Week 12 (counting backward)

Thanks guys, I feel lucky and spoilt that I can neglect blogland for ages then jump right back in and get the same great level of support as ever. Lauren’s right when she says that at times we have to ‘dig ourselves out of the holes we’ve created’. That’s exactly it feels! In my ups and downs I always spend the first few days of a new plan feeling so guilty for the fact that the reason I have to diet again now is for all the indulging I’ve done - all my own fault, can’t blame anything or anyone. But at some point you have to shake off this mindset and get on with it, the quicker the better! Continuing to beat yourself up over it only makes the job harder. I actually woke up this morning excited about the changes I’m going to make. (My picture's title is 'get excited about life' Ive posted it before, makes me laugh every time)

I haven’t even weighed myself (yet) and Im not sure if I want or need to do the whole ‘before’ photo thing. I already have that photo from June 2008 and when I look at it I get upset because I thought that I didn’t know that person anymore. Its distressing that since the ‘high’ of comp, in only 6 months I am the most uncomfortable with what I see in the mirror than I have been since June 2008. But scarier than that is the loss of my sense of control over my habits and ability to change my body. So I’m concentrating on getting that back by putting an end to complacency. I’ve been ‘eating intuitively’ for the last 4 months but it ain’t working for me. The quest to find a nice balance between intuitive eating and the “all or nothing” dieting continues. My colour coded calendar is a nice shade of “compliant” yellow so far, but my measure of success is no longer that I had a ‘perfect’ day but that I was satisfied with the choices I made. Because off season life involves dining out sometimes and also having to use portion control when you haven’t carefully weighed out whatever you’re eating!

So week 1 is going well, all things considered. I’ll try my best to blog regularly even where there is nothing good to report. Every now and then I get extremely self conscious about the fact that I blog openly about such personal issues and I feel like I’m opening up my diary for anyone to read. But at the end of the day, this is me and the support we give eachother is more important than a fear of being judged.