Feeling Like a Failure

I am struggling so much. I don't know what my problem is. I can't seem to get back on track! I promise myself in the morning that I'm going to do better, and then by the afternoon I'm eating all the wrong stuff. I can't seem to stop eating junk food. Today J and I went grocery shopping, and I got two bags of potato chips to take to work for a group lunch thing we're doing on Tuesday. I actually wanted to open one of the bags and eat it, and just take the other bag in. I figured one bag would be enough - there are only 10 of us in the whole office, after all, and there will be plenty of other food there. The only thing that stopped me was J, saying that I needed to keep it for work when I mentioned it to him.

I'm eating so much! And I'm not too picky - if I don't have any junk food to eat, I eat bread and margarine, or crackers, or pretty much anything.

I'm trying to figure out what makes me keep doing this. I know that J isn't going to just stop loving me if I get to a healthy weight again. I know that I will feel better physically and that I'll feel better about myself if I lose the weight. I know that if I keep on the way I've been, I'm very likely to have a heart attack or develop diabetes in the next 10 years. I don't want these things to happen. I want to get healthy. I want to lose weight. I want to feel better. I want to like my body again.

And yet I keep overeating.

I started trying to be better in March. I've been doing this EIGHT MONTHS. If I had managed to be good that entire time, I'd be almost AT GOAL right now. Instead, I've gained back enough weight that I've probably only lost 10 pounds of the 80 I had to lose.

Why can't I do this? Why can't I just start eating smaller amounts of healthier foods? Why can't I force myself to start exercising?

I read something on Sparkpeople once that said that it doesn't matter how often you fall, as long as you keep getting back up. It doesn't matter how many times you fall off the diet wagon, as long as you keep picking yourself up and starting over.

But in order to make it really "starting over," you have to actually do the work to make up the ground you lost, and break new ground. But I don't. I might make up the lost ground, but I haven't broken any new ground since at least July. I had the goal of getting under 200 pounds by my birthday. It became clear the week before that I wasn't going to make it, so I started binging. My birthday was July 18th. Four months later, I'm still not under 200 pounds. In fact, I weigh a good five pounds more than I did that week before my birthday.

So basically, I've been spinning my wheels for four months. Now, I MAY have a chance of getting under 200 by Christmas, but really, that's only going to happen if I start to behave. I need to start logging my calories in sparkpeople again. I need to start forcing myself to ride the exercise bike every night. I need to stay under 1550 calories EVERY DAY. Will I do these things? I want to say yes, but the truth is, I don't have much faith in myself right now. I had the dieting mojo in August. I started 30 Days of Denise then, and I did great! I stayed in my calorie limit without fail every one of those 30 days. In the two and a half months since then, it's all been downhill.

I can't take it anymore, I can't. I don't know why food has this hold over me. I swear, if I had ever let myself try smoking, I'd be one of those people who would never be able to quit - I'd be turning off my oxygen tank to light up. Instead, I'm addicted to fat and sugar and salt.

How do I get back that motivation that I had in August? How do I start being good again? How do I turn my life around?

I don't know. I need to work on it, though, or I'm going to be dead before J and I even get the chance to retire and enjoy our old ages together. I don't want to die young, like my Mom did. I need my dieting mojo back.

And this isn't about reaching any certain weight by any certain date. I just want to be healthy. I just want to feel good. I just want to be able to do physical activities without stopping to rest. I want to be able to stop worrying about my heart (and I do worry about it - more than anyone knows). I want to like my body again. I want to be proud of myself.

I have to say good-bye to the junk food. I have to start learning to like healthy foods. I have to stop eating every day like it's going to be my last, and it therefore doesn't matter. It DOES matter. My heart is begging me to do better. My mind is nagging at me to do better.

(This is me psyching myself up to do better.)

There are 34 days until Christmas. If I do a 30 Days of Denise starting tomorrow, I'll finish on Monday, December 21st (that would be my 30th day, so I would record the 30th day that Tuesday). This is me pledging to do that. Look for me to log in here everyday starting this Monday to record my calories. It's going to be hard - Thanksgiving is in there, that potluck thing at work is on Tuesday, Christmas treats will be popping up all over the place - but I need to do it. I need to do it for myself. I'm not going to try to get to any certain weight in these 30 days. I should avoid the scale altogether, but I know I won't be able to. But I need to stay under 1550 calories every day, and I need to exercise more regularly. I need to do these things for myself. And I vow to do so. I need to do so. For me.