight?

It's Wednesday isn't it?  Crap.  I had leftovers last night.  I'll definitely be trying new things tonight, whether or not they'll be healthy is another story.  I'm disappointed though because last week I came across Lyn's cauliflower mac and cheese and I have been dying to try it.  I love cauliflower and cheese so I don't see that any harm can come from putting them together!  But alas, there is always next New Recipe Tuesday to give it a good try!

Here is how I did yesterday:
Horribly.  I failed at being positive, I failed at going on the lunchtime walk...failed at making something new for dinner.  I was unhappy about my weigh in all day - not to mention that even though my scale put me at losing 0.2 lbs this week and 0.2 lbs last week the scale at work put me at losing ZERO pounds over the two weeks.  Which I am still annoyed about but I'm blaming it on the scale because I know I lost that almost-half-pound, so :-P

Here is how I did yesterday, calorie-wise:
Burned 2740 calories
Consumed 1346 calories
Deficit of 1394 calories

So, the good thing about yesterday being such a total failure is that today has the potential to be a ton better.  A million times better.  A half day at work, a super fun time tonight up in Sacramento with AWESOME friends, I am really excited about the day.  And I am also pretty excited that despite my desire halfway through yesterday to go down to the little cafe shop near my office and get several cookies, I stayed on track, ate pretty healthy food and I got my exercise in.  I guess it wasn't a total failure...just an attitude failure!

I'm so grateful for all of the support you all gave me and always give me.  I think a lot of us know just how valuable it is to have that support and to have that amazing feeling that you are not going through this alone.  I know I wasn't the only one who had a bad weigh in this week and in a lot of ways it helped.  I look at other people, who didn't lose much or anything and I know they aren't failures...so I have to admit grudgingly that maybe I'm not either.

I have had this conversation with a good friend a few times, about how we know what is right for losing weight, but we just don't do it.  I thought about that a lot last night, about how if it was just a matter of knowing what to eat or how to exercise it would be so easy.  The truth is, a lot of us know a ton about fitness and nutrition.  My dad runs a publishing company, and they make health, safety and productivity handbooks.  I've been writing articles about fitness and nutrition since my college days and for a long time it made me feel like a fraud.  At one point we were sitting there, two fat people telling people how to lose weight and live healthy lives, and I just thought we are cheating these people out of their money.

But we weren't - the information was valid.  The food chart that I made was awesome and helpful, I just didn't use it.  The tips on how to start a running program or to make sure you stretch were right on, I just never ran...or exercised at all.  It's crazy the amount of knowledge we have and the amount we've put it to use.  Now that I've started practicing what I preached for years I feel great.  I can't even tell you all why it took me so long.

My career, if you can call it that, has really centered around the health and fitness industries.  After working full time as a writer and editor for my dad, I went on to work in a bookstore that specialized in nutrition resources for children.  From there I spent a year working for a cellular company, which was not at all fitness related and we ate cookies and cupcakes regularly...but after that job I was called by a recruiter to fill in a temporary spot...at 24 Hour Fitness corporate.  Can you imagine a clearer sign that I am supposed to be healthy?  If you believe in God, which I do, it is so obvious that He wants to surround me with every resource to lose weight, eat right and be healthy.

I think a big part of the reason I was just SO down yesterday is that a failure to lose weight is like a waste.  A waste of all of my knowledge, the support around me, the free healthy food I get at work, the free gym membership, it's all wasted if I don't lose the weight.  I know though, that all I can do, is do everything I can and try my hardest and if I've done that - if I've eaten well, exercised and done what I can - I didn't waste it.  It's not the numbers, it's not the numbers, it's not the numbers.  I just have to keep telling myself that until I believe it 100% of the time.

The other reason...well I guess it also had to do with numbers.  I love numbers, and figuring things out.  That's why I figured out yesterday that losing 0.2 lbs a week I'd hit my 150 mini goal in the spring of 2016.  Six years of working THIS hard just to be mostly to my goal?  No thank you, I'd rather stay fat.  But you all, my voices of reason, know as you told me, that it will kick in soon, that the numbers will go down, that my work will pay off, it just didn't pay off on the scale these past two weeks.

But again, in my head just like last night I keep going back to the fact that I am meant to lose weight.  I can't get away from the fitness industry if I wanted to (which I don't), and I have so much support, so many amazing people in my life, so much knowledge about health and nutrition.  I am not meant to feel unhealthy, I am not meant to have stomach aches after dinner and I am not meant to be winded from chasing my dog down the hallway.  I am meant to be healthy, happy, fit, and thin.  That's just how it is :) and to be honest now that I've put it in words and put it out there, I feel a lot better about my "fate"!