Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Week 48, 169 lbs.


Gratuitous bathroom mirror shot taken at work.
I LOVE this dress, wanted a picture of myself in it,
and we were so busy the day I wore it that I was
unable to get someone to take my picture.


Okay, time to get real! 

I've been complacent lately... and when I say lately, I mean the last couple of months.  Somewhere along the line I stopped listening to my own voice and let the opinions and actions of other people have too much influence over me.  As a result, I've not been as focused on reducing my body fat as I would like to be.

I've spent a good amount of time this week thinking about how long it took me to get out of the 180s and then the 170s ... and how quickly I dropped weight earlier in my journey.  After I took an honest look at my progress, I had to give myself a loving but firm lecture on why I am on this diet in the first place!  I'm celebrating making it into the 160s, but I also know I could have been here a lot sooner!

I've been getting a lot of questions from friends and acquaintances about when I am going to stop dieting, because I've "lost enough weight and look great right now." 

I know, deep inside myself, that it's not time to quit this diet.  I still have a ways to go (my guess is around 25 lbs.) before my fat ratio is where I want it to be.  However, there's another part of myself (my ego?) that thinks those folks might be right. After all, I've been on this diet for almost a year, have worked really hard and I look pretty good!  Time for a break, right?

Wrong!!

I've also been listening too much to other women who are just getting started on Ideal Protein.  I have some friends who are trying the program because they've witnessed my success, which is great, but I think I've invested too much of myself in their personal journeys.  As if their success or failure will somehow reflect on me.

Some talk about "cheat days" or going off plan for a day or two to "re-set" their metabolism.  Others talk about how hard the diet is to follow.  One friend in particular has been on Ideal Protein for only a couple of weeks.  Within the same breath she'll celebrate the number of pounds she's dropped and gripe about the diet. She doesn't like the diet food, she's tired of salads, drinking all that water is a pain, her breath is bad (which I never had a problem with), she can't drink with her buddies... on and on she whines about being on a diet, regardless of the positive results she's experiencing. She has made it clear that this diet has not been a pleasant experience for her.

I wish her well and am happy that she's lost as much as she has but I have got to stop listening to her and taking her issues personally.  She has her own approach to dieting, I have mine.  Her success or failure doesn't justify or negate my own journey - I need to stop paying so much attention to what others are saying and listen to my OWN inner voice.

My own inner voice says I am worth this effort.  I have already proven that I can do this and it's been relatively easy.  My inner voice reminds me of how much my life has changed and  good I feel in comparison to how I felt when I looked like this: 
Back a couple of blogs ago I wrote that I was eating mostly vegetables when I've been deviating from the diet protocol.  This has also been delaying my progress.  It doesn't matter how "good" the food is for me, it's messing up the formula that Ideal Protein put together to get the weight off my body.  I've been looking foward too much, thinking about how I am going to eat once I am finished dieting instead of focusing on the now and dealing with the task at hand.

All of these factors have been torpedoing my progress.  It's time I took responsibility for the progress I am making, stop goofing around and get on with it!

This weekend I was dressed up for a reception at work and wore a sleek, form-fitting dress that I've had in my closet for a little over a month, waiting for me to get to the right size.  I looked GOOD in that dress, the photo at the top of the page really doesn't do it justice, because I took the photo myself in a bathroom mirror. Anyway, a man at the reception referred to me as a "hot chick" - nobody, in the entire course of my life, has ever called me anything like that!!  I couldn't believe he was talking about ME!

That may be one person's opinion, but I've decided it's an opinion I agree with!  I AM a hot chick!  A hot chick who can kick butt when it comes to dieting! Time to stop dragging my feet and focus on finishing Phase I!

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