I was doing so well for a while there. I was really paying attention to the points of everything I ate, writing it down. Or at least if I wasn't writing it down, I was at least tallying it in my head, to make sure that the total wasn't going over what I was supposed to eat. I was keeping track. I was working at it. Perhaps not as hard as I should have been, but it was still work, and I was proud of it.

So what happened? Where did all my will power and determination go? I can't blame this on the holidays because although it's true that I gained a few pounds the last few weeks of December, the problem started far before that. I started to slack off. I didn't write things down. I kept a running total in my head but it wasn't necessarily accurate. I started to make excuses and to allow myself to go over this day, and then the next day, and then the next. And on this path I hit a plateau in the weight loss journey. I'm not sure if I can even reliably call it a plateau because it wasn't as if I was doing extra work with no results. It was that I was allowing myself to be lazy and then accepting that the results weren't there.

We did allow ourselves to slack over the holidays, and although I may wince at the fact that my 21-pound total loss has now dropped to 16, I was not all that surprised. This is what happens when you pretend that you can eat anything and there will be no consequences. And I'm not stupid. Not once did I think there wouldn't really be any consequence.

The problem is that now, given a taste of the old ways, it is that much harder to get myself back on track. I'm getting there slowly but it's harder now than it was when we first started last year. This time I've been on the program for quite a while and I'm realizing that I'm spending a lot of money to do something that is good for me in the long run, but yet I'm slowly sabotaging all the hard work I put into it so far.

So what will it take before I can get myself to get back into the 'Healthier Me' groove? I want to lose the weight. I want to be healthier and feel better about myself. I like the fact that there were already physical and mental plusses from losing even the small amount of weight I've lost so far, and I want the good feelings to continue. I have a lot of health risks in my genes from both sides of my family and I fully understand that if I do nothing about it, I will face such things as heart disease, adult onset diabetes, and cataracts. The list goes on and on.

I can be strong. I know this about myself. I have found the strength in me before to do difficult things, and all things considered, eating better is not so difficult a task, despite whether my stubborn brain may want to admit that or not. Ultimately it comes down to what is most important to me. I want this. I need this. All I have to do is try.