My New Best Friend...

Is a treadmill at Gold's Gym :)

Of course, I'm not talking about just any treadmill. I found a special treadmill that praises you as you hit 10 percent of your goal time, 20 percent, etc...While to some, that kind of encouragement might seem like overkill, it's ideal for me. Because, let's face it, I really need the encouragement, especially when I'm huffing on the treadmill and trying to ignore the cramping of my muscles.

With this weight loss journey, I've found it's important to celebrate the little successes. Like finally throwing away (Miranda style) that 1/2 gallon of ice cream in the freezer. Or like running for 30 minutes straight. Or simply not giving up after a binge. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the change I'm trying to make, and it helps to celebrate each 10 percent marker, if you will.

On that note, I have a confession to make: I had a binge on Tuesday night. There's not much to talk about. It happened when I was feeling (a) overwhelmed, (b) upset, and (c) PMS-ing. It lasted about 20 minutes and in that time I consumed all of the leftover pizza (2 huge slices) and two bowls of ice cream. Right towards the end of the binge, I realized that binging was not going to make me feel better, so I stopped. I threw out the remainder of the ice cream, cried for a while, took a bath, and went to sleep (I was overtired as well). I woke up on Wednesday feeling bloated, but determined to eat well and exercise. And I did.

I realized three things from the binge. One, I'm not sure that I'm strong enough to keep trigger foods in the house (i.e. ice cream and pizza). Two, binging really doesn't make you feel better when you're stressed out; it just adds one more negative stresser to the pile. So, I'm really hoping that the next time I feel overwhelmed I can find a different way to "feel better." And third, I realized that I have grown stronger and healthier in the last five months because I was able to stop the binge relatively quickly and I was able to get right back on the wagon the following day. That's so much better than allowing one binge to turn into days/ weeks of bad eating.

Enough about that. Otherwise, things have been going pretty okay this week. I worked out twice, went food shopping, did some laundry, and even vacuumed the apartment. My weigh in is today and I'm going to try not to get upset if I see a gain. Wish me luck and I'll let you know what the verdict is later this afternoon.