Weight Update and Why I Reject New Year's Resolutions

First, weight update: On Tuesday I lost the pound gained last week, plus a tiny bit extra! Total is 7.4 pounds down since November 17. Since we’re getting into two months on my Weight Watchers adventure, here is a table of my progress. Sorry for the weird formatting.

January 5th 187.0lbs

December 29th

188.2lbs

December 15th	188.0lbs
December 8th	189.0lbs
Tuesday, December 1st	190.4lbs

Tuesday, November 24th	193.2lbs
Tuesday, November 17th	194.4lbs

Holy crap, do I want to be out of the 180s. The funny (or sad?) thing is that I really could be doing much better. Every week it’s a huge struggle to stay within my daily and weekly points, and I don’t even think I’ve managed to do it once. So if I can lose a pound a week going over, how much better could I do if I really really stuck to it?

Maybe this week can be that week.

Now, onto a super fun topic: New Year’s Resolutions. 

Frankly I think New Year’s resolutions are, more often than not, pointless. Almost by default, they’re designed to be fleeting as you lose momentum, and by March it’s hard to remember what the resolution was. Art classes? Learn to ski? Finally hire that hit man for your horrible boss?

Maybe the trap is that we think a new year will somehow automatically change us.I mean, it’s a new year, we think. It has to, right? But that’s not it.

Change comes from hard fucking work that’s constant effort, and it happens throughout the year. January 1st is not some permission to decide to change something, some unique opening that must be taken advantage of. I joined Weight Watchers the week before Thanksgiving, and I’m so glad I did.

People can and do change themselves, the date is irrelevant. New Year’s resolutions are the punchlines in sitcoms, gyms and weight loss centers prepare for an influx of people, 95% of whom won’t be there in a few months. It’s a nice idea, a new year and a new you, but it’s lost all meaning.

I am trying to make changes, the least of which is weight loss. If people want to learn the guitar, take Spanish lessons, go to the gym, awesome! But I hope they don’t do it for New Year’s, but rather just because they want to, and it happens to be New Year’s.

So if someone here stumbled across this blog because they made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, I hope you know I’m seriously rooting for you. You absolutely rock for trying to get healthier and tackle your weight, and it’s totally possible. But, you know, just do it. Not because it’s January, but because it’s time.

Weigh-In and A Great Pep Talk

Last week I was down another .8, for a total of 7.4 pounds since November 17. That's an average of 1.4 pounds a week! Awesome, though I really can't expect to keep up that pace.

This week was hard. I don't know what I'm expecting at weigh-in tomorrow, but I would be surprised if I wasn't up.

I don't even know how to describe this, but this week was hard and I did not do well. Tuesday and Wednesday, and even Thursday were pretty good. I stayed out of my weekly points (saving them for the weekend), went to my double-trouble Power Dance then strength training class with my favorite instructor. I was feeling pretty good.

Then we went to my parents, and it was like I instantly regressed to that sad, fat little ten-year-old who thought "people be gone from kitchen" was a sign to "eat all things not glued/nailed down." That (the regressing thing) probably didn't help, but it was also that I'm still really not good at having food around, especially sweets, and not eat them, like sweets.

My parents are awesomely kick-ass, and this was a great weekend where the whole family was together, my two siblings included. That part was pretty great. But I absolutely sucked at the eating. My mom made cookies, and she asked me to make a dessert, and then some neighbors came by with homemade Christmas treats, not to mention the mealtimes themselves. I just really sucked.

The good news is I just tracked everything I could remember from the last few days. As best I can tell, I'm about 100 points in the negative. Triple-digits. Ugh. It's not as hard as you'd think, because of how many points sugar is - for example, a standard slice of cake with frosting is 25 points. For reference, I get 30 points in an entire DAY. So that 100 points could translate into - WAIT, nope. Just did some Weight Watchers calculator games. That 100 points could easily be an extra 2,000 calories eaten this week.

Still my favorite gif.

So I'm definitely not happy with myself, but I'm trying so hard to just get right back on today, and keep going. That started with tracking everything I could remember. John gave me a great pep talk on the way home from my parents. I definitely hit the lottery with that guy. The gist was just that this, right now, is where a lot of people who end up failing, fail. If I can get back up from this, in six months this weekend can just be a blip on my weight loss chart. Maybe a gain, maybe not, but it won't matter. This can be the beginning of the end, or just a bump on the way to a healthy weight. I get to decide that. 



For those who celebrated, how was your Christmas? Merry Christmas!

For those who didn't, did you see Star Wars? We did and I thought it was great. (No spoilers)