Asking for help

Yesterday morning when my Hubby called to check in with me, the first thing out of my mouth was, "when you get home, we need to talk... about my weight."

I need help. 

On Thursday and Friday I had been on a eating binge to rival my pre-Weight Watcher days.  Friday night, before I crawled into bed in a carb induced stupor, I stepped on the scale.  I was 189.9 pounds.  I was back to weighing as much Hubby, who is over 6 ft tall.  I got to sleep late, woke up early, all the time my mind whirling with thoughts about my weight, none of them positive.  

Before crawling out of bed, I made a mental plan.  Something to get me through one day.

1 - Ask for help from Hubby.  There are lots of people who would be willing to help me, but right now, I really need Hubby's help.  I need him to know how bad I'm struggling and that I want to get back to what I know works for me.

2 - Track on MyFitnessPal.  I need to get back to tracking.  Logically, I know if I am eating the healthiest foods in moderation, I will lose weight without tracking.  The last couple of years have proved that I am unable to sustain the weight lose eating that way.  I lost weight doing the 21 Day Sugar Detox and the Whole 30 (and felt awesome during the process), but eventually gained the weight back... plus more.  Tracking works best for me and I like using the MyFitnessPal website and app.  Since Hubby does all the cooking, I need him to work with me on getting his recipes added in to the site so I can track accurately.

3 - Eat Clean.  This doesn't necessarily relate to eating Paleo/Primal like my Hubby.  For me, this means occasional carbs from grains.  Organic when possible.  And if I'm going to have processed foods, then 5 ingredients or less.  When I tracked and I ate clean, I was the most successful at maintaining my weight loss.

4 - No TV during the day.  I don't know when the switch in my brain took place, but for the last couple of weeks, I went to back to being a total couch potato.  Usually when I have the TV on, I'm doing something else... cleaning, working on my Lego sets or store inventory, playing a game on my tablet.  Something.  Anything.  Not lately though... I would just sit on the couch with the TV on and more times than not, be eating while sitting on the couch watching TV.  So yesterday, I told myself no TV.  I could sit on the couch and read all day, but no TV. I did turn the TV on in the evening, but I made sure I had something else to do while it was on.

5 - Get at least 7 3/4 hours of sleep.  My sleep goal on my Fitbit is 7 hours and 45 minutes.  This is my optimal sleep time.  More would be great, but that rarely happens, so I shoot for 7 hours and 45 minutes.  Lately I have not been sleeping enough.  I need that sleep otherwise I will overeat out of tiredness.  I also need to learn to take a nap if I'm tired.  Especially if I'm not reaching my sleep goal.  Yesterday I woke up tired because I had less than 6 hours of sleep.  I had an event I had to be at during the day from 9 to 1, when I got home, I set my alarm for a 45 minute power nap.  I slept good for that 45 minutes and after I shut the alarm off, I laid on the bed thinking about what I wanted to do the rest of the day and promptly fell back to sleep for another hour.  I obviously needed more sleep.  I wasn't sure I would be able to get to sleep at decent time last night, so I decided to go to bed at my normal bedtime and read until I was tired.  I was asleep within a half hour... and slept for nearly 9 hours!  I think I may finally be caught up on sleep.


I followed those 5 steps yesterday the best I could (the event I was at offered pizza for lunch, which I ate and tracked in Myfitnesspal).  I already feel better mentally.   As for the numbers on the scale, they are going down.  I was 189.9 on Friday night (yes, I know, a person weighs more at night), 185.2 yesterday morning and 181.3 as of today.

I need to get to back to the basics of weight loss... a plan that works for me (tracking and eating clean), drinking 64 oz of water a day, and sleeping 7 3/4 hours a night.  

And, of course, the most important part of weight loss... asking for help.  This is one journey in your life, the more support you have, the more successful you will be.