Broken Promises...

Fail, fail, fail... and more fail. That pretty much sums up how I feel about my food intake at the moment. I keep promising myself I'll be a good girl and then I eat something I really don't need to eat. I break promise after promise after promise. I'm not putting on weight but I'm not losing it either. I have a couple of good days, then undo it all with a bad day.

It's got me thinking... what is with that??? What is frustrating is that I understand what I am doing. I know that I tell myself that some foods are bad and some are good, thereby enhancing my desire for the bad and my self-punishment for eating them afterwards. I know that I obviously don't consider myself worthy to keep the promises I make to myself. I know that small, correctly proportioned meals can fill me up and leave me satisfied and yet I keep using the slightest twang of hunger (or boredom, or thirst) as an excuse to eat more food. I know that I have put weight on and if I don't lose it again fast it will be harder in the long run. I know that I have the willpower to watch other people eat food and not need to join in with them.... and yet I am not backing all of my knowlege up with the correct action.

Knowing the path is different to walking the path. Yup, got it. So why is it so freaking hard to walk the path again, when I know without a doubt, and have in fact, tested this myself, that the path makes me HAPPY! It makes me feel:

- in control;
- powerful;
- attractive;
- confident;
- alive;
- sexy;
- like I can take on the world.

The path I am currently on makes me feel:

- fat;
- unworthy;
- unhappy;
- totally out of control;
- frustrated;
- self conscious;
- unattractive.

So WHAT THE F*&K AM I DOING??? This is 2011 - THE YEAR OF MEL!!! I only have about 5 weeks left, and I'm undoing the amazing achievement that I worked so.freaking.hard to accomplish.

OK - I am going to say this, I need help. I need encouragement. I need you to remind me that I can do this, because I seem to be able to forget it in an instant, conveniently when faced with cake. Any random texts or emails will be appreciated, because sometimes, despite my own (and popular) belief, it's hard to do this stuff alone. So, please help me be accountable to somebody else for a little bit, because I am totally failing at being accountable to myself.

Love you all.

M. x

Finding a Balance...

Hello again! I thought I would post, mid-struggle, as opposed to post-struggle, as is the norm for me. I'm not good at asking for help or letting people know when I am having a hard time, so I figure I might as well try something different! :)

The last 2 days I have been eating practically everything in sight, which is not helped by the fact that there has been food on the table at work all day long. I'm just grazing all day, rather than waiting until I am hungry and only having 3 meals. I find that I'm either on Cohen's or off Cohen's. I like my idea of staying on Cohen's but having the odd treat or night out (which is mostly like maintenance but with plan weights for most meals), and I balanced it well for the first 3 days, but then it all went pear shaped. Have to get back on the wagon but having trouble again, so I thought I'd come and admit it to you and then hopefully sort my sh!t out...

I think this is the crux of the whole issue for me. If I can master this then I will be OK. I need to master the grey. I've mastered the black and white this year, but now I need to find the balance.

Wish me luck!!!

M. x

P.S - the photo is of my Mojito and some snacks at the famous Hotel de Paris, just outside the Monaco Casino.

Back on Track...

Well hello again!

I must say that it is feeling good to be 'back on plan', even if I have eaten cake twice already, hahaha! I am feeling much more in control of my eating which is brilliant. The first day I stuck to it perfectly, then on Day 2 and Day 3 there were cakes at work and I had some both days. The difference has been that I am not punishing myself for doing so because this is actually how I planned it. By using it more as a structure than an actual diet, I've been able to have a bit of cake for morning tea, and then go on to have a normal lunch and normal dinner afterwards. In the past I would have had an unhealthy dinner (with wine) because I'd already stuffed up that day. Each night I was craving a glass of wine (BIG TIME!) but I managed not to have any and stick to my normal Cohen's dinner and I've lost roughly 0.5 kg a day, so 1.5 kg in 3 days. Much like I did on the first week of Cohen's last time. I know it won't work as well this time, I have drinks on Thursday night and dinner out on Saturday and my first week weigh in is on Sunday, but I know it is going to be much better than it would have been had I kept eating the way I was when I got back.

I must stress to those who read my blog that are on Cohen's for the first time - don't follow what I am doing now. What I am really doing is a combination of the maintenance rules with plan weights and if you eat cake or sugar or anything like that when you are mid plan, it will severely disrupt your hormone balance. So, 'don't try this at home, kids.' ;)

I am feeling much better about myself already because I feel like I am in control again - a feeling that I lost when I was in France. I totally got that I stopped loving myself when I lost control, and that is what made it so hard to get back to some reasonable eating structure.
 
