Update and a question

Time for an update. I have been meaning to blog before this and just didn't get around to it. Happy Easter tomorrow and belated Happy Passover to those who celebrated that.

I weighed myself today. I never blogged after my last weigh in, but I was up 3 lbs from my previous weigh-in, from 175 to 178. For this weigh-in, I am still 178, and I'm really happy about that, because I had a rough month. I feel like I am struggling now that I am close to my goal, struggling with motivation, because I feel like I look good and feel less of a sense of urgency than when I started. There could be other issues, too. Maybe now that I have a date for my class reunion, I feel some pressure to get to goal by a certain time, and I have never done well when I put that kind of pressure on myself. It makes me eat more. I also wondered if the 175 weight was more of a result of being a nervous wreck at the time and less of a result of what I was actually doing at the time. As of today, though, I feel like I may be ready to buckle down and get back to work.

One thing that I am really happy about is that through all of this, the thread that has kept me hanging on, and probably kept my weight the same this month, is my exercise. I ALWAYS do it. Every. Single. Day. I know that this is not necessary for everyone, but for me, it's as much about what it does for my head as what it does for my body. It keeps me in the game when things get rough, keeps me from totally giving up when I have bad food days. After 2 years, it is a habit, as much as brushing my teeth. I had a rough week at work, and worked late a number of times, and for various reasons, did not always get to exercise in the AM as I prefer to. I forced myself to do it at night, even though I was tired and didn't want to. And I actually enjoyed it once I got going. This is what will help me maintain my weight when I finally get to goal. It's my saving grace.

Now that I have updated you, I have a question for those of you who have lost your weight over a long period of time. I say long period of time because this is the first time I have lost weight over a long period of time, so what I am about to talk about is not something that I noticed when I lost weight quickly, but I notice it now. My question is this. Do you find that you deal with people differently now that you have lost weight? Do you find that you have more of an urgency to confront people when you have an issue than to just try to let it go or let it eat away at you? I do, and it kind of amazes me. Case in point: I had an incident at work this week on Wednesday, where a director was e-mailing me about something. I thought that she was angry, and was basically accusing me of not doing something that I was never told that I SHOULD do by my previous supervisor. (This is his boss. I actually have a new supervisor who also reports to the director, but she was out this week) I was REALLY upset. Anyway, I felt like I HAD to deal with it and bring it to some sort of resolution, HAD to stand up for myself. (But in a diplomatic way) The next day (Thursday) I asked my old supervisor if he knew anything about this and he was as bewildered as I was. So on Friday, I spoke to the director, to ask her what her expectations were and explain what had been done in the past. It went really well, and we cleared the air. It turned out she had not been angry at all, (E-mail can be dangerous, if you are not REALLY careful about how you word things) she was just talking about what she wants to do going forward. I felt so much better. In the past I would not have done this, I would have just stewed away. I also noticed about 6 months ago that in general I get angry more, or I feel my anger more, and I want to deal with it rather than eating it down. It's scary because everyone considers me to be so nice, and I have always been a people pleaser, tend to let people walk on me at times, and don't want to make people mad at me. I hate confrontations, so all this is new territory for me. Anyway, just wondered whether a lot of you had dealt with that, too, and if so, has it been hard for you?