Day 61--Wherein I ponder and muse in quite a boring fashion

Let me start off by saying I'm freaking out that people are actually reading my blog. Even old posts! How my ramblings can be interesting I have no idea. I even have a few followers. Weird! Thanks for all the kind and encouraging comments. They mean a lot to me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Such a beautiful day today! It's only 83 degrees out there. It will be beautiful for walking tonight. If I go. Yes, yesterday evening whilst I was tripping lightly down the road with my friend my left foot started hurting on the top and around the ankle. Why? I have absolutely no idea. I did not trip, or fall, or sleep on it funny--odd picture there--or anything else. It still hurts today and I am limping. I'm going to at least try to walk.
Last night as I lay in my bed unable to sleep my thoughts drifted back in time to the few successful attempts I made at losing weight.
Attempt #1: Metabolife. Yes, I took those pills faithfully, walked, watched what I ate and lost 40 pounds. I then got pregnant and had to stop taking the pills and gained it all back plus more.
Attempt #2: Weigh Down. This was going to be it, the miracle that I was praying for! God didn't want me to be fat! All I had to do was wait for my tummy to growl then I could eat anything I wanted until satisfied. Sounds nifty doesn't it? Only problem was my tummy growled once a day. Usually late in the afternoon. By then I was famished and ate and ate and ate. I actually lost 50 pounds using this starvation method. Sadly, though, I started becoming extremely paranoid about eating when I wasn't supposed to. If I did do that, I sinned. Yep. If I ate when God didn't TELL me to eat by causing my tummy to growl I was sinning. Talk about twisting me all up. I followed this for 2 months and then. Yes, I took one bite of a casserole I was making for my daughter's birthday and my tummy wasn't growling. And that was it. It was over. I gained all my weight back and more.
I am not counting all the sad pathetic decisions to eat no fat, or to eat 'healthy'. Those never even lasted one day.
So what makes this time different? Why am I not struggling with temptation? Where is the agony, the frustration, the fear of failure? Because I tell you this, I have none of it. So here are my thoughts:
How I'm Shrinking: I am not on a diet. this time I have no forbidden foods and pretty much eat whatever I want. I have a set amount of calories and I stick to it. I have learned how to portion my foods. Small amounts of yummy things are just as satisfying as huge amounts. Walking is important but is not THE most important thing. If I am unable to walk it's not the end of the world. I will say this--I don't plan anything for the evening so it's free for walking.
A lot of bloggers talk about the 'click', the moment in time when everything came together and a decision was made to lose weight for good. My click? Not a picture, or embarrassing moment, or Ihateme thought. I was praying for the nth time about my weight. 'Please God if there be any mercy in the heavens PUHLEASE change my heart, help me to lose weight, I hate this!' I don't know how else to describe this, don't think I'm weird because I'm truly not, it was like He said to me 'Let's do this, today.' No no vision or heavenly music or anything just this feeling in my heart. And I said 'okay'. Just like that. I said okay. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to do it, some vague thoughts that maybe I could just watch my portions or something, but I was going to do it. It has been 10 years since my weigh down fiasco. In that time I have not looked at any nutritional labels ON PURPOSE, or exercised, or ate salads unless I had to, and never one time complimented my sister on her weight loss (sorry Kat!). I firmly believe that I was meant to find Sean's blog so early. I decided to pattern myself after him--1500 calories and exercise daily. Also, through reading from Day 1, his good attitude really struck me. It didn't matter how much weight he lost at his weigh ins! He still kept right on eating the same and exercising. It was an eye opening thought for me, and it hit me that he was doing it for life, and I WILL HAVE TO DO IT FOR LIFE TOO. Okay that freaked me a tiny bit, but then made total sense.
So when people ask me what diet I am using I joyfully tell them 'I'm not dieting, I am changing my lifestyle!' A few people in the tiny town I live in have noticed me walking daily and when we talked about it I told them I lost 22 pounds in 6 weeks. They want to know my secret. My secret! Boy are they not happy when I tell them I count calories and exercise. That's not fun or hip or cool or the in thing. It's just plain old fashioned work. BUT I LOVE IT! I have such freedom now. Freedom to eat, freedom to NOT eat, freedom from the discouragement that has followed me around for years.
So I really don't know if I have explained very well why this time is different. It just is.
For dinner tonight I am having chicken fried steak (300 cal), gravy (60 cal), mashed potatoes, corn--I can't remember how much those are, but my plate ends up being around 500 calories. What a yummy dinner! It's my favorite and I haven't had it for months, well, since I started counting my calories. But it's cooking now and mmmm does it smell good.
And I am falling in love with little Elora Dannan our new kitty. Ninja Cobra is still weirded out by her but he'll get used to her and then they'll be best friends. I hope!
Make wise choices!