After two months...

After two months I had lost a total of 26.5lbs! So exciting!!! I could see a difference and felt HOT again! I was seeing big numbers each week and I was working hard to make the right choices with my food and trying to stay active with riding. Here are a few of the challenges that I faced during month two:

Cravings- I cannot begin to explain the cravings you will feel. They come on fast and they come on HARD! I am not someone who has ever really had major cravings but starting in month 2 I sure did! Imagine the worst pregnancy cravings and them multiply that my a million. All I can say is STAY STRONG!!! But LOTS of sugar free gum to pacify your cravings and drink lots of water.

Willpower- Now is when your will power will be tested. Sure, you got through the first month, you lost some weight and that is AWESOME! But do you have the resolve to stick with it? YES YOU DO! Remember the results you have seen, they will come slowly but you just have to put the hammer down and dedicate yourself to changing your life! We all have our own reasons, for me it was wanting to look good when I get married, wanting to be able to a)have kids and b) actually be able to play with them, and wanting my body to stop hurting so much from the sheer pressure of the extra pounds I was carrying around with me all the time! What is your reason? Now is the time to figure it out. And don't set goals like, "my 10 year reunion." That is simply too short term! What happens if you get to your goal for the reunion and then you fall off the wagon and gain 30lbs and then you run into Miss Prom Queen circa 1999 (or 2009 or 1989 or 1979)?? All of that hard work would have been for nothing! Look at the bigger picture and decide why you want to do this for yourself.

Cheating- Yes, this goes hand in hand with will power but this topic is so vital that I feel it deserves some special attention. Cheating will happen. If you are new to this then you might be shaking your head and saying, "not for me it won't! I am too strong for that!" Trust me and know that I am saying this with all the love in the world when I say, yes it will and you are not too strong for it... no one is! Allow me to share a comical and sad story with you....
During this point of my life I was bringing lunch to work almost every day. On this particular day, however, I forgot my lunch and decided to go to Subway. That is a good decision for those "break the glass" moments. (I hate to sound like a Subway and Biggest Loser advertisement, but the fresh fit meals really are great. A 6" turkey sub on wheat with apples and a bottle of water for around 300 calories? SOLD!) So I go and I order my food and while they are bagging up my sandwich I walk to the fridge and get my apples and water out, pay and head out the door. My plan was to make a phone call so I thought I would just sit in the car to talk and eat. So as I am eating my sandwich and talking on the phone to my mom I reach in the bag for a napkin and to my absolute HORROR...... there is a COOKIE IN MY BAG! A FRESH BAKED COOKIE!!! Oh my goodness! What kind of A-hole puts a freakin cookie in your bag without asking if you want it?!?!? Didn't they see that I ordered off the FRESH FIT MENU?!?! If I wanted a cookie I would have ordered it!!! (Obviously I am still a little traumatized by the "cookie incident." Let me just tell you, there is no test of willpower quite like a warm chocolate chip cookie. I put the cookie to the side and went on with my sandwich. I thought about it while I was talking to my mom and decided I would take it back to work to give to my pregnant friend. Pregnant people love cookies, right? Well, so do dieting people. And you might not have heard your food speak to you before, but 6 weeks in and 20lbs down and that cookie is BEGGING to be part of your meal. How do you silence the cookie??? You bite its damn head off.... that's how! And that is EXACTLY what happened! I took a big bite out of that cookie and then chucked the rest of it right out the window!!!! Judging from the look on a nearby woman's face, I must have looked like a lunatic! After all, I just threw out a perfectly good cookie! Who does that?! I do... that's who! I knew that one bite was not going to kill me or throw me off my plan completely... but I knew that I did not have the willpower to only take one bite. So I chose to remove the temptation. (Remember the lesson from last month??? It still holds true!)

Moral of the story- Cut yourself some slack! It takes time to retrain your stomach and your brain. When you REALLY crave something.... give it a few days to see if it will pass and if it doesn't then give yourself a bite of whatever it is. It is hard to limit yourself to one bite of anything, so if you are not strong enough then it is best to avoid it all together. But I have found that if I am really craving something I am more likely to binge if I resist it for too long. But do not let that one bite turn into 2 and then 10 and then "well I will just have a cheat day." Stay on track and REMEMBER to focus on the goal!