Day 78
Each year I buy a bag of Snickers bars, a bag of tootsie rolls, and a bag of Kit Kat bars. I put them in a big Halloween bowl and pray for Trick or Treaters to knock on my door so that none will be left over. Snickers loves Halloween because that was the day that I brought him home to live with me eight years ago. He was so sweet that I just had to name him after a candy bar.
That first year he wasn’t sure what to make of the children ringing the doorbell and yelling “Trick or Treat!” But each year since then he looks forward to the excitement of having visitors all dressed up in funny costumes come to the house. This year I dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Snickers pretended that he was the little dog “Toto.”
Snickers gets ready for Trick or Treaters
Snickers helped me to get things ready and as soon as I put the plastic pumpkin out in front of the door, he knew what he had to do. He spread out by the doorway and waited patiently until he heard someone approach. Then he started barking and jumping at the door. He was really trying to be scary! But as soon as I opened the door and he ran out to greet the visitors no one was scared. Instead all we heard was “Oh, what a cute little dog!”
Tomorrow I will take the leftover candy to work and let someone else be tempted by it.
Snickers as Toto
Yesterday was weigh-in day and I really was not looking forward to it. I knew that the news would not be good. To be honest I have been sort of bummed out. I don’t like that I couldn’t stay disciplined while I was staying with my grandchildren. I felt discouraged and disheartened.
I started the 20 lb struggle with so much enthusiasm and positive feeling. But now I felt like I had failed. I wanted to get my motivation back but I just felt defeated. I was telling all this to one of my friends when she said something interesting that changed everything for me.
What she said was, “You have worked hard for the past ten weeks and you lost 14 lbs. You deserve a vacation. Some time off. Maybe you gained a few pounds on your vacation from the 20 lbs struggle, but you didn’t gain it ALL back. Give yourself a break and then get back on track.”
So that’s what I did.
I decided that I had had my vacation and now it was time to step onto the scale and get back to business. I was scared. But it wasn’t because of Halloween Horrors. I was scared to see the damage that I had done while I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating.
One foot. Then the other. I closed my eyes. And then I looked. I had only gained two pounds! It wasn’t as bad as I feared. I can do this. I can lose those two pounds. And. I can lose six more! After all I’m already 12 pounds gone. That’s a pretty good head start as a begin my renewed effort in the 20 lb struggle.
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