4545. That's the amount of calories in the following: Little Caesar's cheese pizza to go (2000 calories, 8 slices at 250 calories each, cheesy bread (1300, 130 each times 10), hot wings (400, 8 times 50), crazy bread (800, 100 times 8), and crazy sauce (45). Of course I can't eat the whole thing in one sitting. Eat as much as I can and then nibble throughout the day. That's my cheat meal/day of choice. Had 4 of those (or may even have been 3) in the past 18.5 months. So I guess in the numbers I'm still ahead. And I look forward to more of those meals in the future, but not until I hit 115 lbs. Want some comparisons? 4545 calories equals about 56 apples or about 26 boxed meals that I eat at 170 calories each. About 22-30 bananas. 568 strawberries. Etc.
I've been going up and down and up and down between the lowest of 129.5 lbs and 140 lbs since April of this year. I even got up to 145 lbs (one more lb and I would have been considered "overweight" so I've still kept my "normal" weight since April) after this last "binge" (what's the difference between a cheat meal, a buffet, and what society calls a binge?) and now I'm down to 137.5 lbs. But something changed after that last cheat/binge meal. I'm not going back up again. 22.5 lbs more lbs to go, but each time I hit a number, I know I will never see that number again. I'll never be 138 lbs again. There's a determination that has finally gripped me and is helping me to the end.
What's funny is that I wasn't trying to make myself feel good with that meal. I wasn't trying to fill some deep void in my soul. I wasn't trying to make myself happy. I just like how it tastes and I wanted the instant gratification of that taste. I think that's the difference now, if I eat food like that I know exactly why I'm eating it, so there was no guilt at all after every meal because I did exactly what I wanted. What happened was that the calories set me back too much (that's about 1.5 lbs in calories) and I just don't want that many calories in at once until I reach my goal weight, at which time with the working out that I do I'll be able to eat whatever I want (up to a point, but we're talking ~2800 calories a day to maintain or even more).
In other news, I burned out. I was there in the middle of a Zumba class and I thought I just can't do this class anymore. I know 90% of the routines used at 24HF and Gold's. Over and over and over and over and over again. It's like I couldn't do just one more dance without my head exploding. The next day I did a cycle and then waited an hour for a TurboKick and walked out of the gym 5 minutes before class time. I just couldn't bring myself to take the class. I was done.
The following Monday I started my triathlon training. By that Thursday, I was done with that. I skipped the $80 marathon I had paid for and I plan on skipping three other events I paid for for a total of $320. I feel so very close to hating working out, and so far working out has been fun. If I push myself into either triathlon training or doing the events I run the risk of going back to Fat Debbie. For $320? No way. I have to be careful. That was last week. And this week I went back to the gym and I've been enjoying it again, although I definitely need to try some different instructors because I need a change. No matter how much you love the class or the instructor, you burn out sooner or later. It took me 16.5 months of group classes at 2-5 classes a day to burn out. That's at least 1000 classes and that's a low estimate. And I keep trying to make myself into something that I'm not. I can't do the same thing over and over and over again, I need a little bit of everything, to be able to switch from one thing to another on a whim from one second to the next. Rest of January, gym (YMCA for the last two weeks to get some new instructors and classes), February is Cross Fit, March is Bikram Yoga, April is a boot camp program at a gym. By then I should be at 115 lbs. Also bought some games for the PS3 (Zumba, Your Shape, Active 2.0), XBOX (Biggest Loser, Dance Central), and Wii (Gold's Cardio Workout) to add some variety and ease of scheduling.
So no more triathlons, no more rules, just wake up, pick what to do, have fun. That's what works and I don't know why I keep trying to change it. But at least I guess it's comforting to know I can spot a burnout and take steps to halt it and reverse it.
As an endnote, here's some stuff I wrote on Facebook about food:
Hey, sounds simple, but after 18 months of almost daily weighing, it becomes a habit... brush teeth, comb hair, scale. Gym, scale. Scales everywhere!! You really do get scared that you're going to gain all the weight back if you don't monitor it everyday :)
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Since April I've been losing and gaining the same 10 pounds. Been up and down around 4 cycles now. You really do get a point where you ask yourself, really? Is food really worth pushing the goal back over and over again? Because trust me, it's not that I don't WANT to go back to pizza, burgers, and hot dogs (the three main food groups). And you start thinking that you can't do this to yourself any longer and that you have to tighten up for one last push and finish off what you started, and you can't keep sabotaging yourself.
And I was thinking about how there's always going to be "a special occasion." There's New Year's, December holidays, 4th of July, birthdays, weddings. We have taught ourselves that we deserve to be happy and food makes us happy to we deserve to eat and we equate food with happiness. Society as a whole. Add that to a brain pre-wired to want to eat in excess, and it's all downhill from there.
So you get a to a point and you get sick and tired of the whole thing and start looking at why you want to eat at that particular moment and if it's not out of hunger, you decide you're worth more than that instant gratification and just say no. You realize you're not going to starve and you know how much is a reasonable amount per day and you put your foot down and decide to just say no.
Or something like that ;)
Because it's not that you can turn off cravings or that you don't pass a chocolate cake and don't want to eat the whole thing anymore. It's just that you become tired of doing that to yourself. And you finally understand that passing up on dessert is not "denying yourself." We have this whole thing about "denying ourselves." And it goes back to we want to believe we are good and if we are good we deserve to be happy and food makes us feel good so we think food makes us happy so we want to eat. And if we -don't- eat then we are castigating and denying ourselves of, ultimately, happiness. That's the world as it exists right now. And our brain plays right into that happily.
