Getting back in the swing of things.

Some of you may have noticed that I slipped all  of the vacation and birthday posts in this week without actually addressing the whole 6-Week Plan and Bikini Project stuff.

Well, today is confession day.  And here it is:  The 6-Week Plan was only mildly successful, and no, I absolutely did NOT wear a bikini on my 31st birthday.  (And not just because it was only 19 degrees Celsius on July 28th, and felt more like a brisk fall day than the dog days of summer.  Like, seriously, we thought about starting a fire in the woodstove inside the camp.  It was that cold.)

The last week of the plan went amazingly well, to be honest.  I did a high-protein low-carb 5-day diet in one last-ditch effort to get into the bikini, and it brought me down to my lowest weight yet.  But unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough.  On the Saturday, I dug out the bikinis my friend Lindsay had loaned me, took pictures of myself in them, and decided it was a no-go.  There was still too much of a pooch on this ol’ belly.  I’m not sure it will ever go away.  (And after all of this, I’m not sure if I care anymore.)

I did get a second opinion, too.  I showed the pictures to my mom and sister, and they agreed that if it were them, they wouldn’t be comfortable showing off that mid-riff either – despite the fact that I have plenty to be proud of with what I’ve accomplished in transforming my body this past year and a half.

The fact that the day ended up cool and too breezy for any sort of swimsuit just cemented the decision for me.

That being said, I was more than excited to have two new tankinis that I’d purchased on-line from Sears that arrived just in the nick of time for vacation.  I felt totally comfortable in them, and got plenty of use out of them for the rest of the week.  So really, at the end of the day, I didn’t care about the bikini failure.

I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation.  I probably ate too much over the course of the week, but I also never missed a workout (quite a feat to accomplish while on holidays, away from home with no DVD player!) – and after it was all over, I felt good about it.  No major harm done.

But then, last week came along, and with it, a whole pile of stress.  I won’t go into detail on the reasons for it, but basically I was a strung-out mess.  And what does Jill do when she’s a strung-out mess?

She eats.

I gave myself too much slack.  I told myself, “Okay, you’ve had a crappy day.  You’re allowed to have chips and ice cream for supper tonight.”  One day lead to two days, two days to three, and the next thing you know, the whole damned week was a write-off.

It culminated with an all-out food-fest on Sunday after Sam’s baptism.  I swear, I lost count of the number of cookies I ate that afternoon.  And the fistfuls of chips.  And the pieces of ice cream cake. 

*sigh*

Here’s where the real problem comes in:  After granting myself a week of eating whatever I want, it becomes really hard to reign it all back in again.  And I’m struggling this week.  Big-time.

I’ve been doing better these past few days, but it’s so hard when I know there’s still ice cream in the freezer and bags of chips in the cupboard.  Especially when the evening snack cravings hit.  Thus, I’ve granted myself a few more days to “get rid of it”all (which means, “eat it”), and then I plan to buckle down again on Monday.

Monday is going to be my “fresh start”, with the new goal now of developing a better relationship with food, as well as maintaining a regular workout schedule. I bought Cameron Diaz’s best-seller The Body Book as a little birthday present to myself, and I’m hoping it will help me in working towards this new goal.  I also have PiYo on order from Beachbody, with the plan of starting that program after Labour Day.

 

I’m sick of this vicious cycle – the love-hate relationship I have with food.  I’m tired of feeling guilty when I eat too much, and regretting my actions.  I want to develop a healthier relationship with food, much the way I’ve cultivated a relationship with exercise.

On to the next step.  I’m a better person when my focus is strong.  I know that after just a few days of being back on track, I will feel better and it will get easier with each successful day.

Now I just need to get started.