Not My....Best Week Ever

To put it bluntly....I sucked at THM during these last two weeks! But I am human and I am allowed to suck every once and awhile. This particular challenge has been much more challenging to me than the previous one. Life hit me with some unexpected changes and worries and I spent a good deal of these two weeks trying to deal with emotions. In the past, emotions have always been my downfall as that is when I usually reach for fast food and gummy bears. I am proud to say that neither passed my lips, but I did not do well on plan either.

Along with being all up in my emotions and fighting off McDonald's urges, I also found some Trim Healthy Mama items that can be described as nothing less than pure evil. That's right....I said EVIL! First there was Lily's Chocolate bars. I found a couple of variety's at a little store we have close by that sells a lot of the THM stuff. I knew after the first bite that I was going to have to watch myself....especially when I dipped them in Peanut Junkie Butter. Goodness it was amazing! It was a Reese's peanut butter cup without the sugar. Not over indulging became a real trick and I realized after my second bar, that buying these at this point in my journey was not in my best interest, so bye bye Lily's until I can actually behave myself and act like an adult around them and not a kid whose parents are away for the weekend. Sigh......

The other truly EVIL thing I discovered was the Trimtastic Cake. I switched out the zucchini and used yellow squash and switched out the chocolate with strawberries. I made it into cupcakes and I couldn't keep my hands off of them. Luckily, my family had similar feelings about them, so there weren't a lot left around to tempt me. It did however, take me only about 10 seconds to realize that these treats needed to be left for special occasions when many people would be around to help me eat them. Again....my addictive personality was kicking in.

Along with finding these new almost irresistible treats, I did a lot of fighting with my emotions which left me also fighting old patterns and habits. Rather than waiting the 3 hours, my afternoons and evenings sometimes had much less time between when I ate. And last Saturday was my worst day since I started this back in May. I ended up throwing the time table out the window and declared it a cheat day. The foods I ate were on plan and I really tried not to have any crossovers, but there was a lot more food in a lot less time span.

While I have tried my hardest to stick this week out and do my best.....my best hasn't been very good compared to the last few weeks. Oh....and there was that whole pesky exercise thing. Yeah....it didn't happen. I tried a couple of times, but the truth is....exercise was inconvenient in my schedule so rather than make myself a priority and make the time.....I kind of just.....didn't do it. Nope, it was not one of my finer couple of weeks.

Now the good news. Yes, there is good news.....at least I think there is. There has been one huge NSV (non-scale victory) in all of this and that has been the fact that I have not touched sugar and even with all my "bad" eating, I still couldn't make myself eat off plan stuff. Even on my worst day, I didn't reach for off plan candy, chips or fast food. That in itself is quite amazing! I also made sure that starting this next week/challenge, that my elliptical was ready to go and that my exercise time comes before anything else....whatever I have to do to make it work. I am not going to let bad habits and stress beat me!

I am not as happy with myself right now as I have been, but I do know that I have come too far to backslide and lose all that I have accomplished. Even though I have not lived up to what I know I can achieve, I know that I have changed a lot and I want to continue forward. Over these last few weeks, my idea of what is cheating has completely changed as well as how I view food and more importantly myself. I think once I get the exercise implemented just as strongly as the good eating habits seem to be, that my continued journey on this plan will be much more effective and my health benefits will just continue to increase.

So how did I do these two weeks after finding Lily's and Trimtastic Cake and not being faithful to my eating schedule? Well, I was prepared for anything this morning. Mostly I was expecting to see a gain, but amazingly.....I am exactly where I started two weeks ago. Normally this would be a bit disappointing, but today I am grateful that I don't have to re-lose weight I put back on because of "bad" behavior. Okay....not bad but definitely slightly naughty!

Today is a new day and while I haven't heard what the next challenge is yet, I know I am ready to continue this journey and I am prepared to give it 100%.

Life is not about perfection because we are imperfect beings. Life is about trying, sometimes failing.....and then picking yourself up and starting again. It is our failures that we learn from and there have been many lessons for me, both physically and mentally in these last couple of weeks. I am getting stronger and life's speed bumps don't cripple me like they used to. Will this be the last time I have a bad couple of weeks while working to lose my weight and become a better me? I sincerely doubt it, but hopefully the times will become less and less and each time they do come, I will be able to handle them better and better.

So my suggestion to all of you out there......Don't give up! Don't expect perfection from yourself because you will only set yourself up to fail! Simply do your best each minute of each day and always keep in mind that.....you are worth it!