Just as a caterpillar needs time to metamorphose into a butterfly, I need time to make big changes in my life. It seems though that time can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I feel like I have all the time in the world to accomplish my goals. But on the other hand, if I squander even one week, if I’m not moving forward with purpose every single day, I risk losing sight of the big picture and failing to meet my goals.
My primary goal for Transformation Day 2012, to lose almost 140 pounds, is going well. In two weeks, I’ve lost 5.6 pounds although I’ve hit some snags with my eating. The weight loss might seem like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t really. When a person gets serious about eating a low-carb diet, they shed a good bit of water weight at first. Protein requires almost three times as much water to metabolize as carbohydrate, so as one changes to a ketogenic eating plan, a decent initial weight loss is usually observed.
After my first two weeks though, things will really start to get tough for me. I tend to lose weight very slowly which causes me to feel discouraged. Then, because I’m feeling discouraged, I tend to give up and binge on a bunch of stuff that I shouldn’t eat. Of course that binging sets my weight loss back by weeks, and I have to start the cycle all over again.
Losing weight and getting healthy, they’re both critical preps. You’d think it’d be easy to just make up my mind and “git ‘er done”, but it’s not. Part of my long-term success will certainly involve dealing with my disordered thinking and behaviors, because I know that my weight issues are nothing more than a symptom of something that’s going on inside my head. Without lots of money to pay a good therapist, I’m stuck figuring it all out on my own.
For now, I think my strategy is going to be some fairly clean eating to start to clear my head. I’m not going to address my Pepsi Max “addiction” at this point, but I can certainly clean up the rest of my food. I’ll have to do that in order to keep the scale moving.
More coconut oil will be a critical tool as well. I’ll be ordering more organic, unrefined coconut oil from my all-time favorite retailer, Mountain Rose Herbs, on pay-day. Unfortunately, I’ve seen an across-the-board price hike on coconut oil, so it hasn’t been as easy to get my hands on it as it used to be. I’m a patient soul though, and it’s SO worth it!
I am right there with you on not losing after the first 2 weeks. I also can not give up my adiction to diet Coke at the present time. Water just doesn’t taste as good.
I wish you luck on your journey and will continue to follow you as so much of what you are going through (except the blindness) parallels my journey. We seem to have the same feelings about a lot of things. I used to be a Midwesterner and hope to be in the future. I can’t stand the heat down here!!!!
I’m drinking some water right now. :) I know that the pop isn’t good for me, but when I drink the pop, I don’t eat things that I shouldn’t eat. I’ll try and kill that dragon a little later. Once it gets cooler, I’ll have a better shot at getting rid of the pop. It’s just too hot for me to drink coffee right now.
I had to laugh when I read about your Pepsi Max addiction…mine was always diet Pepsi…I haven’t had one in a little over a week now…I did have one diet Coke at work, don’t even really like diet coke all that much…I’m working on losing a lot of weight too…I like that you’ve given yourself some time to get it done…you’ll get there!!