The evasive manuvers of my dieting

#4. Apathy (the hardest to evade)
Someone had on their fridge the words "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." I believe that when I am getting dressed and nothing fits, but when I am in front of a bakery, I beg to differ.

One of the biggest deterrents to success is apathy. I can justify sinning against anything I am not 100% committed to, budgeting, laundry, and in the past - exercise. What is it with me? I get committed to a healthy life when I can't button up my jeans, or when my blouse puckers between buttons, but that commitment fades when faced with the first pangs of desire. Sometimes that happens as early as breakfast and cinnamon rolls, sometimes I hold off until after lunch and the siren call of last nights birthday cake drowns out any sense of reason, any memory of the tourniquet jeans tightening around my waist. All I can hear are the calls of chocolate cookies singing from their hiding place.

How about exercise? My contract with fitness was signed in blood when I tried on leather boots at the shoe store and couldn't zip any up. I didn't even know that I had fat calves. Yet first thing in the morning denial and apathy hits me the hardest. "I dont look so bad, I don't even care about boots - If an outfit really needs them, well I will just wear my husbands black socks and paint a zipper on the side." My alarm went of at 5:15 this morning and as I lay in a warm bed dry and drowsy I came up with 5 legitimate reasons why I should stay in bed - "I had an extra hard workout yesterday, I went to bed so late, I need to get started on scripture study early today, I will walk later on with the kids, I can go twice tomorrow..." . I have been doing that for 1 1/2 years now. I have learned that while it may take 2 weeks to establish an exercising habit, for me it just takes 1 day to break it. I am terrified of that happening. I just read a statistic that says 82% of dieters gain back their weight within a year.

I need a huge wake up call from the slumber of denial. I have a ritual now that started two years ago this month, I weighed in at 205. I recovered from my mild heart-attack, and after the paramedics left, I decided that I was in trouble. From September to January I lost 7 lbs, and then I stuck at 198. For three weeks I couldn't get the scale to move. Frantic and in tears I decided to get Heavenly help and make a record. Every day I weighed in and wrote my weight on my calendar. I know how much I weighed almost every day in the year 2006. Pick a day. You say February 7th, 2006? 191. How about March 15 - 183.5. On passover April 13th I weighed 181 (dang chocolate bunnies). May 15th, my 38th birthday I weighed 173.5, On flag day June 14 I was 165.5. July 4th our Independence day I had lost 43 1/2 lbs and weighed 161.5. August 18th was my 20 year class reunion and I weighed 156.5. Last year on this very day I weighed in at 155 - no explanation, just one of those plateaus. On the 1st of October I was 152, and on my 14th anniversary - the 24th of October I got down to 146.5. Thanksgiving I weighed 140, and December 13 I weighed 136. January 5th- 135 where I have stayed plus or minus 3 since. Even now I weigh in daily. Last night I weighed in before I went to bed so I could use the number (up three since Saturday) to motivate me to get up in the morning.

I know that there have been times in my life that scale watching has been dangerous for my mood and attitude. I know that everyone is in a different season. I know that when I was heavy I was doing the best I could at the time. But in January 2006 the time was right for me, and I began my walk down the scale. Weighing in every day is the wake up call I need. For me, failure to check in every day causes apathy, I forget my ultimate goal, and laugh off the quiet voice that says "you can't afford to eat that..." when I am busy. Seeing the patterns of the ups and downs also helps. I know that after every two months I plateaued and had to make my workout harder. I know during certain times of the month I can count on being up a few pounds, and the next week they go away. I read that callendar like a book. It is ragged from so much reading. On times I would get discouraged I would look back at what I had already accomplished, it gave me hope that I could continue.

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well - and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them carefully down to hell." (2Nephi28:21)