Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 118

First, thanks to a certain commenter that got my spirits up again after a little bit of a lull over the past few weeks.

Here, read it in full:

From: Stalker (Alexandria under a very tricky pseudonym)
Comments:
Hey! It's nice to read a response to my comment. (especially the "my favorite" part - gave me tingles).

All the best,
Salma (Her other pseudonym.)

I appreciate the checking in on my mental health. Actually, I think Alexandria is a psychologist, at least that's what her BC tag says. In fact, I think I might end up seeing a psychiatrist at some point just to clear a few father issues up. (But I'll leave that be until my next series: Dan Nied's Path to Self Acceptance and Mental Stability. That should be hitting Blogcritics sometime around Thanksgiving).

But Alexandria's comment illustrates the exact reason I am keeping this blog. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to do this without a little outside support. It would have been easy to, over the weekend, convince myself I deserved another off day. But instead I thought about how I would rationalize it to you guys, and how I would make it seem ok that I put myself one step further away from my goal.

Instead, I relaxed slightly (2,000 calories on Saturday, about 1,800 on Sunday), and ellipticised for the first time in five days on Sunday.

Yeah, you didn't know about that break from the gym I took last week. I never really told. I was kind of sick of the stagnant weeks of the diet and decided to just bag the elliptical for a while.

That led to a stalemate week. Weighed in at 265 on Sunday and felt ok about it. The idea, though, was to be below 250 by the end of April. That's definitely not happening considering today is April 21.

But I can make it under 260, which puts me a few good weeks away from 240. This is the time for outright discipline. That isn't exactly a recent revelation, but it is something that I need to enact in my daily life.

I think I took some steps toward that discipline last week, despite avoiding the gym entirely.

First, I beat cake. Yep, there was birthday cake at work on Thursday, and a coworker was trying her hardest to get me to enjoy some. Around 8 p.m., she actually brought plates of cake into our newsroom and gave some to everyone. I swore at her and told her to get out (in a nice, joking way I should add). But there was cake to be had, and I didn't have it.

So that's a little victory.

But my thought process also matured a little bit last week. In my mind were visions of 240, but they were balanced by the current reality of 265. I had to connect the two somehow, right?

So I tried to figure a way to get to the gym six times a week. The answer: start getting up at 10 a.m. instead of 11 a.m. Go to the gym for an hour and then come home and go about my daily routine. That's important, because I am big on routines. I don't like to have them disrupted if I can help it.

I'm also starting to take the current menu for granted. I wasn't looking forward to off days nearly as much last week. And, as we sit now, I am not particularly sure when I'll feel the need for an off day again. I'm sure it will happen but, honestly, I just don't get the gratification I expect.

I think I order pizza because pizza sounds good to me. I have a good image of pizza in my head. And most of the time, the pizza doesn't live up to that image.

Same thing with most fast food (In-N-Out Burger excluded). I've got good memories of the double Whopper, or sitting down to five McDonald's double cheeseburgers. So I turn to them when I want instant gratification. But they are never really worth the consequences.

When an off-day meal doesn't live up to the hype I've previously assigned it, I get guilty and frustrated and hungry for more.

I'd say that happens about 70 percent of the time.

Thing is, when I have an off day meal that is truly delicious, I don't feel guilty at all. I feel a little bit of pride for making that meal count. I can think of maybe four times over the last three months that an off day meal has truly been worth it.

So if the Burger King and Taco Bell runs aren't worth the consequences, why do I keep falling into that trap? Obviously, it's because I have had good experiences with them before. But when I was having those good experiences, the food wasn't working against a specific goal I was trying to achieve. Yes, Taco Bell is excellent when I am drunk at 2 a.m. Yes, pizza is amazing when I have nothing to do for the entire day. But it's just not worth it right now.

During past off days, I was eating shit just to eat shit, like it was my duty. It was as much a part of the diet as the salads and turkey sandwiches.

I thought off days were the safe house that would give me the strength to get to the next level. They were the water cups during a marathon, or a campsite during a weekend hike. But that definitely wasn't true. Sunday was my sixth straight day of eating healthy. But it isn't like I wanted to cheat more Sunday because I ate healthy on Friday. No, every day is its own entity with its own rules. Sometimes the urge to cheat will be there, sometimes it won't. And it really has nothing to do with how long I've held out.

At least I don't think so.

So why am I putting so much stock into the off days? Well, because it seems like I should, you know? It seems like I am depriving my body of things that it likes, so I should take time out to indulge. Sounds good, right? But that's really not how it works. Because now I am treating my body better, giving it more of what it needs to work. So why should I go against that grain?

Off days should not be done just to curb a sudden craving. Instead, they should be applied correctly, when they can be appreciated.

So that's what I think I learned.