By writing this down and making myself accountable to the people who read this, I feel I owe it to you, rather than myself, which is how I was able to get started without much self-love in the first place. But as I saw myself transforming and became proud of myself for achieving such a big thing, I started to love myself again. I lost control in France and then stopped with the love, hence it getting worse and worse.

So the past 3 days I've been making an effort to love myself. I cooked myself some lovely food, like stewed apples for breakfasts, Cohen's friendly marmalade for my crackers and prawn stirfrys for dinner. I brought myself flowers for the kitchen, I did my nails and other little things to make myself feel pretty, and it works! It's all about feeling like you are worthy. If you don't think you are worthy, you will stuff your face forever trying to make yourself feel better about it.

So that's my hot tip for the week - find a reason to love yourself. Do nice things for yourself. Treat yourself to a pedicure. Or do one yourself!

Hope you are all having a great week!

M. x

Back to Basics...

Well, it appears 5 weeks of sheer indulgence has caught up with me. ;) I am updating my blog today to signify that I am going 'back on plan'.

I have so much to tell you, where do I even start? The bottom line is that I've put on about 8 kg and am a total of 10 kg higher than my lightest weight during Cohens. 2 kg I put on before I left for France, and 6 kg I put on (pretty much in the first week) in France. Since then I've been yo-yoing up and down 2 or 3 kg depending on what I eat each day. I made a deal with myself that rather than panic, I'd enjoy the rest of my trip (and the food), and sort it out when I got back. Well, I've been back a week and have not had any luck so far in the 'sorting out' department. So, here I am.

You can see from the photo that the extra weight makes a big difference. It's not the most flattering angle for me but I feel bulky again and after feeling skinny for a while, bulky just doesn't work for me anymore!

I've been struggling a bit with the fact that it's not practical for me to go back on plan at the moment because of the number of social activities planned leading up to Christmas. I was so committed when on plan the first time, to the point where I didn't have any meals outside of what I made for myself for almost 5 months. Not only do I have Christmas/Social activities planned, but I always return to Adelaide and catch up with all of my family/friends over the Christmas break and it will be impossible to stay on plan, not to mention the fact that I just don't want to be at that point in time. So I've been half trying, allowing bits of this and that, and the day starts well and ends badly. So I'm going to try something new.

See, one of my biggest problems is that with diets (and in many other facets of my life), I only see black and white. That's why Cohen's worked so well for me - there were so many rules and I knew I couldn't bend them. Other diets, where I am given freedom to choose, I tend to fail at because I bend the rules too much and push it to the point where it doesn't work well. That's what I've been doing this week too.

So I am going to go 'back on plan' but inside of the commitment to honour myself, rather than the diet, while I am at it. What I want, is to get this nipped in the bud before it gets out of control again. I want to lose weight while still being able to catch up with friends and have a night out here and there and go to all of the Christmas lunches that are coming up without panicing about how I am going to bring my own lunch to the zoo on an upcoming work excursion. See, the fact that I have social activities planned was what was stopping me from going back on plan. Now I've decided to do it anyway, because hell, it's better being on plan for a month and having 5 social meals where I try to eat Cohen's friendly and have a couple of glasses of wine, than being off plan for a month and not getting anywhere. I accept that I am not 'doing it properly' and that it won't work as well, but I am going to use the structure to get myself back in control of my eating, and make it work for me. So here is what I am going to do:

1) Do 4 weeks of 'on plan' with weighing all food and obeying all the rules again; and
2) Start refeed on Sunday 4 December so I'm done by Christmas; with the following exception...

I will still attend Christmas/Social outings, as well as have dinner and drinks with my friends but I will make sensible choices.

The reason that I am writing this all out is because I need myself to understand that this is how I have planned it, and that there is no self-sabotage (or binging) required after a lovely (Cohen's friendly) meal and a couple of glasses of wine with a friend. I know that it will slow my weightloss, but I am choosing that over missing out for the moment. I've already been there and done the period of total sacrifice this year, so now I am going to try to make it work for me again and get used to normal eating again, after the crazy blow out of carbs galore in France. Cohen's is a great training program for the kinds of food that one should eat to maintain their weight, and I need to get back on that train right now before it leaves the station without me.

Wish me luck! I feel like I need it this time.

M. x

PS. I am actually terrified of posting this, because like I said, I have been trying to get on top of this for a week and to no avail. But I feel like I am more successful when I have to 'report in' to you guys, so I have to bite the bullet and trust in myself that I can do this again, despite the amout of times I've tried and failed this week!!!! xxx

PPS. I will put up more posts about France (and the food) when I get time, for now I just had to get this part sorted. ;)