Katie: Week 49

I've been thinking over things a lot lately.  Thinking through why I had myself set on getting down to 120 pounds by Christmas, why I got so frustrated when it wasn't happening.  And I've been thinking about some things over the past week or so.  Maybe these thoughts seem scattered.  I guess they are.  I myself haven't quite finished thinking through them and put them all together into a cohesive whole, but I thought I'd share them with you in whatever sort of in between thinking stage they're in.

Goals- Goals are funny.  Often we set goals about minute details in order to change bigger and more important things about ourselves.  (Or at least things that we deem more important.)  And we know that "by small and simple things, great things are brought to pass," but sometimes our goals can almost seem disconnected from the results we're hoping for.  For instance, other than for the sake of "meeting my goal" I could really care less about how much I weigh.  It's true.  What bugs is my tummy.  I was paranoid about it before I had Olivia, but after being pregnant once now I'm ultra paranoid about looking pregnant.  Because my tummy sticks out.  And I hate that.  And so, as a result, I set goals about how many times I'll go walking and running and what I'll eat and what I won't eat and, in general, how I spend my days.  And somehow the dislike of a tummy that sticks out becomes what my whole days is about.  And, while I do like going on walks and eating healthy food, I don't like spending all day thinking about my tummy.  On the other hand, I do think spending my time working on progressing toward being better is a good thing.  Am I doing both at once?  Am I being both self-promoting and self-degrading at the same time?  I really don't know.

Entitlement- I've been thinking a lot about entitlement.  It's a selfish and dangerous thing.  Always.  I've been thinking about this for a while now and I cannot come up with a situation in which it would be wise for us to feel entitled to something.  In a gospel sense, we might say that we feel entitled to be with our families forever if we are sealed in the temple and live righteously.  But I don't think that's right.  I think that if we've done all that then we seek for the blessings of the Lord.  He's promised us that we can be with our families forever if we're sealed in the temple and we live righteously, but we're never perfect.  We make mistakes.  I try to live righteously, but sometimes I mess up.  I think a mean thought, don't do something I should have done, do something I know I shouldn't.  So I'm really not entitled to be with my family forever.  I've been blessed with an Atoning Savior who makes up what I lack and lets me repent.  Are you following me so far?  In other words, we do our best in life--and we should--but, ultimately, every good thing comes from God, those things are blessings, and we're not entitled to blessings.

This past week- I know there are those of you who will shake your heads and roll your eyes at me when I tell you this, but here's the truth: I was really naughty last week.  I hate cookies and milk every night with Bryan and his sisters and our friends.  I didn't keep track of anything I ate.  And because the temperature outside was in the teens I think we only went on one actual walk during the whole Thanksgiving break.  It was bad, I know.  But you know what?  It was so nice.  It was nice to eat things I liked.  But even more than that it was nice to not be stressed about every single calorie that enters my body.  So maybe you (and sometimes I) will think that it was such a waste to be so stressed about my weight and work so hard and then go in the complete opposite direction, but it really was so good for me--mentally, emotionally.  I needed that break.  Because I certainly wasn't starving myself before, but it was getting to the point where I was eating as little as possible.  And even though the little calorie counter on MyFitnessPal wasn't giving me that "you haven't eaten enough calories" warning, I think it was doing bad things to my body to not be eating more.  But when you're working so hard at burning calories it's hard mentally to eat more, even if you know it's probably going to make your body function better.  So I still really like the tools on MyFitnessPal and I'll use them off and on as I see fit, but, for now at least, I'm not going to keep track of things quite so much.  I certainly don't plan to be quite so glutenous as I was over the Thanksgiving break and now that the temperatures have risen to be more reasonable I'll keep going on walks and things, but I'm not going to be writing it all down all the time.  It was just plain stressing me out too much. 

And so, now I'll post my weekly weight.  It doesn't really matter, but maybe after reading through some of what I've been thinking about you'll understand a little why I feel so blessed to still be under 130.  Because I certainly didn't deserve it after this past week.  But seeing this makes me feel so encouraged.  Even though it's up a pound from last week, it could have been up quite a few more.  And it's not.

Current weight: 129 pounds
Last week's weight: 128 pounds
Total weight loss: 41 pounds

Someday I'm going to make it to my goal weight of 120 pounds.  And I hope that along the way this sticking-out-tummy that bugs will disappear.

I'm going to keep working at it.