Calm after the storm

This weekend was the first time in over a month that we neither had anything urgent on our plates nor anything coming up to be nervous about. Just catching up on the backlog in our household that had been created by being out and about most of the time, puttering about with the floral decorations a bit, and apart from that, just relax.  It was a badly needed break for both of us.
This being the first full week I´m working this day, I´ll also have to get back into my pre-christmas eating patterns if I want to reach my next minigoal of leaving morbid obesity by my b-day in March.
I have actually been taken aback at how fast the pounds have gone back up as soon as I was going off plan.
But then again, I´ve had plenty of proof in the past that I must absolutely stay watchful if I don´t want to gain everything back. Even if I believed I was eating "normally", what I gained shows that I have been overeating by some five hundred calories a day on average, plus water retention. So back it is to weighing and journalling every bite that crosses my lips. With my body being condensed by about sixty pounds, the margin for slipups has become decidedly smaller, as my basal metabolic rate, which was low to begin with, has gone down by about three hundred calories a day.
Which means that as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer, I´ll have to get back to walking. Thirty minutes of walking fast with my sticks equal about those three hundred calories, so, if done daily, would offset the effect of the lowered BMR. Except it´s still ice cold and dark in the morning and I´m admittedly not a morning person anyways. So, I still have a grace period of about two months where I have an excuse not to exercise. Actually, I have been looking into buying an elliptical for at home, but these things are huge and expensive, both of which are, at least for now, a good enough reason for me not to buy one, after all, come spring, I can do the same workout for free again without squeezing that big machine into our already crowded living room.
Not exercising has, by the way, already had a negative effect on my back, so even if there weren´t the question of weight, I would have to get back doing it to avoid another slipped disk or such.
Can you tell I hate exercise? Yet the human body seems to be built to require it, so, it´s not a question of what I want but what I need to do.
Perhaps I must just pick my momentum back up. After all, I have been exercising regularly for the second half of 2010, and not-so-regularly for several months in 2011, and I was, at the time, feeling good. I have to remember that feeling, not how good it would feel to sleep in for another half-hour.
And I also have to start taking my protein shakes again. After four weeks without, I see a noticeable change for the worse of my skin´s condition, so, unless I want that Shar-Pei look, I have to re-nourish it fast.
Good intentions... now I must only put them in practice.


Julia