The Plan (version 2, or 200)

So I've posted a few times previously about a plan or action plan.  I have a new version.  A restart.

What I know:

• I currently weigh 224 pounds
• I'm not currently going to the gym
• Running is still awkward given my new body shape and anything less than running on that treadmill is frustrating.
• I'm afraid to go back to Body Pump because of the loss of muscle and change in my body.
• I'm eating more disordered meals and snacks.
• I'm having issues with insomnia again which cause an inability to get up early for the gym.
• I work from home most the time and wear stretchy clothes because none of my other clothes fit.

I've been trying to address some of these things with the following rules hanging in various places in my house:

• No electronics after 9:30pm
• Take vitamins and minerals daily.
• 100 ounces of water daily.
• No carbonated drinks.
• 3 clean meals and 2 planned snacks
• Gym, 3 days a week.

I've been great about carbonated drinks.  I had returned to some soda drinking at the time I had surgery and afterwards.  When I asked Pete to buy a 12 pack and he came home with a 24 pack that was gone in a week, I knew that I needed to stop.  I'm 3 weeks in.

My vitamins are on and off.  I need to place them on my work desk so that they stare me in the face every morning and I take them more frequently.

Water.  *sigh*  Some days I can't get enough and some days I struggle.  So I returned to some water additives to help.  Pete is into juicing and sometimes I add some of the cucmber or fruit juices that he makes.  Others, it's a natural ingredient crystal light with cane sugar/stevia or True Lime's BlackCherry Limeade.

Meals/Snacks are a struggle I'm fully willing to admit.  Pete is down to about 160-165 and has stayed there for about 7-8 months.  He works out enough and his metabolism is so high that he has been buying cookie dough, Oreos, ice cream, reeces PB cups and other crap.  He eats and eats and doesn't gain.  I will have a PB cup and a couple of cookies and it's all over for me.  I need to stop.  He is more than willing to not have the stuff in the house so that it's not tempting me, but I feel back and keep buying it for him.  But it comes back to my CHOICES.  I need to 'reset' my band and let the pouch above it shrink back down.  So starting Sunday I'm going to drink Pete's Body by VI shakes for breakfast & lunch and then eat a clean meal of chicken/veg or salmon/veg for dinner for a week.

The gym.  It's periods like now where it isn't my second home and I don't feel compfortable because I've gained weight that I struggle even going.  My favorite instructor keeps telling me it's ok and I'll find my way back.  It's people like her that make me love my local Y.  Because I'm awkward running and scared of injuring myself in Body Pump, I've decided to branch out.  I'v scheduled myself classes 3 days a week; Mondays is Water Execrise in the pool, Wednesdays is Standing Flow Stretching and Movement and Fridays I'll try Body Pump with a bar only, no weight.

That's the new plan.

*sigh* here's the deal...

Long time no...write.  Right?

Here's the deal.  I'm sort of disillusioned with my life at the moment.  And I struggle and fight to figure out how to get back to me.  I try new things, I try old things and nothing seems to work.  I know where I want to be and what I want my life to look like and it's just not happening right now.

I heard someone recently say that not every journey has a end.  It made me pause.  It make me think.  For all the talking that I've done about lifestyle changes to create a healthier me, I think I expected my journey to end.  Not that it wouldn't be a change, but that the struggle of how to lose weight would end. 

Between October 2010 and April of 2013 I lost weight.  And this is not to say that the journey during that time wasn't a struggle, because it was.  It definately was.  There were ups and downs and detours.  But for the most part, I had a plan, I had goals and I had a strategy. 

In April I had my abnormal biopsy and things shifted.  I wasn't as goal oriented in losing weight.  I was goal oriented in finding out a plan to deal with what could be breast cancer.  The shift was needed.  It's not a positive shift, but a needed shift.  I went into survival mode.  Survival mode meant that I ended up at the gym less, ate about the same, but indluged in a few comfort foods that I had given up.  Between April and July I gained 5 pounds.  But (you knew there was a but, right?) I was okay with this.  My close still fit, I had a great/growing muscle tone and I wasn't making large shifts in what I was doing to be healthy.

My plan was to have surgery and return to the previous plan of healthy living.  And the absolute truth is that the plan did not work.  There were detours, setbacks, mental health issues and other things that derailed my plan.  So I took even more time off to deal with the physical and psychological issues.  Again, my plan was to start back with the healthy living plan once I addressed those things. 

My final truth?  The plan that worked for me before isn't working.  The healthy eating habits and gym habits aren't working.  Either because I can't find my way back to them, or I need to figure out modifications to them that work for me HERE AND NOW.  I need to find a new plan.  Here's the thing that is so depressing about this.  I can go back to what was working for me.  But I can't go back to what was working for me in April 2013.  I need to go back further to about March/April 2012.  I need to go back when I was about 30 pounds heavier (yep - ouch).  I need to resume some restristive eating to allow my gastric band to work better.  I need to give myself the GRACE to make better CHOICES and go back to what was working for me 2 years ago in an attempt to start the weight loss process again.  For that's truly what this is.  A restart after a year off.

There.  I said it all.