dianaschnuth

I do NOT deal well with stress. I am a stress-eater.

Usually my stress-eating manifests after a particularly contentious bedtime with my five-year-old. I set myself a new goal to avoid eating after 7pm, rather than 8pm, since I had a tendency of rapid-fire binge-eating if Connor’s bedtime didn’t go well, in order to get my emotional eating done before my 8pm food cutoff.

My job, thankfully, is not generally a stressor for me. One fateful day, though, a co-worker came to my desk right before lunch and engaged me in a work-related debate in which he started with false assumptions. It lasted entirely too long, it stressed me out, multiple co-workers attempted to come to my rescue, and at the end of it, I ate my lunch from home plus a serving of lasagna from the cafe downstairs. Plus a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup I brought in from Connor’s Halloween stash.

(I had planned to go on a camera walk over my lunch break that day, but after that, I really wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I just got outside and walked to a local coffee shop in the 71°F weather. In November. In Ohio. And then I impulse-bought an eclair along with my skinny latte.)

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For once, my mid-month body fat percentage check was a win — I went down one third of a percent from the previous month. I’ll take whatever I can get.

Also, yet another non-scale victory regarding body image: during Yoga Flow class, I saw and acknowledged my midriff rolls, and didn’t care AT ALL, because HOLY SHITBALLS look at those shoulders HOT DAMN.

I’ve had a few No Good Very Bad Days where I self-medicate with carbs, but I’m apparently being gooder than I am badder overall, because my weight is still trending downward this month. Actually, I’ve lost more this month (on average) than any single month so far this year.

Even with all this positive juju, though, and an average loss for this month versus last month, I’m still pretty much stalled where I’ve been all year. I’ll have a couple weeks of awesome weight loss, then a slight rebound, then I’ll hold steady for a month. Or I’ll have a Really Bad Week, then a Really Good Week to get back to where I was, then maintain. In order for me to reach Goal by the end of the year (Thanksgiving is no longer a reasonable target), I’ll need to consistently have decent losses every week — slightly more than one pound.

I made it through a wedding without even a weight blip — mostly because I wasn’t enamored with the catered BBQ, and I took it easy on the wedding cupcakes. (Which was hard because OM NOM NOM CUPCAKES.)

Next month’s challenge: Halloween candy. My son doesn’t care for chocolate as much as chewy and crunchy candies like Dots and Starburst, which leaves the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Snickers and Hershey’s and various other awesomeness for me and Dad to pilfer. As long as I pilfer them one at a time, though — just like I dole them out to my son after dinner — I should be fine.

It’s still completely reasonable for me to reach Goal by year end. I just have to believe that, and want it, and prioritize it.

I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off, but that Eva Longoria sheath dress on The Limited’s website really looked flattering — plus, I could get it at 40% off. That purchase turned into the biggest Non-Scale Victory I’ve experienced in a Very Long Time.

Not only did I wear it to work (and accessorize it properly), but I felt good in it, and I looked good in it, and I got unsolicited compliments on it (which is to say, I wasn’t fishing for compliments).

Had anyone asked me five years and fourteen pounds ago if I’d be comfortable wearing an eyelet knit stretch sheath dress without a jacket or sweater over it, my answer would have been HELLZ to the NO. Today, even though I can still see my lumps and bumps and rolls and other indignities, I still feel really awesome in this dress.

This is not a little thing. This is a huge shift in mindset. This is big.
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Overall Impressions of August
First half of August = major slip-ups
Last half of August = excellent recovery

I started August in a bad place. My weight was trending slowly upward over the last week and a half of July, and the waistband of my once-comfortably-snug size 12 pants suddenly made my skin itch from being too tight. I felt frumpy and sausagey and a little overwhelmed, despite still only being maybe seven pounds above my Lowest Weight Ever.

The weak point in my program continues to be poor decisions made in the moment. Whether I’m enticed by zucchini bread at work or drawn to simple carbohydrates at home, these spontaneous deviations from plan are thwarting my weight loss efforts.

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