I passed my 100th day of tracking over the weekend and kept waiting to be inspired to write a post about it but I never really was. To be honest, I have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I'm really proud of myself for tracking my weight and calorie intake daily for this long! Normally, I'm more of a 2-4 weeks then fall off the wagon kind of person. And this wasn't perfect tracking, but any day that I forgot to weigh myself I just put in a repeat of the previous day's weight and if I forgot to track calories I'd do my best to guestimate. But on the whole I'd say that 90% of the entries are accurate. This has given me a lot of insight into what I'm doing (consistently taking in fewer calories than I need) and what I'm not doing (eating as few calories over the course of the week as I thought). Knowledge is power, and this has been really helpful in that regard.
But I also feel like my progress is so slow and the tracking just proves that I'm not trying as hard as I should. While this is a "diet" in that I'm intentionally eating fewer calories than I need, I'm trying to make it sustainable and about gradual life changes. I'm trying to create a new normal so that when I either make my goal weight or reach the wedding, I don't just immediately revert back to bad habits and gain everything back. But emotionally I feel really close to that edge. Like if I stopped paying attention for just a week or two, everything will fall apart. (And by "fall apart" I mean that it would be great - a life filled with pizza and wings and beer, but my pants would get tight again.)
I have a friend who is a very serious personal trainer. He has done body building competitions, runs his own business and is dedicated to helping real people get fit in a healthy and sustainable way. I saw a post of his recently where one of his clients had achieved visible body changes in just 3 weeks. This isn't an internet gimmick - this is someone I know. And that kind of thing makes me think, 'What am I doing? I've barely achieved in 3 months what she did in 3 weeks!'
My boyfriend has been trying to get me to see this trainer for over a year, and I've been really resistant. Part of the reason is financial (he's not cheap) and part of the reason is ... pride. I kind of want to do this on my own. I want to know that I made a plan and I stuck with it and it worked. I'm not against getting help or having support systems, but I kind of feel like I got myself into this mess, so I should get myself out of it. And for the most part, that has been the result.
I feel like I need to get out of this mental slump. From the drop-off in the number of people writing blogs, I think I'm not the only one in a slump. ;-) Probably people are falling off after New Years Resolutions are a distant memory and Lent is over. I could add weightlifting back into my routine myself. That would probably be a good start.