Losing Half, Gaining More

I went to my cousins wedding in Philadelphia yesterday and had such a fantastic time.  We knew that it was in Old City, but didn’t really realize what that meant, which is sort of sad since it’s only about an hour and a half away from us! The hotel was literally half a block from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. The wedding looked out over Independence National Historic Park and Second National Bank and in such an interesting part of the city – tons of amazing shops and restaurants. We were disappointed that we didn’t have time to spend just walking around, but having a 6 month old at home who needs his food source sort of limits longer excursions for now. This was the longest I’ve left him so far and it was still just so nice to get away for more than just a couple of hours.

The food was FANTASTIC. It also helped me to realize a few things within the context of “celebrations.”  This journey that I’ve committed to has been a long time coming. I’ve been going to Weight Watchers meeting for over 4 months now without actually really keeping track of my food. But, the fact that I’ve continued to go is a huge testament to the psychological aspect of losing weight and how I’m slowly changing. This process seems so daunting and overwhelming as a whole, but it’s the little things that I can control in a day that make me realize that I really am doing this! I really am making lots of little changes in my life, and especially in my thinking!

At the wedding, I didn’t eat perfectly by any means. But I did eat much differently than I would have in the past and that’s a really big step.

• The things that I wanted to eat that weren’t the healthiest, I took one of and just took a bite.
• If I didn’t love what I was eating after the first bite, I didn’t finish it.
• I didn’t take appetizers from servers simply because they had it in front of me.
• I didn’t try one(or more!) of everything – I chose the few things I thought I’d enjoy the most and took smaller portions of them.
• I danced about 10 times more than I otherwise would have because I knew I was burning some extra calories while having some fun.
• I also just committed to completely putting aside my normal feelings of awkward self consciousness that usually keep me from something like dancing in a social situation and it felt SO GOOD.

As a whole, I still ate much more than necessary. But I also would guess that I easily ate half as much as I may have eaten in the past and that makes me really happy. Thinking about all of this and seeing these baby steps that I am actually doing is so empowering. Believing in myself that I really can, and WILL, do this is an incredible feeling. There hasn’t been a defining/”A-HA” moment for me when I just decided that this was the point where I wasn’t turning back. I read so many weight loss success stories where people talk about the one thing that happened that flipped a switch for them, but for me it’s just been a recent consistent realization of small things that have made me realize that I truly an changing. Knowing that I can deal with each situation as it comes and take small steps to get to each thing along the way feels fantastic and it’s been a really long time since I’ve felt that about myself.