I weighed myself yesterday, finally! 195.6.  Less than I thought it would be!  So that's something to be excited about, for sure.  Granted, I am 5'4" and feel comfortable around 150 and am truly "healthy" at 130-140, so I have a long ways to go.

I'm still having the same issues of being all motivated at night before bed when I'm reflecting on my bad decisions of the day, ready to tackle the world tomorrow.  But when I actually face the day in the morning, I am so easily swayed.  I rarely take the time to think through a decision and impulsively will eat what I want in that moment.

I have a few ideas for how to tackle that.
1) Consistency is key! Or so I've heard.  People who have lost weight claim that eating the same few things over and over again was really helpful.  It takes the guesswork out and keeps you regimented.   have the tendency to get a hairbrained idea like "hm, tonight I want to make a giant pot of spaghetti bolognese!" Or "I want a cookie so I'll make an entire batch right now!"  By eating the same few meals over and over I'll surely be bored but maybe my brain will be less likely to make those snap decisions.
2) Meditation...?  I feel weird writing that.  I have no intention of getting cross-legged on the floor of the nurses lounge when I feel a craving for a cookie to ohm my way through it.  But I've heard that mindfulness is helpful for people with impulsive eating problems.  If you really think about how you feel, how you really FEEL in the moment, maybe you can identify a need besides the cookie.  Maybe you're really thirsty, or you're feeling stressed or sad or isolated.  And then you can scratch the real itch rather than slapping a delicious warm gooey guilt-inducing bandaid on it.  This is something that will take A LOT of practice.  I am basically the opposite of mindful when it comes to food.  I'm thinking I might start trying to become more mindful independent of food first....like maybe I'll set an alarm on my cell to go off every hour on the dot, and when it goes off I take a minute to close my eyes and breathe and re-calibrate.  Maybe by doing that and getting in the practice of checking in with myself, that practice will cross over into helping me tackle cravings and impulse food decisions.

Today I did great and ate healthy until I got home from work, was exhausted, and ate 4 slices of sourdough bread with butter.  Seriously.  Why???????  Perhaps if I had been in the habit of a post-work green smoothie I would have made that instead, and if I had been in the practice of thinking through my impulses I would have realized that I wasn't actually hungry for the bread, in retrospect I was really thirsty and very tired.

So, I'm gonna give this a try over the next few days and see what happens.

Ok, so I didn't weigh myself.  I'm afraid!  It's scary to be honest with yourself.  It's scary to see how far you have to go.  However, for me at least I feel like I have to be able to keep metrics on myself to get anywhere. Some people could lose weight without the scale and just go by how their clothes fit.  I wish I could do that, but I just wouldn't feel accountable.

I also have been having like one fuck-up a day.  I'll eat really healthy until 4 pm and then come home and it's snack city.  Or I'll do great until after dinner and decide I just HAVE to whip up a batch of peanut butter cookies.  I need to diagnose exactly what it is I need that isn't food when I do this.  Like, when I binge after work it probably has to do with being tired more than anything, so maybe a coffee or a nap would treat the real issue.  Or after dinner I'm just bored or I want something sweet.  So maybe I should go on a walk or have a Dove dark chocolate square.  It takes discipline and a lot of guts to diagnose and then act on those things, though.

I WILL weigh myself tomorrow morning! Girl scouts honor!

Welp, it's been a HOT MINUTE since I last checked in here.  Or checked in with myself really at all.  I started my new job a couple weeks ago and things have been pretty hectic.  Good hectic...I really like it and the time flies when I'm at the hospital.  Currently, I'm working 5 8-hour shifts instead of 3 12's, so it's very busy.  I'm looking forward to working 3 12's so it frees up more days to exercise and cook healthy food.

I've had a tough time staying true to what I'm trying to accomplish.  I'll make healthy choices until around 4 and then it's all shot to shit.  Guess I can infer it has a lot to do with exhaustion.  Hopefully as I transition to 3 12's I will only deal with the exhaustion factor on 3 days a week, so I can mitigate the bad choices.

Tomorrow morning if I remember I plan to weigh myself for the first time in a while.  That always seems to motivate me.  More tomorrow, assuming I remember!