When you embark on a new diet it is easy to be gung ho and positive and stick to it. I always find that at the start of the diet a bit of weight comes off quite easily so you feel great about it. But as time progresses it gets harder and harder sticking to the diet. The weight loss slows down and there are more and more temptations in the way. I guess that is why so many of us are yo yo dieters and why fad diets appeal to us so much. A long term, slow, steady, diet is much harder to stick with.
I am at that point. I am sticking to the diet but it is oh so hard right now! Last week we were on holiday. We were staying in a self catering cottage but I didn’t want to do huge amounts of cooking. So with lunches out and some posh (ish) ready meals it got really hard to keep track, and keep in control, of what I was eating.
Labels on supermarket foods were helpful of course so I chose the healthiest options of meals that I could, and we had picnics for lunch on a few days where I kept my food simple with sandwiches. But the lovely small cafes and tea rooms we found in the gorgeous Yorkshire towns and villages don’t exactly share their nutritional information so it is not always easy to work out the healthiest choices. (Was it cooked in butter or oil? How much oil? How calorific is the dressing? Is it full fat mayo etc.)
ooh the temptation!
The other side of it is that we were on holiday, and holidays are normally a time for treats aren’t they? With hubs not on a diet and a Monkey who adores going to a cafe for tea and cake, temptation was frequently in my path. I have to say I am pretty proud of myself as I did not give in to temptation very often. The occasional taste of hubs’s cake, one lunchtime I had a real treat of baked camembert (yum! thankfully dinner that night was a low point meal!) and I had 1 or 2 biscuits over the week.
Beautiful beach… but all I see is my thighs!!
At times it wasn’t easy and I so wanted to give in, but I still have my goal firmly in sight. If anything actually, seeing the photos of myself that we took throughout the week helped remind me why I am sticking to this diet. I just think I look awful! My hips and thighs are huge!
While some of this is my shape, I will never have skinny legs, I know this by now, I also know that I want to be slimmer than this. So that is what is motivating me to keep going. The weight is coming off slowly, my tummy is definitely smaller than when I started, hooray, but I definitely have work to do yet!
mmmm
It was actually my birthday while we were away too and hubs really wanted me to relax and treat myself, and I did a bit, as we shared a yummy cream tea and I had a glass of wine that night… but I just don’t want to indulge in the way I normally would. My desire to be happier with the way I look is stronger than the desire to indulge. I want to see the pictures of me with the kids in gorgeous places and not cringe at the way I look.
We have come home and I am feeling demotivated again as after a quick jump on the scales I haven’t lost any weight. I am still on 12 1/2 stone, exactly where I was 3 weeks ago, the scale just hasn’t moved :(! I feel I have tried so hard to be good all week and we have done so much more exercise than we normally would. With all the sightseeing, walking up and down hills pushing the buggy and carrying the kiddies… yet nothing :/. I need to not let this get the better of me so I thought it was time for a red shorts photo to remind me of how far I have come since January when I originally started (I got sidetracked along the way and started again properly 5 weeks ago).
The first shot was when I started, at 13 1/2 stone, and the second at 13 stone and the third was taken today and I weigh 12 1/2 stone.
I have come a long way, and I need to not let the scales demotivate me. I am losing weight and I will meet my goal of 11 1/ stone. It may just take me longer than I would like! I think I was massively over optimistic when I started this that I would lose the weight by my birthday night out next week … But I am not giving up – I am determined to see it through to the end!
