I Have Been Here Before

Overall, I've had some success so far this year. Despite living in a disaster area (for so the President has decreed) I have managed to maintain some discipline. Despite this weeks stall, I can get back to more discipline and lose more weight.

Here is a slice of the graph showing my actual weight from New Year's Day to the present:

 

 Hard to follow out of context, I know, but the dots are my daily weights, and the line connects my average for the week.  The horizontal lines are 5 pound marks.  

But I've been here before. I looked back at the past year and was astounded to see where I was a year ago, and when last I was where I am now:

Again, the horizontal lines mark five-pound increments. So the weight I've lost since New Years - since I've been blogging about it - is the same weight I lost in October last year.  Basically, I'm ten pounds over where I was a year ago.

What happened last November to reverse my hard work and send the weight soaring again?  Halloween kicks of the "eating season", of course, that stretches all the way to New Years.  I think I had a real mental switch in November, where I decided that I was not going to watch what I ate. I sank into a real funk, and found it hard to hold on.  I decided I was only going to think about other things, and simply not pay attention to food or my body. I gave myself permission to indulge. I cooked and ate some things I hadn't eaten this millenium, since before The Big Loss. I held the family together through the holidays, but at a price.

I find it useful to have the reality check - to see where I've been to give me some perspective on where I'm going. It's certainly discouraging to see how I've gained all this weight in the past year. But the facts are the facts. It's frightening to see how fast the weight can pile on. I know I can take it off, but it requires constant focus and discipline. Just deciding that it doesn't matter will lead to total blobdom, and that is not good for anyone - including the family, not just me.

So looking at the graphs overall is motivating, at least since things are generally moving in the right direction right now.