AHA!

The mind is responsible for a lot more than we may sometimes care to admit. What the hell am I babbling about?  Well, have you ever heard of the law of attraction? Its kinda like that. What ever you think about, or focus on, is what you attract. It's something I have believed in for years. I've seen it in action nearly everyday, yet the one area of my life that I have failed to use it in is my weight loss. I have never seen myself as a thin person. In fact, when I weigh in and have not lost the weight I wanted, I concentrate on the feeling of being "fat" all day long. Focusing on that feeling causes me to be a "Debby Downer" all day, which then causes me to eat more (all day), causing more weight gain, and and endless cycle of ups and downs.
      The other thing that has been sabotaging my weight loss recently is the fact that I have a "cheat day". It sounds harmless, but for me (a true blue foodie), a cheat day turns into a calorie packed cheat weekend, and sometimes that's three whole days of eating whatever the hell my fat-ass can get my hands on. Beer, (my weakness), bacon, cheese, ice cream, and occasionally (OK, more than occasionally) a maple bacon cupcake from that cute little bakery around the corner. So after eating a clean diet and exercising for 4 days, I have ruined any progress I might see on the scale.  Combined with fervent disdain for exercise, I have created a mind-boggling plateau.  Its enough to make anyone want to quit.  This is where the final part of my "AHA moment" comes in...
     Its so easy to quit.  Easy to get that overwhelming feeling that for whatever reason, you just aren't meant to be thin.  That you will never be healthy. Don't let those thoughts creep in!  Plateaus are hard to break but it CAN be done.  Take my friend Holly who worked for 5 months to break one.  Now that's dedication!  That's what it takes to change years of bad habits: Dedication.  You have to keep going.  You can change things that aren't working after you have given them a chance.  You can adjust your diet for what works for your body.  You can tweet your exercise routine if it get boring or stops being effective, but the one thing you cant do, is QUIT. So here is the run down on what I have learned in this epiphany:

1. Focus on being thin! 
2. Don't have a cheat day. (cheaters never win.) instead use moderation and don't deprive yourself.
3.  Don't see plateaus as failure.
4. Exercise (ugh)
5. DON'T QUIT!

Soooooo...What have you learned during your weight loss journey? Did you have an AHA moment?

Tired of spare tires (and love handles, back fat, and my muffin top)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8sCsFtEBBA&feature=plcp

     You wanna know what's the most amazing thing about me losing 20 lbs?  The fact that I look in the mirror and see how chubby I still am!  I mean, if I'm a chubby monster at 162llbs, how much more of a chubby monster was I at 180 lbs?! So I actually started this journey in June 2012. I lost 18 lbs in 2 months just from changing my eating habits.  Unfortunately, I had this brilliant idea to keep dieting for another month without weighing myself.  With 20 lbs to go, I felt as though I didn't need the added stress that came with weighing in everyday.  I literally went crazy every-time the scale moved up 1/4 of a pound!  I started analyzing everything I had eaten the day before, plotting how I would only eat 200 calories for the next three days, and then finally, I would settle into a scale induced depression that could only be cured by ice cream.  Crazy right?  Well most days, I skipped the ice cream and even without exercise, my diet seemed to work.
     August was a different story.  At the end of 4 weeks, of NOT weighing, I had only lost a pound.  Its seems that however psychotic the scale had made me, it had kept me in check.  So now I've made up my mind that its time to stop playing games with myself, the scale, exercise, and unfortunately, ice cream. Oh Dear Lord, please help me,