So 208 this morning. I'm hoping for 207 tomorrow. Somehow I believe these four pounds will come off easily because they went on so fast. I realize that makes no logical sense, but I'm believing it anyway!
So, Biggest Loser last night. Daris went home for a whole month to train for a marathon and managed to win the marathon with an impressive time of just over four hours. But when he returned to the ranch for his weigh in, he had gained two pounds. So in four weeks of working out, he lost no weight and actually gained two. Standing on the scale, he said - and quite convincingly  - that he wasn't trying to lose weight, he was trying to train for a marathon. Both Bob and Jillian called him out on that. Especially Jillian. She said that was bullshit. And he eventually admitted - although we had seen him eating uncontrollably on his athome video - that his eating was out of control. That he gets sad and eats because he's sad. He's talked a lot about how he has never had a girlfriend. And he gets pretty emotional when he talks about that. I wonder if he sabotaged himself because he is now at a very reasonable weight for his height and still doesn't have a girlfriend. I think a lot of times people lose weight thinking that their life will be wonderful 'if only they were thin.' Then they get thin, and their life is still full of all the same problems we all have, and so they eat back their weight out of frustration or sadness or discouragement. Last night they brought a lot of the past season members back to run with the final four during the marathon. They brought back Eric who was the winner three or four years ago and who is now losing his weight all over again. So he went from 400 to 180 or 90 something back up to almost 400. He talked about how easy it was for him when he first got home after winning to ignore the weight gains. He'd think, 'Oh, its' just ten pounds. I can take that off in no time.' But as we all know, it's ten and then another ten and then another ten and pretty soon we're obese and wondering how we got that way and of course how we got that way is one bite at a time. One calorie laden, when we're already full and don't need it, bite at a time. And I sure proved that this past weekend by gaining four pounds in four days. I think - besides the alcohol that I've already talked about - part of the problem was portion size. At home, I'm in charge of what goes on my plate. But in restaurant, the chef decides how much I'm getting. I remember when we went out to dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant - I remember that when my plate came I said, "Oh this is huge. Who could eat all that?" And I didn't eat it all, but I ate a lot more of eat than I would have were I the person to load the plate.
I think it's incredibly important to pay attention to the after stage of a diet. After the weight is gone, the journey, I think, becomes even harder, even more challenging. Portion control, moving my butt, and keeping an eye on the hidden calories of things like alcohol will have to be my guideposts for the rest of the journey - which means for the rest of my life. My healthy, at goal weight feeling and looking good, weight.