baby steps, right?

So, what did I do right yesterday? Not as much as I'd hoped I would.

*I ate breakfast (a banana). Usually I skip breakfast and start snacking on very unhealthy foods by late morning.

*Rich threw in some frozen pizzas for lunch...I ate about 2/3 as much as I usually do.

*I made this new bean and cheese chimichanga recipe last night (no, that's not the good news...they were incredibly fattening, though at least not deep-fried)...the good choice was stopping when I was full (oh okay, maybe it was a couple bites past full), even though I desperately wanted to keep eating! And I mean desperately.

Could have been better. Could have been worse. I really intended to do some stepping (just up and down on a little platform thingie--no fancy routine or anything)...but well, it's that blasted follow through thing you talked about Kara. :(

must not give up, must not give up, must not give up...

Okay. Big THANK YOUS to Kara for getting me out of my, "What's the point? I'm not getting anywhere with this. As usual." mindset. Maybe I haven't gotten anywhere YET...but giving up will ensure I never do.

And with this renewed committment, I guess I must go step on that blasted scale and see what I did to myself over the holidays. I'd say it was time for the drum roll, but those are only for good news, aren't they?

*****
Hmmm. Not sure how this happened. But it seems I actually lost three pounds. Probably scale error. Anyway, that means I begin anew at 221 pounds.

The question is what do I do now. The vague "make healthier choices" thing and the vague "cut down on portion sizes" thing and the vague "get more exercise" thing...well, none of those seem to work at all with me. And yet I seem to rebel against stringent rules, and end up binging after a few days of compliance. *sigh*

I've been learning with my daily exercise of looking at the good stuff in my life that I respond well to positive reinforcement. Just the simple act of noticing the "good" lifts my mood and has led to far fewer "breakdowns" the last few weeks. Hmmmm...could that be where those three pounds went...I am a reaction-to-stress eater (along with many other kinds of eaters!). Anyway, I'm getting off-track here. I've decided to see if I can make a difference in my eating habits with that same sort of positive reinforcement. So instead of focusing solely on how I screw up all the time, I'm going to come here and list those times I do actually make a good choice. Not that I won't have my "I blew it so bad...I'm such a freakin' loser...I'm never going to lose this weight" posts, of course. I don't think denying myself those would ultimately be healthy. But I am hoping like hell that over the weeks I'll find my list of good choices grow longer.

Second thing, we've been looking for a Gazelle Edge. Haven't found one in the stores yet, but have a few more places to try. If we can't find one, we'll order it on-line. I've long wanted a treadmill or something, but our house is just so dang small that there really is nowhere to put something big like that. This puppy looks like it folds up nicely. With the added bonus of not being so bad on my pathetic knees. I know it's not like a full gym workout or getting out there jogging or anything like that. But it may just be something I can stick to...and actually doing something small is far better than wishing I could make myself do something big.

Hopefully I'll be back this evening with a list of good choices I managed to make today. Oh, who the hell am I kidding...a list--HA! Yeah, I'll be happy if I'm back with one good choice I made today.