Gained A Pound & Some Insight

So, it looks like I may have gained almost a pound this week.  I'll weigh-in tomorrow so I'm not sure but this morning I was up almost a pound.  I knew I wasn't losing like I was last week but that has happened before and then I can sit down and have an amazing conversation with the porcelain god and I lose like 3 pounds!  I've had a couple of small chit-chats but none of the "Come To Jesus" meetings that would really make a difference.
Anyway, I'm thrown a little bit even though I know why I didn't lose anything for the first time since I began this journey.  I haven't been working out and I didn't follow the eating plan as strictly as I usually do.  For two weeks, I have worked out maybe twice.  I've been tired and unmotivated.  My hours at work got longer and so my usual early morning make up workouts (when I haven't worked out at night) weren't really an option.  OK, you don't need to hear my excuses and I don't need to make any.  I didn't work out.  I have to work out no matter how unmotivated I am.  I have to work out. Can you sense that this blog is a lecture to myself?  Yeah, me too.

As for my eating, I added fruits to non-fruit meals and increased my portions at others.  For the most part this was me trying to see if the dizziness that I've been having may be me not getting enough to eat but I'm not always sure what is a legitimate excuse or what is just me wanting to eat more.  The most off plan thing I did was eating two protein bars, again!  That was a bit of a pity party for not being able to eat things that my family was eating.  

I guess before I go on I need to put all of this in context.  On Friday and Saturday, my family took our annual trip to Flushing Meadows, NY to watch the US Open tennis match.  I did good, honestly.  There is food everywhere up there but I packed a cooler full of my meals and took my lunch bag to the stadium each day with my lunch or dinner and snack.  I didn't eat any of the junk there but I definitely felt more tempted to than I have in a while.  The weird thing is, I honestly don't think the longing or temptation is to the food.  I really was fine with the foods that I was eating but I just felt different.  Like my experience was different from everyone else's.

You know what's funny?  I'm writing this entry and when I started I was feeling pretty pitiful.  All "woe is me," "I'm so sad", blah blah blah!  But really, I'm pissed at myself because even though I know in my head the things that I have to do to keep losing and then (hard part) not gain it back, sometimes it's just hard to make the connection to daily routine or to my emotions.  I mean come on, will I ever respond to a situation with "I"m so emotional, I need to find some gym equipment!" or to have the same longing to eat some carrots that I had to all the ice cream bars my family was eating this weekend.

Food is such a part of our social interaction; we use it to relate to one another.  Like at dinner on Friday night, we went to a Thai restaurant.  I don't know if it was because I was at one end of the table, mostly dealing with my oh-so-tired son with his picky eating issues, or because I wasn't involved in the conversation about how yummy this or that was, or tasting and sharing my meal with my family or fantasizing about the scrumptious concoction that could top the meal off, but I really felt on the outside.

I talked to my family about this dilemma and my sister suggested that I should just bring enough of my food to share with everyone because there was plenty of things that I was eating that she wanted to eat herself, but I think one of the points of this is that I should not use food in that way.  I feel like it would reinforce some of the behaviors that lead me to abuse food, but I haven't thought that all out yet.  I'm still trying to figure out whether changing your lifestyle means an absolute overhaul or does it mean finding healthier alternatives to destructive behavior. I would love some feedback from folks about that, because I keep going back and forth.  I do know that I much prefer gaining insight to gaining pounds!

UPDATE: Ok, I started this post Sunday morning and posted it today.  So, I stayed the same--no loss but NO GAIN.  Still don't like the feeling.  Glad there was no gain and I'm glad that I made decisions that were better than I would have before.