...And now for something really different

Happy 2014!

As you can see it's been a few years since posting here. And also as you can probably guess, I'm here not because I've been wildly successful in my weight loss journey or on my journey to self acceptance but because I'm still overweight and unhappy with myself. 

So no crying over spilt milk, right? I'm here, I'm fat and out of shape, and I don't like myself right now. I'm getting back on the horse and trying again. Isn't that what we're taught to do?

Of course, I'd simply be an INSANE person if I did this again and again and expected a different outcome.  So I have been thinking what can differentiate this effort from the 93451 others before it.

Why did I fail before, and what can I do to overcome that failure?

OK so let's think about my reasons for failure for a minute:

*crickets* 

Now that's strange. I'm sitting here all ready to list out why I failed in the past, but yet I cannot come up with ONE reason. Do I just have selective memory, or can I just not remember? Or is it deeper than that? Perhaps I just don't know why I fail. 

I don't know why I fail.

There, I said it. I have no flippin' idea why I fail. I try, I really do! I am usually very successful at first. I have great will power and resolve.  I make all (or most of) the right decisions, and then, like magic, something changes and I am powerless to stop it. It's like a switch has gone off in me, and I can see myself careening off the tracks but there's nothing I can do to stop the train. I derail; and I don't just derail, I go full on off the tracks and over the railings into a whirlpool of boiling lava. 

I've thought about it and thought about it. I don't know at what point I sabotage myself. Usually it's about when I'm halfway in my journey, sometimes a bit sooner. I'll get to 50 pounds and then everything changes. Slowly or overnight? I'm not sure.

I know that dieting and maintaining a healthy weight is not solely about foods you eat. It's about the choices you make and how you rationalize your choices.

So how, again, will this time be different?

I'm not sure, really. It's good to admit that I think. There are things I'm not sure of and I don't have all the answers. This time I will think about how I feel, each and every day. I will try to correlate that to if I did good, or bad on my diet that day. I will try and write down what's going on in my head and try to "catch" that switch before it goes. If I miss it and I do switch, I will need to figure out what happened. I have to really be conscious of the triggers and then try to figure out how to do something different. 

Sounds easy, but damn, I can tell you it's not going to be.