Months three and four- The Holdays!

You might be wondering why these two months got grouped together... It is because the holiday season covered these two months of my diet! I am going to discuss them together since I learned about and overcame (or not) the same obstacles for these 2 months!
Month 3-


During month 3 I upped my total weight loss to 40lbs! I had reached my first mini goal and felt AWESOME! However, this covered Thanksgiving which obviously posed its own challenges for me and my diet. We flew to New York to spend Turkey Day with Kyle's family and had a great time! But have I mentioned that Kyle's family is Italian?? They LOOOOOVE their pasta! And lets be real.... I do too! But that is part of what got me into this mess in the first place! So We got some apples and yogurt as that is my standard breakfast and I vowed to not over indulge in anything. Shockingly, IT WORKED!!! I allowed myself to eat anything I wanted... but in a very small portion. It was the first holiday that I can remember actually being able to see some of my plate behind all of the food! Instead of two heaping spoonfuls of green bean casserole (with loads of cheese and fried onions... YUMMY!), I just allowed myself 2 tablespoons. Not only did I still eat what I wanted and felt full at the end of it all, but I did not experience the food coma I usually felt at the end of a holiday meal. HOT DAMN! It seemed like I was really on to something here!

Well, a couple weeks went by and I finished up month four-

Now I was down a total of 49.5lbs and really starting to look different. (I know what you are thinking.... you looked different IMMEDIATELY! I know that I did... but to me it was this month that I realized I was getting a nice waist back!) I tackled Christmas with the same plan that I tackled Thanksgiving with and all went well. It was challenging because now I was at home with my mom and all of the comfort foods I have known my whole life! Mom got me all the fruits I requested and did her best to make it easy on me, but sometimes the smell of sausage made me want to throw myself through the kitchen window! (Yes, expect to still have cravings even 4 months into your diet!) During this time we celebrated Christmas and New Years which also covered our engagement! Exciting, ABSOLUTELY! Did it lead to cheating? Absolutely.

These two months posed more challenges for some obvious reasons.... the ones I listed above are the obvious ones. The biggest challenge that I did not expect during the holidays was the effect that it had on me when my plan worked. This whole time I have been dieting and waiting for the fallout when all of a sudden I hit a plateau and I stop losing. I went through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years and I was STILL LOSING! Why? Because I stuck to my plan! Why was this a challenge you ask? Well.... this is when I realized that my "unattainable goal" was not so unattainable after all. The minute that you realize that you can eat what you want, as long as it is in moderation, and still lose weight, that is when a light bulb goes off in your head. For me it came at the end of month 3, for you it might be sooner or later than that.... but you will KNOW when it happens. The problem with that, is that after that realization it is very hard to stick to your diet 100%. It is working, your diet and exercise is paying off, but even when you are allowing yourself to indulge you are STILL LOSING! Your mind says, "well I can be really strict with myself and lose LOTS of weight. But if I slack off and eat what I want I can still lose more than I used to." There is no version of shutting yourself up quite like biting the head off the cookie.... but you HAVE GOT to find a way to silence that thought! This is NOT the time to slack up! Now it is time to put the hammer down and FOCUS on the long term goal! If you start slacking up now you will never reach your final goal!!!! So man up and ask for support from someone, hell, ask for support from me! But get people on your side and remove the temptations so that you can get re-committed to the plan.