T is for Trigger (and 'Tini)

I'm a huge fan of happy hour. I love all the elements - the friends, the food, the cocktails. What I don't love is just after happy hour when I realize I drank about 500 calories and ate another 1000. This being a kind estimate. Chicken wings and sliders are not low cal, especially when paired with a couple of pints of Guiness or a martini. Then I feel bloated and disappointed. Or going to a friend's place for dinner where you grill up some great burgers, share a bottle of wine, and finish it all off with a slice of cheesecake or some pie with ice cream. Then heading home to fall into a food coma on the couch.

I started writing this post a few days ago about how alcohol is a "trigger food" for me, but that I'm not willing to give it up completely. Just to clarify, I don't have a problem with alcohol, I have a problem with overeating. Alcohol lets down your inhibitions which for me tends towards feeling like it's perfectly fine for me to enjoy the 4th meal, as Taco Bell so nicely puts it, whenever I feel like it. I'll just go right ahead and eat today's calories, and tomorrow's too. Not to mention the face that alcohol has a ton of empty calories. So, yeah, it's a big issue in terms of my weight loss. During the week I do really well with tracking and watching what I eat. But come Friday I throw it all to the wind and cut loose! No tracking for me! Exercise? Sometimes, but not when it interferes with couch surfing and catching up on the shows I DVRd during the week and haven't had time to watch yet. And every weekend includes socializing which is going out for dinner and drinks at which I consume about two to four days worth of calories. Ugh.

As I'm looking for the reasons for my extra 30 pounds, it's become very, very obvious. So blatant, in fact, that as much as I may try to talk my way around it and avoid the real issue, I just can't do it and say that I really made a commitment to losing weight. So I'm giving up alcohol for a month to force myself to be conscience of my consumption on weekends (and on a few weeknights here and there). The worst part of this being that I already know I'm going to have to put in a caveat for next Saturday night because Husband and I are scheduled for an Octoberfest fundraiser. But I'm volunteering to be DD and keeping myself to 1 beer. I hate that I'm already putting an astrick next to this 30 days, but there it is. Either way I think it'll be a very interesting learning experience.

Navel Gazing

I've been thinking about how I'm going to start blogging away that last 30 pounds. I have this fantasy where I start, and it all just melts away. I have had far too many fantasies about losing weight. The truth is that weight loss is connected to everything else in my life. I can will away that weight, but it won't stay away unless I work at the parts of my life that contribute to it.

I've been at war with my weight for what feels like forever. Actual time: about 25 years. Since I was 6 or so. 25 years. God, what a waste of time. It's exhausting, isn't it? Just think about the amount of time that you spend worrying about losing weight, or how good you'd look if you just lost a little weight, or how you'd get that job you wanted, or that guy you wanted. But in the end, thinking about it constantly does absolutely nothing. DOING something does something. So why is it so hard to do something? Anything, in fact. Just taking one small step towards making it happen.

I read somewhere that happiness is setting goals and achieving them. I don't really know if that's the whole truth, but it's a pretty accurate statement for where I am. Right now I'm at the setting goals stage. Committing to it. Once I make up my mind that I want something, I can usually get it. It's just deciding once and for all that this is what I want. Not that achieving it is a piece of cake, but I think we all know how to get what we want. It's just saying that THIS is the time, THIS is the moment that I'm going to make it happen. So I'm saying it - I'm going to lose the extra 30 pounds I carry around and I'm going to keep it off. I actually feel nervous writing that. It's a big statement because I know what it means. And I just realized that I'm sort of contradicting myself - I said that thinking about something doesn't make it happen. It doesn't, but it is a step in the process of getting there. Well, I've thought about it long enough, and I'm going to take steps to do it.