Energy and persistence conquer all things

Ben (below) said a mouthful today when he said, "Energy and persistence conquer all things." Why do I have Ben Franklin quotes below my blog? He's a hero of mine. Seriously, I love the guy. He had the best attitude ever and was so wise. If I could ever be a 10th of what Ben was, I would be doing okay. A little random tid-bit: I named my dog Ben, after Franklin.

Today has been a little tough... no, not "melt down" tough like the other day. I'm over that particular incident, and you've probably seen me at my absolute worst a little earlier than I would have liked. I'm not one to melt down normally, or have a bad attitude; in general I love life and all things it offers, but it happens occasionally when I haven't taken any of the necessary vitamins in a while. When it's over, I sleep for a while and wake up better. I'm better now.

No, today was normal tough: crunched for time and didn't get all the chores done, a transformer blew so the whole block was blacked out for an hour when I was supposed to be working and it set me back... that kind of tough. Led to a little nic fits here and there.

So my husband helped me cleanse my energy. He does that for me every now and then (sometimes it even helps me come down from a melt down if I let him). Basically he brushes away the negativity and helps balance my aura. It's very relaxing for me and it's pretty much helped settle me for the night.

I still kinda want a cigg but not so bad. I'm hanging in there.

Still doing my affirmations & drinking my water & eating my enchanted grapefruits.

I'm down about 6 pounds in 6 days. In case you've never been seriously obese, no, that's not an unhealthy loss. It's pretty normal for a fat person like myself to lose what seems like a significant amount of weight on the first few weeks of being on a weight loss plan. I think I read it's mostly water or something. The bigger you are, the bigger that initial loss will be.

However, a pound or two per day is not something that keeps up (and would not at all be healthy-- yes it would be nice, but I'm in no rush. I'm not trying to fit into a pair of skinny jeans, I'm in this for my health for the rest of my life); the longer you go on losing, the more weight loss will slow down to a reasonable, healthy amount, about 2 to 4 lbs per month or so. It's at this point where one like me can begin getting impatient, because even though I know this is the real weight loss-- the real burning of fat-- the scale isn't going down as rapidly as it did in the beginning.

At some point, it's common to hit "the wall" when your body begins to shut down a bit, wants to hold on to it's energy reserves, you're gaining muscle/losing fat and things are redistributing, all this is going on and basically you stop losing weight for a while... this is when it can get really frustrating for me. This is where I've abandoned hope many times in the past. If you can get over the wall, you will resume with a healthy weight loss and the sun will seem to rise again, however, it's a long, dark night before the dawn, and I don't think I've ever gotten through that night before.

Picture it: You were losing quickly, then it slowed, now it stopped. You can lose energy, the scale isn't moving, you're hungry and about at the point when you're a little sick of this new lifestyle and miss old habits and are ready for the comfort of converting back to your old ways. This is when I'm really going to need a safe harbor to ride out the storm because this kind of discouragement can be hard to deal with. I'm looking for signs of that wall coming, I'm planning some ways to deal with it already.

Like Ben said... Energy & Persistance Conquer. I must Conquer.

What was good today: the kids had fun with the black out, lighting candles and roaming the complex with neighbors wielding flashlights. Even as a child, black outs were always fun. I remember the big one of 77 in Brooklyn as a child. But the best thing about black outs is that you know, eventually, without a doubt, light will return. I have to keep telling myself that.