home

after days of travelling around, hauling my stuff in and out of my car (which, believe me - was not a small task) i am back home at my apartment. it feels so good to be back. i mean, i loved seeing all my friends and family - but am i ever tired! it was fun being caught up in that whirlwind for a while, but i gotta get back to my routine.

needless to say, i have good news and bad news. the good news is that i made it to the gym 5 days in a row! and each time i didn't just do a lousy little 20 minutes of nothingness, i worked my butt off! in fact, even on christmas day my sister and i went to the y (which was open for holiday hours) and went for a run and a swim. i loved it! there usually isn't much to do on christmas other than eat and watch tv, but this was fun and gave us something to do together.

the bad news is, at some point during this holiday my resolve crumbled. it began christmas eve, and just continued. it was like a snowball effect. all week i was eating food i am not normally accustomed to eating and that someone else prepared. i did my best for the first 3 or 4 days to make my own snacks and lunches/dinners, and was in moderation mode for everything else. but i felt like i couldn't track (i mean, i tried but it was kind of useless) because i wasn't sure what was in some of the food (not that there was anything super funky, but i couldn't be sure what sort of ingredients were used). i was embarassed to ask people because i didn't want to feel like a nusiance. the real clincher happened when i left my favorite water bottle at someones house. i tried to keep drinking water, but i'm pretty sure i wasn't getting enough in.

everything was alright until i began to realize i was losing control. once i got to my sisters place on christmas eve, i just kept. eating. crap. this just basically continued until today.

it's really hard for me to write that because i wanted so so much to do well this holiday, to come out on the other side with pride and confidence in myself like kerry. i feel ashamed and disappointed in myself, annoyed and full of doubts. is this what happens when i can't eat my pre-programmed foods? when i can't control my environment to the umpteenth degree?

but then i heave a big sigh (like i have done at least three times in writing this) and allow myself to be human. bah. i know i feel like a failure, but i *did* follow what i laid out for myself. i packed my food, i made my meals, i went to the gym. i didn't hit every goal spot on, but i certainly tried. i can't imagine what this holiday would have been like if i hadn't tried. next time i will just have to plan harder, and learn to speak up for myself better. this time around i was much more vocal about the changes i have been making in my life (especially since people notice that i have lost weight, and have been asking me about it). that demonstrates a major change for me. up until this point, my weight loss has been a fairly private thing that i didn't really share with people. this time around i want people to know how hard i have worked and i want to inspire them to do the same.

i also tried to be more vocal to my friends about how i have to choose healthy choices everyday. this was probably one of the hardest parts of my holidays, because it became really evident to me that they really just don't understand. they want to support me, but they don't understand how much work it is for me to make healthy choices. for example, two of my girlfriends and i went for breakfast and i had to spend a good 10 minutes pouring over the menu trying to figure out what i could actually eat without feeling guilty. after a while, i muttered something about "i just want to order something healthy..." and one of them responded, "everything at this restaurant is healthy!"

now, sure, my choices at this restaurant were better than, say - pete's fryhouse and burger shack... but i'm pretty sure the nutella and banana crepes that i wanted to order that day would have blown all my pts! and this friend - this beautiful, slender, i-don't-even-own-a-scale friend... didn't understand the struggle that it was for me.

anyways, with all that being said, i haven't had an official weigh-in yet. i skipped saturday since i have a missed meeting coupon to use. i'm going to weigh in this saturday and see what happens. *bite nail* i peeked at the scale this morning and i was up to 198.2... hopefully being back home will help me get back in to the swing of things and shed those few extra holiday lbs.