Hanging in Critical Balance

Yesterday, I should have weighed myself, but I ate breakfast and did a million other things before I thought about it, and as every seasoned dieter knows, you should only weigh yourself first thing in the morning. As I went running yesterday, I thought about the possibility that I hadn't lost any weight this week. How would I deal with that, emotionally? Would a failure to lose any weight on only the second week cause me to give up on the whole thing and believe that I'm doomed forever by my uncooperative metabolism to be fat? I wasn't feeling it yesterday. I did feel fat and bloated and I went over in my head, as I ran, all the things I had eaten (and drank - that's far worse) during the past week, picking over my choices with a critical fine toothcomb.

The ridiculousness of this arrested me and stopped me in my tracks. How had I got to this point in only two weeks? It's a question of extremes. I've gone from stuffing everything down my neck without any heed to its caloric content to monitoring every little morsel. Extremes like this will drive a person crazy, I thought.

It's difficult to maintain a balance mentally with food. When you are driven to extreme lifestyle changes physically, it naturally follows that your thought patterns will mimic these changes. As I continued to run, I decided to consciously monitor the balance I keep between my former throw all caloric cares to the wind-approach and my new awareness of the food and drink I intake. I can't become either too carefree or too critical. Being careless about eating has made me unhappy, but being uptight and overly critical of my eating habits will do the same.

By the time I huffed and puffed my way back into the house, I had made peace with the impending confrontation with the scale and woke up this morning ready to face the music.

I lost 3 more pounds.