Newness renewed

I haven't blogged much about my weight loss journey in a while. Well, that's because I haven't been losing weight. I've hovered around the same 30lb loss for the past 3 months. Sucks big time. But, to be totally honest, it's no surprise.

I guess I just got bored. Bored with the food, the exercise, the routine. I had done the same cardio DVD so many times, I was almost doing it by memory. Yoga was getting a little too flaky so I wasn't really getting much strength/resistance exercise anymore. I had learned that I could cheat and eat things off the JC menu and still lose a little weight. At one point, I gave in to my cravings and just ate whatever, whenever, without compensatory exercise.

But you see, it's easier to lose weight at the beginning of a diet and cheating a little is more forgiving. But when you're at the steady rate of a little (about a half pound to a pound) weight loss, a cheat has more of an impact.

Not losing weight has been hurting my mood too. While school will always be a source of crappy stress, getting fitter could always make me happier. And not losing, and not even trying to lose weight, really bummed me out.

So the scale has been hovering around the same number, give or take a pound. Water weight, right? Maybe. But it went up two weeks in a row. Still within an acceptable possible water retention range, but still. I'm scared I'm actually gaining back fat. THAT SUCKS.

What to do? I got a great suggestion from my coworker to write down everything I eat. I got a cute little notebook that fits in my purse and a cute little matcing pen from Target. It forces me to be totally honest with myself about what I'm putting in my mouth. It will discourage me from cheating because I'll have to face it right there in black and white. And the portability is good because food memory is SO short. What did you have for breakfast yesterday? Did you have two or three pieces of candy?

But the best thing about the notebook is the novelty. It's like starting all over again. Also, it restarts the process of setting little goals for myself again. In the beginning back in October, the little goals were things like starting the diet, starting to exercise, start cardio, do cardio 3x a week. And after a while, I forgot to make little goals and lost site of the final goal. So this week, my little goal is to keep up with the notebook. I'm thinking and hoping I'll keep it up; it's like food blogging, (only private)!

And I did the old cardio DVD again for the first time in a while, so it feels like new. Plus I got a new DVD in the mail the other day.

Despite the crappy crappy school crap and sad birthday, I think I'm back on track to being happier :)

Oh, by the way, the best advice I got this week was to learn from your mistakes and congratulate yourself for the things you did do right.