The Chubby Hamster
Up, down, up, down, up. So frustrating. I’m working hard, and getting nowhere. I’m a hamster on a wheel.
I can’t believe it, but my surgery is next week. Now I’m beginning to feel nervous. Am I ready? Have I followed the guidelines closely enough? I’m not sure.
I wanted to write a post about this habit tracker app I found that is really cool, but I haven’t been really awesome about using it. I know if I used it more I would probably be doing better.
My problem is that I have great intentions but I am overly ambitious, and I set myself up to complete more tasks than I reasonably can. Inevitably, I fall short every time and beat myself up over it. How am I supposed to track habits if I don’t even consistently track my foods? It gets to be too much.
But you probably could’ve told me that, huh. Sometimes what is obvious to the casual observer is not always obvious to me.
I think I’m tracking four habits right now. Maybe if I focused on just one? Like going to the gym? That’s an easy one, because there are two goals: strength and cardio, and I only have to go to the gym twice a week to meet either of them.
And maybe it’s okay if I don’t track 100% of my foods. As long as I get in the general vicinity. Some people track every bite they eat, and that’s great for them, I can’t even imagine being that disciplined. I wish I was, but I’m just not.
I do know that the more accurately I track, the more successful I am. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it can be estimates, the numbers can go over budget, but if I have something down for the day, it’s always better than if I don’t have anything or if I randomly stop counting after lunch.
You could look at my Baritastic app and say, “Wow, she hasn’t made any progress. She’s actually gained weight since she started (I’m not sure if that’s true).”
I choose to look at it as: I’ve done an okay job of tracking most of the time and managed not to gain a lot more weight since I started.
As of now, I’m only about 4 pounds over my entry weight into the bypass program. That’s not terrible. Half of it could be normal fluctuation. If I can get back down to that entry weight or close to it, I’m hoping that will be good enough for the surgeon. But I only have 9 days, so, I guess I’d better start praying.
