"Starting again"...

Why is it when we have a lapse "starting again" feels almost impossible?   I use to hate it and not understand when people said "life got in the way and I gained it all back".   I know what they mean now and see how it happens.  The difference this time for me is that I am pulling on the brakes of the runaway weight gain train and its screeching to a halt before I end up at 220 again.   Thinking about it, I feel like I have had weight-loss amnesia.


I was just reading Oprah's Big Book of Happiness. The chapter I am on is about two women who yo-yo'ed losing and gaining 40lbs (it also talks about the Beck Diet etc and I picked it up at Indigo for 9.99 in the discount section).  In the book it said that people who watch their weight are walking encyclopedias for weight loss.  This is what inspired me this morning to track my breakfast and remember that I know what I need to do to get back on track.  I know what I need to do to lose weight and live the healthy lifestyle I embraced not so long ago.  I know I felt better physically and emotionally when I was tracking my calories and working out regularly. 

I have weighed myself since sometime in July or August. I was planning on not stepping on the scale any time soon and using my clothes as the determining factor but I am wondering now if that will just continue to allow me to not be fully engaged in a healthier lifestyle. I admit that I previously got too wrapped up in what the scale said. I guess what I need to work on is not letting the scale control me, but use it as a tool, it is after all just another gauge.

I have always said that I am an "all of nothing" kind of girl. When I quit smoking (almost four years ago) I knew that I would never be a social smoker, ever! Once in a blue moon I might light a cigarette for some one but that is where it stops. Thinking about it now, this has been like a relapse in quitting smoking for me...the fog is clearing as the pants get tighter and I am realizing that I need to get back in the game. I have been sitting on the bench long enough.   I entered my calories in my tracker today for the first time in a long time and will get a run in today before volleyball.