Back At It!

After two weeks of traveling from the beauty of the Utah mountains at Sundance to the Mojave Desert to the palm trees of Southern California, it was great waking up in my own bed yesterday morning!  We had a wonderful trip - a good balance of work and fun (but since we love our work, it was really ALL fun!).

What wasn't so much fun was stepping on the scale when I got home.  I could tell by the way my jeans were fitting towards the end of our trip that I was bringing home more than I left with, and I'm not just talking about souvenirs.  A combination of lots of traveling and being very off-schedule, many restaurant meals and frankly not always making wise choices showed up on the scale.  It's not awful and my size 6 jeans still fit, but my weight is definitely not where I want it to be and my 6's are mighty snug right now. 

In retrospect, I honestly do wish I'd made more wise choices along the way.  By the time we got home, I was feeling pretty sluggish.  Not eating right really makes a difference in my energy level!That's the bad news.

The good news is that I know exactly what to do :-).  As of yesterday morning, I'm back on 5&1 for a couple of weeks or so.  I don't have a pair of size 8 jeans to grab, so I have two alternatives right now:  I can either nip the gain in the bud or go out and buy a bigger size.  Since I just told you that I'm back on 5&1, you already know what I've chosen to do.  And that is a wise choice :-)

Maintenance definitely isn't for sissies, and as much as I wish this was easy, it's not.  I wish I always made wise choices, but I don't.  Getting back into my routine definitely helps, and I've also recognized the need to get refocused on what I want long term, and what I want long term is a fit and healthy body.  I've learned again that when I don't focus on what I really want, I naturally gravitate towards immediate gratification.

So getting refocused is part of me getting back on track.  Knowing that I don't have anything other than fitted clothes is also motivation.  There are no elastic-waist, "eat and grow" slacks in my closet - nothing to slip into that would allow me to continue down a wrong path.  My clothes and the scale keep me honest, and they keep me accountable.

Part of maintaining is monitoring - weighing on a regular basis and paying attention to how clothes fit.  That has helped me repeatedly over the past 2-1/2 years since I reached goal and has helped me stay in my goal range and my goal size.  Right now I'm on the upper end of that range for sure, but not for long!  I'll go through the "fun" of getting back into fat-burning and will probably have a headache before I'm there, but I know that doing it now will get be back where I want to be.

Part of keeping me focused is my daily blogging, too, because I can't encourage others to choose wisely if I'm not doing that myself!  No matter where you are on your journey - just getting started, making good progress, or perhaps starting over, we're all in this together.  What we ALL want is a thin, healthy body as well as the healthy habits that will help us maintain that healthy body.  We will all get there one meal, one day and one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)