Spectre at the feast, or out, out damn scale!

Hi everyone! Back with another episode of the weight loss blog, summer 2020. I've been working on weight maintenance for 6 years, since I lost 100 pounds in 2014. And to quote (misquote) ZZ Top, "I've been up. I've down. Dallas, Texas, Hollywood. Lord, I'm just looking to avoid some tush." (Get it? Pun! Pause for laughs. What, not funny? Hey, don't judge. You try writing the comedy lines a weight loss blog!) Anyhoo, my point being that I've thought and done this diet thing from all angles. I've gained some back and lost it and gained... You get it. 

And lemme just say that what gets really old is having to constantly think weight wherever I go. No matter what I eat, when or where, there's this nagging voice in my head telling me not to overindulge. Oh sure, I can throw caution to the wind. I can eat whatever I want. Sort of. But I know it will come hunt me down sooner or later. The inescapable truth is that I can either watch what I eat for the rest of my life or run the risk of putting all those pounds back on again. 

Yes, the spectre at the feast is annoying. Sometimes I wish she'd just shut up and leave me alone. But then she reminds me that she has my best interests at heart. She knows how hard I worked to get to a healthy weight. And she doesn't want me to backslide just for a bit of indulgence that I really didn't enjoy that much anyway. 

Cuz yeah, truth is, it's not worth it. The candy, cookies, chips, etc really don't taste as good as I think they're going to (except seafoam and marzipan, lol those always meet expectations!) But most everything else lets me down. That's not just head talk. Try it sometime for yourself. Visualize some treat or other that you love. Anticipate it. Notice how after the first bite or do, it's not as satisfying as you thought it would be? That's what I call saturation theory (more on that later). 

So while I would sometimes like to pull a Lady Macbeth and wash that scale right out of my life, I realize that having just the right amount of guilt over eating the wrong things and fear of getting back into old habits is not a bad thing.  They are reality checks, intended to help me stay strong. So I've decided to make friends with the spectre at the feast and be grateful for her. 

Not to say that I will always make perfect food choices. Sometimes, honestly, I don't always know what those are. Sometimes my body feels better after a handful of M&Ms. Like it knows what it needs. It's as if it was designed intelligently by a Higher Power who knows what He's doing (ya think?) But I'm glad to have that still, small voice encouraging me to make mindful choices. I feel very confident and powerful when I see that I control food and it doesn't control me. All part of the Divine Plan, I'm thinking. I wish the very best for all of you, my dear friends. Thank you for reading these little markings of mine. Drop me a line to say hello <3 (PS we are smiling under out masks. And I don't know what my husband is looking at, lol)