Ding Dang It!

Ding Dang Diets
I haven’t been counting my Weight Watchers points lately because I’ve grown weary with noting every morsel that goes into my pie-hole.  (And there’s been more than one Amish fried pie in there!)  Anyone watching me these days may well notice the evidence of my preference to eat rather than count as the smaller britches I bought late last summer are now my Maypops.  They may pop anytime.

Ding Dang Dawn of the Day
I gave myself a pep talk this morning at 4 a.m. when I was forced out of bed by a bladder begging for relief.  I looked into the bathroom mirror.  A 4 a.m. face is frightful!  “Do I really want to keep gaining weight?” I asked myself.  “Why, no! No, I don’t!” I answered.  I resolved to not start off my day with Jack’s yummy, buttery biscuits, a plan I’d made when I got into bed last night.  By the time I arrived at work, I had indeed eaten a Jack’s breakfast. Then, when I got to the office, a donut called my name…one of those Krispy Kreme fried devil biscuits, chocolate covered with sprinkles.  Yes, I did!   

Ding Dang Dining
As a side note…often at the Jack’s near my house, you order what you want, you pay for what you ordered, then you get what they give you.  Today, they did well.  But I digress.

Ding Dang, Ding Dang!
Now…it’s Thursday.  I can’t start a better way of eating on Friday!  It might be a law, I don’t know.  But I don’t want to binge all weekend, either.  Well, I do want to.  I just don’t want the consequences of it.

Ding Dang Choices! 
I have a tight relationship with bad choices…and it’s not just food…but those are stories for another day.

(I can’t “ding-dang” a devotional.  It’s too ding dang important.)
I should write seven-day devotional of sorts, covering personal choices, free will, and relationship with our Creator.  It would be about picking up and moving on toward a better life, no matter how many steps back you’ve (I’ve) taken. 

That’s the ding dang plan.  If I write the devotional, I’ll share it some day. 

My Own Words Bite Me

I’m at that place where the scales aren’t moving.  I’m stuck at 73 pounds.  I was stuck at 50 pounds a few months ago, but I knew why…I was pigging out on the weekends and behaving through the week.  Took a month off from restaurants and that took care of the hump.

Nashville Zoo

I did screw up a weekend a few weeks back.  I think most people trying to lose weight can relate to this:  I spend three weeks losing 4 pounds, binged on the weekend, and gained back the 4 pounds in two days!  Took me two weeks to lose those pounds again.  Vicious cycle.

I don’t know why our bodies will do that…hang on to every pound for dear life, and grab two pounds just by smelling the Krispy Kremes. 

My first 50 pounds were easy.  Melted right off without much struggle, and with no exercise.  For the last month, I have been walking.  I am now doing 50,000 – 70000 steps per week.  It’s not always easy, but it’s doable. 

Nashville Zoo

Here’s were my words are slapping me around.  I’ve been losing and gaining weight my entire adult life.  And now I’m 57 years old and feel as if I can advise with some tiny bit of knowledge learned from my years of experience.  So, I say about losing weight:

  • Find a way to eat that you can live with and do that.
  • Don’t engage in extreme exercise if you’ve never done it and don’t like it you won’t stick to it.   Find the way to exercise that you can live with…and do that. 
  • After the initial quick weight loss of a new diet, it’s going to be slow.  Very slow.  Very slow is better than not at all or gaining.

Slow is not an option,
but the rule.

But I find myself at the point where I’d rather eat than get on the scales after a week of walking over 10,000 steps each day, eating according to my chosen plan (Weight Watchers) and seeing a 2-ounce loss.  Two. Ounces.   I know my plan works, and I know that slow is not an option but the rule, and I am frustrated.  I still have 88 pounds to lose.  And I cannot use my upcoming vacation, Thanksgiving, and Christmas as reasons to quit or gain.  And if I do gain, I must not quit.

To show my hypocritical thinking…I’m going on vacation next week.  I do not plan to count points.  Why commit to something I probably won’t do because it will be such a hassle?  The best I can promise myself is to make wiser decisions.  It will be a test, no doubt.  

My Back Yard