Weight Loss Wednesday: Week 6

Six weeks! Not much to say here, except I’m limiting the cheating after this weekend. I found myself going overboard and getting into a cycle where it was getting way too easy to justify not doing the right thing. I won’t go into great detail, but, “I’ll get back on it on Monday,” is not a good mindset, and the whole food-as-reward mentality is really starting to freak me out.

I hadn’t fully realized it until now, but I have been viewing the excessive intake of food I shouldn’t ever eat (or at least not eat with any regularity) as this comforting, pleasing, Good Thing that I was essentially punishing myself by not eating. I don’t think this is a safe, healthy way to think about food; in fact, I think that if I don’t address it now I am just setting myself up for eventual failure when, unbound by the restrictions of my current diet, I fall back into the same pattern of continual self-reward that pushed me to almost 230 pounds. It seems obvious: if I perceive food I shouldn’t eat (or beer I shouldn’t drink, and whatever else) as a reward, then won’t I simply find every excuse in the book to reward myself? Tough day at work? Get some Arthur Bryant’s and relax with a six pack. Mowed the lawn? I deserve some cheesecake. So I’m pretty sure I need to change that mentality, I just don’t know how. But I’m working on it.

Stats for this week:

Date: 04-25-2007 (Days on program: 42)
Weight: 201 (Total lost: 26 pounds)
BMI: 30.6 (Category: Obese…barely!)
Belly: 39.5″ (Started: 45″)