FATigue

Behavioral fatigue, I has it.

Behavioral fatigue is the official term for that time when you get tired of implementing a behavior so you start to slack off a little because you think, “Oh, but I’ve been doing this for so long and I’m just tired of it.”

But in all reality, it hasn’t been all that long.  It’s only been 8 months (including the time when I began the pre-op diet).

I’ve backslid a little this week, and I know it.  I own it.  I’ve let a few things creep into my eating that shouldn’t be there, and I think it’s because I’m testing the waters.  And you know what?  Right now is not the time for that.  I still have 77 pounds to lose to get to my goal.  And in my mind, those 77 pounds are going to be a hard-fought battle because I am fighting with Fat Girl even more fiercely than I have yet.

I don’t enjoy fighting with her, especially now that I’m feeling this behavioral fatigue.  I’m tired of eating the same things over and over again.  I wasn’t a fan of routine with my eating before, and I’m still not a fan of it now.

But I also know that routine with my eating is what has helped me get where I am.  I know that routine with my food related behaviors has been important to my success, but I’m struggling with the fact that I HATE all the sameness.  It really, really bugs me.  I’m wondering if subconsciously I’m trying to undo all the good I’ve done, just as I’ve done in the past, or if this is just a bump in the road that seems to happen every time I get my period since it happened this week and I wanted to EAT ALL THE THINGS all week long.

The plan for this week is to rein in some of the behaviors I’ve allowed myself to engage in (eating in places that are not the dinner table, like my desk here at home) and to back off of eating things that I wasn’t eating 1-2 months ago (a bite of cookie here, a bite of brownie there) so that I can get back on track.  I’m not perfect, and I never set out to be.  When I began this whole process, I set out to be healthy.  I didn’t set out to be a certain size, or a certain weight, mostly because I’ve never known what either one of those things looked like for me, ever.  I think that for the most part, I’m accomplishing my primary goal of achieving health.  But I am not fully there yet, and I can’t afford to let up now.  I’ve gotten this far, and while mentally maintenance seems so far away, it’s really not.  But I need to stop behaving so much like it’s already here.  I agree with Andie Mitchell, who writes the blog Can You Stay For Dinner? when she says that eating healthy most of the time is good enough.  It is a sustainable and realistic way of living and how I choose to live.

But I need to buckle down and return to what has helped me get where I am:  protein, protein, protein and less starchy stuff.  These last 77 pounds are ones I feel I am going to have to fight for, and I don’t want to have another January.  The last thing I need right now is to stress over my weight loss progress, because I hated how not progressing made me feel about myself.  I know that I am the only one that controls what I feed myself, so I need to be more mindful of the things I choose to eat at every meal.  I need to consider the consequences more carefully before choosing things, and I need to remember where I was at this time last year so that I don’t return there bite by bite.

Today was a higher calorie and higher fat day than I would have liked.  But like nearly every Saturday, my eating was done away from home.  I was in a meeting for most of the day, and stopped to pick up breakfast (a scrambled egg, bacon strips and hash browns–I did not eat all the bacon, and only ate a couple of tablespoons of hashbrowns).  I failed to pack a protein friendly snack, and at lunchtime, we did not break for lunch so I chose to eat half a whole wheat bagel.  Perhaps not the best choice, but given that my other choices were packets of M&Ms and bananas (which I absolutely HATE), I think I didn’t do too poorly.  I had planned on working out later anyhow, which I did as a brisk 30-minute walk around the mall.  Calories were 1080, with 95 grams protein, 71 grams carbs (most from the bagel, boo), and 51 grams fat.  Tomorrow’s eating will be better for sure.

Today’s food choices, from upper right: half a whole wheat bagel; salmon Oscar with fried asparagus and steamed veggies (I ate half the fish, all the crab, the asparagus and two bites of carrots and broccoli); a little less than half a mixed green salad; Rudy’s smoked beef tenderloin and pinto beans; scrambled egg and 2 pieces of bacon, two tablespoons of hash browns; multivitamin and calcium supplements x2, iron supplement. Not shown: small piece of jalapeno sausage.