And the point is...

Well I have done it, I am back on the po1nts again. Three days in and things are going very smoothly. Mind you I have been here so many times it should go smoothly, I should be able to do it in my sleep! As always it is so easy when you first start, and the motivation is running high so it does not seem too hard to get out the tracker and the po1nts counter and make lists about what I eat. I know from experience though that this does not last for long with me.

Most times in the past when I have tracked my po1nts I have been really dedicated for the first three or four weeks, although by week four I am no longer tracking the weekends, then after that I will miss days here and there and just try to remember later what I ate. This works for me for about six to eight weeks, then the weight loss stalls or stops, I get discouraged and everthing turns to crap. I know the system works, the thing that does not work is me.

I have long had a problem with finishing things. I start heaps of projects, but never seem to finish anything much. The things that I do finish usually get done in a rush at the last minute, like assignments, or birthday/Christmas projects - will someone please remind me that homemade Christmas cards are never going to happen in my house and the time and energy I put in to creating them will be more than balanced out by the time and energy put into repressing the frustration I feel when they are not looking just perfect, and it is the day before Christmas as they go into the post!

Mia wrote a great post about being a perfectionist, and how she never saw herself as one because, well look in the mirror, how can that person with the unstyled hair and smudged makeup and messy house be a perfectionist? Well I get that completely, because that is me in many ways too. I learned a lot about myself after immersing myself in the Flylady site, I learned that a perfectionist does not always look like we perfectionist think they do. The biggest perfectionist giveaway for me is the procrastination - I put things off because I know I want them done a certain way, I have a certain image of how they should be, but I also dont know how to make them that way, or dont want to fail in my attempts to make them that way. This leads to putting things off, and either never doing them, or doing a last minute rush job that is totaly disappointing to me in its entirety. I also find that once I am on the home straight with a task, it is never as hard as I thought it would be, then I beat myself up about procrastinating for so long before starting.

The whole weight loss thing for me has been similar. I put it off until I am crying with frustration at being so fat. I fuss and fart around with ideas about this program, or this pill or whatever, but deep down inside I KNOW that eating right and exercising are the only ways to do it. And I put it off a bit longer thinking it is going to be so hard... then I start, things are going smoothly and I think this is not so bad, then I loose some weight, get complacent, or bored, or impatient or (insert other appropriate word, you know we have all done it...), stop doing what I should and bam - the fat comes back.

Then I spend the next few months going through it all again - what is with that? Then I beat myself up about the previous failures, I say to myself if I only stuck with it last spring when I started, I would now be at my goal weight, wearing clothes that fit nicely, running regularly, feeling fit and healthy and happy.

So sometimes I ask my self what is the point?

The point is... I am 38, I have three kids, one DH, and my life is probably half lived. That means there is still a half to go and given that I have not done that much with the first half, I want the second half to mean something. I want my kids to grow up thinking I am someone special (aside from being their mother of course) I want to be around to see them grow up, to see my grandchildren (if I get any) to travel with DH. I want to live a long and healthy life, and die knowing I lived life, instead of sat on my backside watching life go by. And most of all I dont want to lose this weight when I am really old then look back and regret all of the other things I could have had if only I had not procrastinated about it for so long, and if only I had stuck with it and finished it when I was 38.

The first step - count the po1nts.