honesty

So lately I have realizing that I am not being very honest with myself. I constantly tell myself that I am actively losing weight. However, that is not entirely true. I have been thinking about my brother lately and the fact the he and his family will be stationed near Chicago by the end of February. I already started getting excited about the possibility of seeing them more often. This lead me to think about the last time we all got together. It was the end of August on our camping trip in Pennsylvania. I thought about my weight on that trip. I was proud to be in the low 170s. Before that trip my brother hadn't seen me since little lady was about 3 months old. I was in the low 200s at that time. I felt good being in a better place on our camping trip.

This made me think about the next time I will see them. It could be the end of February or at least by the end of March. I realized that in the 5 months that have passed since I last saw my brother I lost about 5 pounds. That made me realize that although I have considered myself to be losing weight, I have indeed not been losing weight as much as I have been gaining and losing the same few pounds over and over. Granted I am glad that I have actually lost weight and not gained weight, but I am admitting here and now to myself that I have basically been in maintenance mode.

I also believe that I may have let myself get a bit to comfortable here in the high 160s. I feel comfortable and if I stand the right way and "suck everything in," I think I look okay. The ugly side comes out though when I do a workout video in my room. There is a large full mirror near the open space and when I am doing certain moves I am horrified by certain areas of my body. I do not want to remain this weight much longer. I am close to my goal weight and have no excuses to not be more actively trying to get there.

I am setting a challenge for myself for the month of February. Since it's the shortest month of the year doing something for the month just seems easiest. I feel that I have stayed active but my eating can be out of control. I stay on track for a few days and then spend an evening gorging myself on the couch. I repeat that cycle over and over and wonder how I am not losing weight. It seems painfully obvious to me. I want to be a healthy weight so bad, but I have lost focus. I am finding my focus and my way back down the scale in February!

Goals for February:

• Continue with my exercise- Marathon training officially starts February 3rd. I picked a bit of a harder schedule to follow because it worked me up to 12 miles before race day instead of 10. I felt like I needed to know I could run 12 before I attempted 13.1. However, if the training is to intense I will let myself step down to an "easier" schedule. I do have to attempt each scheduled run and not just decide that a distance seems to far and "step down" without attempting my schedule.
• Track everything I eat- This will be the huge challenge. I track on the days that I eat well. On the days I decide to binge, all hell breaks loose! I would like to challenge myself to stay within a healthy caloric intake each day, but I don't want to set myself up for failure. I will attempt to stay on track everyday, but if I go overboard I have to stay accountable and track everything I eat. I am hoping this will help me in two ways. First, there have been times that I eat more than planned and feel like I totally blew the day and continue to eat to explosion. When if I had just counted the calories from the first food that sent me overboard there would have been a chance at saving the day. Secondly, perhaps possibly seeing how many unnecessary calories I consume on a bad day may help me keep myself in control.

That's it. I only have 2 goals and I think they are both more than doable. I really want this to be the summer that I hit my healthy weight range. I can't even imagine how great that will feel! I won't get there if I keep living like I have the past 5 months, but I can turn things around here and get ready for an amazing adventure. Let's do this!