Explanations or excuses?

For the first time in several weeks, I am back below the limit of obesity. While that is in and of itself good news, it is the third time I've been crossing that invisible border, after two ugly-looking upward bumps in my weight curve.
Looking at that graph is, of course, something that makes me try to analyze the reasons why, for over a year now, I have stopped recondensing.
The usual suspects?
I had a shitload of work and plenty of stressors in my life. I had too little sleep. I stopped exercising. I kept having cravings for things that were no good for me.
I stopped journalling what I ate and measuring my portions.
And I kept slipping back every time I started to get back to doing it. Too fucking tired was my usual excuse.
Those abortive attempts at getting back on the wagon did, at least, keep me from gaining it all back. It would have been entirely possible for me to go off the rails completely and regain all seventy pounds in a year- after all I did manage to gain 44 pounds in three months once already.
Still, being stuck between 72 and 61 pounds lost (my lowest/ highest point during that year) is not something I am patting myself on the back for when I still had 26 pounds to go to goal even at that lowest point I had reached.

So what happened ?
I started on this journey extremely motivated and single-mindedly sticking to my plan.
One big motivation was wanting to get to normal weight before last January's family reunion because I wanted to be slim when having to meet my relatives.
That date has passed, and with it the motivation attached to it.
My physical limitations brought on by morbid obesity have been greatly reduced.
Quite simply, close to just overweight doesn't hurt as much as being morbidly obese.
And the next target date, being normal-weighted by the time I turned fifty, was too far in the future to keep me sticking tightly to the original plan. I am a terrible procrastinator, and I was also procrastinating about weight loss.

All of the above might be the reason I got stuck.

And all of the above are just excuses. Lousy ones at that.

I did not stick to my plan. I ate too much and moved too little. And I started looking for excuses why I did that.

That are the facts.

I can, of course, keep wallowing in excuses.
And remain stranded at Grand Central Station with the other trainwrecks.

Or I can pull myself back up on the rails by my bootstraps, and continue my journey where I interrupted myself.

It's a choice.
One that I make with every bite I eat.

I want to be back to normal weight by next March. It is still doable.
So I'd better ditch the excuses fast and get back to work. Immediately.


Julia