School's Out for the Summer! What's the Plan?

School's out for the summer! At least that's the way I feel. I've moved into summer mode, in fact, I've moved for the summer so my routine is disrupted. Dangerous and exciting at the same time.

I've got a lot to say today. Haven't been posting but I've been thinking. First off, I successfully completed another month of weight maintenance. Yay! Two down, approximately 360 more to go if I'm lucky enough to live into my late eighties. That's the intimidating part about lifetime weight maintenance for someone whose natural adult lifestyle was weight gain; the rest of my life could be a long time and there's a lot of room for slip-ups. I'm trying to look at it one day at a time. Here's the REALLY SCARY part, I took June, July, August off of boot camp. A great test of how well I can continue to apply the lessons of the past two years. YIKES!

You might be wondering, what's my plan? Eat and drink with wild abandon while skipping exercise? Tempting and possible, but it's not my plan.  Here's my plan based upon what worked the past two years.
(1) Exercise by 9 am every day -- continue to treat it like my part-time job
(2) Find exercise buddies. Two neighbors regularly exercise at a local college gym.
(3) Find ways to have fun and exercise. Some local trainers at a new gym have a 2x/week boot camp, I'll try it, maybe I"ll meet some new people. My favorite boot camp trainers, Jeremy and Sarah, will have four free boot camps at a park, I might take a drive and join them. And my neighbor wants to try Jeremy's 10 minute exercise routine with me and have us create a mini-bootcamp around it. I'll even put air in my bicycle tires.
(4) Plan and log my menus. This will be hard because as soon as I don't have to turn in my food logs I slack off.
(5) Stop in at the tall trainer a couple of times a month and weigh in. That adds some accountability.

So here's the essence of what works for me: Plan and routine -- these two make it happen; people and variety -- these two make it fun. The motivation is how good I feel having lost the weight and how much I don't want to return to the past. I have to remind myself of that several times a day.

Less Obsessed -- Good news, I think

I haven't been writing as much in my blog because I am feel more comfortable about maintaining my weight loss. It's been two months. I'm not sure that feeling comfortable is good, but it's a better way to live.  I have learned that a two pound weight fluctuation is normal for me. Any time I see two pounds approaching I reduce my calories and become very disciplined about planning and weighing my food. I'm still exercising hard every day and the pounds drop right off.

I've been thinking about the difference between working to lose weight and maintaining the weight loss. Besides the fact I can eat more calories, I think it's that I don't need to be as obsessed about what I eat. When I was losing weight, I had to be obsessed, because I was changing a lifetime of habits. I had to learn what was in foods, what was a well balanced diet, and I had to learn that every little bite counts. In fact, the smallest bites (candy, cake, ice cream) count the most. My digital scale was, and still is, my best weight-loss friend. I still need to plan and weigh food. But, I am a little more relaxed about it. I will go out to dinner to celebrate a major event. I have eaten a regular piece of bread. I doubt I can ever be as relaxed as someone who never had a weight problem. Maybe they aren't relaxed either, which is why they never had a weight problem.

I called this blog equilibrium because I am seeking that balance between obsession/panic and "normal" life. I don't want to become complacent and have the pounds creep back on. But I also don't want to make the central element of my life what I eat or don't eat. Still working on it.

Day 56 and counting.

Bad Girl

Hmmm. I was a bad girl this week. At least as far as eating goes. I ate junk and I didn't consistently log my food (junk does not log well in Vitabot). Just in a bit of a funk, disruption in my routine, and some stresses. I did get up and go to bootcamp every day so that was my salvation.

Times like this I have bad refrains about myself running in my head. "There you go, slipping back into bad habits." "Bad girl. I don't care." I have a very poor opinion of myself. I think I have poor self-discipline, no determination, no willpower. Realistically, I might have it, but it seems to have taken a vacation.

My daughter-in-law recently completed the first draft of her first book. I was so proud of her and I really admired her dedication to completing it. I mentioned to my husband how I wished I had such self-discipline and dedication. He said, "what do you call dieting for two years, losing 100 pounds, and exercising almost every day?"

I guess it's all perspective. Good thing I have loved ones and friends who can see a part of myself I don't see. Weeks like this I really need and appreciate them.

47 days and counting