Made it past Day 1

Christmas is over, the new toys are put away, the house has been cleaned, chaos has subsided, and I have successfully made it past day 1 (woo hoo!).  Something about the holidays being over makes it easier to focus and and get back on track (although technically I suppose they are over until after New Years Day, but I'm going to start a little early.)  Of course, having most of the baked goods out of the house (because they were devoured) helps.  However there is still plenty of candy lingering.  I know now that if I want to eat something sweet I just have to plan on it being extra.  Before, I would eat something sweet and try to use it as a replacement to stay on track which never seemed to work.  I couldn't eat cookies and not have an afternoon snack, I couldn't eat cake and then not eat dinner.  Turns out sweets don't keep you very full.  I also know now that I am not one of those people who can give it up all together, so I will just have to regulate it.  Allow myself something small every day so I don't start feeling deprived.  I also realized feeling deprived can be a choice.  It's about your mindset, instead of feeling deprived and sad that you can't eat something, I tell myself "I am choosing not to eat that because there are things more important to me than eating a whole lot of candy/cake/desserts".  This works well for me especially if I do let myself have some treats, I just need to make sure I work it into my day.

Speaking of working it into my day, now that I am back the biggest lesson I learned during my floundering was that I need to make sure that I am making liveable choices.  This summer I was doing really well, got down to 143, but I was working out 6 times a week.  That isn't really something I could maintain, it was part of the reason why I fell so hard.  I was just tired of working that hard.  With eating my ultimate goal is still intuitive eating.  I would love to be free of tracking, but I have to be able to keep the mindset of being "on" when I'm not tracking in order for this to work, so a much more gradual transition is going to be required.  After I've lost this holiday weight, maybe once I've switched to maintenance I will slowly start to switch.  Starting with one day a week and working my way up to full time. 

Here are some photos from Christmas, and now begins Day 2