Wednesday, August 06, 2008

What Do I Want?

Today I filled out the survey about maintaining weight loss that the (insert name of study that I can't remember right now here) Study sends me every year. I was proud to report that for the 5th year in a row I maintained my weight loss (within 5 pounds is their mainenance criteria, but I actually didn't deviate at all).

The survey contains hundreds of well thought out questions, about how and how much you eat, exercise, portion sizes, if you are usually hungry all the time, questions to measure your stress and anxiety levels, etc. But what gave me pause this year, like last year, was the question "Are you currently trying to lose weight?" I answered "Yes," since I kinda sorta am. But let's be honest here: I'm actually sabotaging myself daily.

Let's take today for example. I rode my bike to and from the train station (on the San Francisco side) for a total of 5 miles of biking (good). I did not go to the gym, partly because my gym buddy was too busy and partly because I'm lazy and partly because I justified it saying my bike ride was good enough (not even close) (bad). I ate dessert at lunch, even though it wasn't that tasty. I ate a lot of chocolate covered peanuts from the mini-kitche. I drank two cups of coffee. I did not get enough sleep.

This kind of day bears little resemblance to the days that made me lose fourty pounds in the first place. I know what to do in order to low weight, but I'm not doing it. Why not? I don't really know. I wish I knew how to find out.