WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 37 lbs
DAYS COMMUTED: 7
POTENTIAL COMMUTING DAYS MISSED: 18
BREAKDOWN OF EXCUSES USED BY COMMUTE DAYS MISSED:
Daughter ill - 2 days
Stomach flu and its lingering effects - 4 days
Hiatus (working longer hours to write a paper) - 12 days
SIGH! I kind of knew it would happen. I spent most of March driving to work instead of biking, and eating take-out and junk food because I was working too hard. So I gained weight. Logical consequence.
What this month has taught me is that:
1. My weight loss to date really can be attributed to biking, because the biking has really motivated me to make other positive choices regarding my self-care. When I don't bike, I also eat worse, and that leads me back into gaining weight.
2. While I have made significant lifestyle changes in order to bike-commute this year, this month has shown me that the moment I stop biking I will immediately fall back into old habits. This means I need to focus more on changing my old habits so that whether or not I continue bike-commuting beyond August, I will not risk gaining back whatever weight I've lost and returning to my pre-bike-commuting unhealthy lifestyle.
So, how am I going to change my old habits? Well, for one thing, I've consulted with a dietitian about eating for healthy, sustainable weight loss and picked up some excellent advice from her. I'm also trying to be more mindful of what my body really needs - listening to that guiding voice within me that tells me what I need rather than what I want. Essentially, I'm trying to change my relationship with eating so it's no longer a hobby or a reward or a way to self-soothe. I know that changing this relationship isn't going to be easy, and it's not going to happen overnight, but I'm becoming a lot more interested in changing not so much what I eat, but rather how and why.
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