I've taken half days at work the last two days due to being slightly sick, in addition to not having a whole lot to doing being that everyone I support is on vacation. My boss was going to let me leave early again today, but since I have to leave early on Monday to pick up a friend from the airport I decided to at least try to make it to 3:00 or 4:00, which I've almost succeeded (as opposed to leaving a noon as I've done the past two days). ANYWAY. To keep myself busy I've been paroozing some weight-loss blogs and stumbled upon something that literally screamed my name - screamed my name in the sense that I could have written it.

In a post Lyn from Escape from Obesity wrote:

I lived in that "diet cycle" for years and years... I would count my calories and measure my food... all morning and then something would trigger me to throw it out the window so I could eat xyz and "start over tomorrow." And I start-over-tomorrowed myself... for the better part of a decade. Not a good thing, any way you look at it. SO many people are caught in the same cycle. You want to lose weight, but *in the moment* you want potato chips more, so you eat the chips because you can start over tomorrow. Or worse, you eat the chips and then, since you are starting over tomorrow, you hurry and eat all the other things you want - like cake and ice cream and fried chicken - because when you start over tomorrow you won't be able to have it... But then tomorrow goes the same way, and the next day does too, and it all melds together into one big off-plan eating festival with a sprinkle of dieting on top. Only, this festival does not bring you joy. It just makes you sad.

That. That has been my life. For years. Since I was 14 and first tried to start losing weight. Now, eleven years later, here I am. STILL trying to lose weight. STILL trying to break "the cycle" - still. ELEVEN years later. It's true, I'm at the lowest weight I've ever maintained in my entire adult life, and I'm only about 5 pounds shy from my lowest adult weight ever, but it doesn't soften the blow that if I had just gotten this done when I was 14, or 16, or 21, or 23 even - I would be done now.

What Lyn said rings very true to me. I can't even count how many times I've pulled the "well, today is already screwed up, might as well enjoy it" or the "I'm going to eat this right now because tomorrow I can't have it" cards. Way too many times for me to even pretend to count. And what's even crazier than the acts themselves is that I always felt completely justified in doing them. I did. Each time. It made perfect sense to me to indulge in an extra dessert, or an extra menu item, or an extra whatever it was because the following day, those food items would be omitted from my spectrum of consumption. It made perfect sense to me to overeat for the remainder of an "already screwed up day" because, hey, it was already screwed up.

Now, when I think about it - was I CRAZY!?

Of COURSE it doesn't make sense! If you're not supposed to eat it tomorrow, why the hell is it okay for you to eat it today!? If you've already screwed up once in a day, why screw up more!? Not to sound too valley girl about it, but, like, seriously!? I am literally shaking my head at the very thought of it. And the ridiculous thing is: I've done this FOR YEARS!

I am very confident that once the new year hits I will have new motivation and an extra fire in my belly (no pun intended) to get this done once and for all. The last month especially has been difficult, with the holidays and going back and forth to Michigan every other weekend. I know for a fact that staying in Chicago for an extended period of time will be a HUGE help in and of itself, not to mention the extra boost with the new year. This week has been good so far. True it's only been a couple days, but I already avoided a few temptations: I really wanted to stop and grab fast food on Wednesday when I was running some errands, and today, all day long, the woman who sits in the desk next to me has had a birthday cake, just sitting there - and I haven't gotten a piece.

I think I just really need to keep Lyn's words in my head each time I try to give myself that phony justification. Because that's all it is ... phony. You can talk your way out of anything, but your body won't let you lie. And mine sure hasn't. It tells the truth about every single thing I've ever put into my mouth, every single day I talked myself out of a workout, every single moment of weakness and bad decision I've ever made - it's all right there, out in the open, no where to hide. And you can't talk yourself out of that.

Time to break the cycle - once and for all!