Well that's the the thing about the whole weightloss, diet, exercise thing- I have to fit it into real life. And real life will always have challenges and stresses. There will never be that time when all conditions are ideal. If that time does exist, it will only last a short while before reality with all it's problems comes crashing in. That's what makes it so hard. Diabetes does't care that it is hard. It's plugging away inside my body, every minute, day by day doing it's damage regardless of what I am dealing with on the outside.

I am trying to develop habits that will serve me over a lifetime. We all have our cookie queens. I think it's okay to have a chocolate walnut wheel and a cranberry fig bar but I need to develop the ability to stop with one and that is so hard for me. I know I will never make it long term by depriving myself. My son brought home a tub of chocolate chip cookies from a party this week, a party for which I spent an afternoon making delicious pastries for him to take. These things have been in the pantry this week and now they are gone, eaten by you know who. The kids only had one or two! I need to be able to only have one and be satisfied.

The diet has been complicated by the fact that I am still hungry after I eat all of what I am supposed to eat. I still want to eat more. This is especially true in the morning. Then I end up overeating. So I have not done well at all this week also. I deal with stress by eating, and it is difficult to break that connection. Somehow substituting the orange for the cookie doesn't quite cut it for me.

While Sparkpeople can be motivating and inspiring it can also be depressing because there are so many people who succeed at losing lots of weight. And I think what's wrong with me that I can't do this. I set up a goal to walk 100 miles on my treadmill before my next doctors appointment. I tried to start picking up the pace a little, running a little, not very ambitious just adding 0.1 miles a week, maybe running for 0.05 miles, a minute max, because I want to be able to run. One of my dream physical goals by age 50 is to do a sprint triathlon. I will be 49 next year. I started having anterior ankle pain, something I have had before. I have to dial the pace way down to keep the ankle pain from starting and gradually developing into a big problem. I can't "push that tush" because I know I will end up with an "ankleitis" where I have to stop altogether. And the knee issues are always there.

I manage to sometimes make it to 40 minutes or so on the treadmill, and then I go outside and get completely winded with just a little walking. I have restrictive lung disease aka "diminished lung capacity" only about 50% compared to to others which basically means I end up huffing and puffing outside. Walking on a treadmill is not the same as walking outside, so I haven't made as much progress as I think I have. And of course, that lung disease will improve with weight loss as will everything else. But getting to that weight loss is the tricky part.

My journey to this point has been one of going around in circles. The longest I have really stuck to good habits in at least a decade has been about six weeks, after which I let go.

I read a blog by INDYGIRL and the image that has stuck with me is where she talks about lying in bed, lifting shampoo bottles and thinking "this is useless". That is what I feel like a lot of the time on the treadmill when I have to walk so slow and I think I will never lose this weight because controlling what I eat and drinking all that water and the exercise is so hard, day after day. But that effort compounded by time made a big difference for her and I have to trust that putting in that effort, no matter how useless it seems will make a difference for me too.