Monday and I kicked Weekend's Butt.

I am super tired this morning and I'm not sure why. I really didn't want to get up today. But, here I am at work and hard at it. Ha ha. As I catch up on blogs and comments and such.

The weekend ended nicely and I am still amazed at how differently I eat now. Yesterday I made steak, salad and baked potato for dinner. I measured out about 4 oz of steak. It was juicy and tasty. But, I ate about half and felt like I might explode. I ate 1/2 the potato. And I ate a good portion of salad. The salad was lovely with mixed greens, sweet orange and red bell peppers, yellow tomatoes, red onion, pear and cranberry goat cheese.  Last night we fed our family of 5 on 2 good sized rib eye steaks. A year ago, I could have eaten a whole one by myself. Last night I ate about 2-2.5 ounces of meat and woke up this morning still full.

The weekend and potential pitfalls did not get me off track. I have to say I have gotten this weekend thing figured out. I'm going to give you the secret now. Please pay attention. If you want to know how to lose weight over the weekend like I did this week (a whole pound), this is how you do it. Ready? Are you ready for the secret? Here it is:

THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT WEEKENDS. 

There you go. I've figured it out. I went to 2 different socials this weekend. Both of them offered opportunity for extreme eating. Hot dogs, cupcakes, cotton candy, popcorn, cakes, brownie, cookies, ice cream, alcohol.  All of it was available. All of it was FREE. And I ate none. Well...I confess I ate 1/2 of a chocolate chip cookie and 1 Mikes Hard Lemonade Light. 

Here's the deal. Stop lying to yourself. You can have fun without food. You can be social without food or alcohol. You can relax without a bag of chips in your lap. You can laugh and yell at the TV when the big game is on without the hot wings. You have to realize that your body burns the same amount of calories Monday-Friday as it does on the weekend. Why do we fool ourselves into believing that "a little splurge" is no big deal?  The truth is my BIG FAT FAT LIFE, is one "little splurge" after another. 

I was never one of those fat people that ate that badly. I love veggies and salads and fruits. They've always been a part of my life. But, I am an emotional eater. That means that I reward myself for making it through the week with eating Pizza, Hamburgers, Desserts, Snacks and whatever the hell else happened to be handy on the weekends. I am also a closet eater at times. I didn't want people at work see me eating that crap. So I would "be good" all week only to allow myself to "splurge a little" when I had. And how did that work out for me? GREAT if my goal was to maintain. I stayed around the same weight for the last 15 years. 240-260 pounds.

The truth is that being healthy cannot be the punishment and those weekend splurges the reward for living healthy through the week. It just doesn't work. You have to either eat right or not. Realize that these splurges are doing your brain no favors. They train your brain to crave them. They train your brain to expect them. They make getting through the days you plan to be "good" harder. They just do.

Now, it doesn't mean that there aren't times I plan to eat a little more. I might plan to eat something special for a SPECIAL occasion. But, that is a rare thing. The weekends are not special enough to me to risk my progress. The truth is I have to ask myself, "Is this splurge worth my life?"  Is having a piece of cake at my kids birthday party important enough to risk putting me off my track to healthy? Wouldn't my kid rather have a healthy Mommy around to see them grow up MORE than eating a piece of their cake? Wouldn't I rather have weight loss and health than that pizza? 

When I first started down this road, I was not doing great on the weekends. I was eating whatever. What I figured out from tracking my food and weighing is that I would lose weight all week, gain over the weekend and spend the next week losing those same 1-2 pounds. I was getting no where. If you are letting yourself splurge 1-2 days a week, that is most likely what is happening to you. I also figured out that I began to expect to eat crap on the weekends. I fell back into my mindless eating where I see food, shove it in my mouth before I thought about if I was hungry and before I thought about how many calories I'd had already that day. And pretty soon, those weekend splurges started Friday evening. So I was really splurging 3 days out of 7.

And now that I've come to this realization, I know that there is no reason why I can't get through ANY occassion, ANY stress ANY holiday and still eat well. Name me one reason OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT I DON'T WANT TO, that I can't.  There is ALWAYS a choice. At Halloween, I can say no to candy. I can eat an apple with fat free caramel for a treat instead. At Thanksgiving there is turkey and veggies. What's healthier than that?  Plus I can make my sugar free fruit pie that has only 175 calories a slice. At Christmas, I can SKIP making the candy. I can eat the ham and make sweet potatoes baked with a little Splenda brown sugar and cinamon instead of the sugary creamy mess we usualy make.

The only thing that keeps me from making healthy choices is ME. It is me choosing that I don't want to eat healthy at that minute. That is fine if I'm OK with gaining a little weight and dealing with the consequences of craving bad foods again for a time after. Fact is I'm to the point that none of that is OK with me. I realize that the attitude of "I don't care right now. I'm going to eat what I want and enjoy it" has stood in my way for sooo long. The fact is that I HAVE to care and I HAVE to find a way to eat healthy AND enjoy it. Doing that is the key to long term success.

What about you? How are you handling your weekends?  Are you still caught up in the cycle of  lose, splurge, lose, splurge and cycling those same 2 pounds on and off every week?  There are a LOT of occasions coming.  Have you decided if they are worth a setback in your weight? Do you really want to start this year with yet another resolution to lose those 10-15 pounds you gained over the holiday? Is JUST maintaining OK with you for the Holidays?

Because it damn sure isn't for me. I am determined to start this next year at a lower weight than ever before.  I am going to be free to think about something other than weight at resolution time this year because I know I'm already on track and losing. I am determined to get through this holiday madness knowing I've LOST weight and prove to myself that I AM NEVER GOING BACK to my old ways.

I am going to finally stop rewarding myself with food. Living a healthy life IS THE REWARD. I think I have finally got it.  Have you???