But wait, you ask. You never reported on Challenge #3, the Caillou challenge. What happened with that? The short answer is: I don't want to talk about it.
The long answer is:
I failed the challenge. Yes. I did. (grimace).
From the start I struggled with this challenge. I was burned out on counting calories and the mental part of losing weight. I found ways to cheat without technically cheating. I estimated badly, counted every thing I possibly could as exercise, used the default exercise calculations instead of my more accurate modified exercise calculations in LoseIt. I ran through my free splurge days before Christmas. I made deals about borrowing calories from other weeks. (not technically allowed). Not surprisingly, my results were not the greatest. I went from losing slowly to not losing at all to even gaining some weeks while counting calories. Finally I had enough. I was overwhelmed with various things I was dealing with in my life and sick of the challenge and knew that I wouldn't feel good about saying I won the challenge when the entire time I had been half-assing it. So I quit. I only had a few weeks left to go technically, but I thought the right thing to do would be to quit, accept the terms of defeat, dust myself off and regroup, and start a new challenge with a clean slate.
The problem was that I really didn't want to do my punishment. I thought I could handle Caillou Day, but $50 in Caillou DVDs? That was just really depressing. So was watching all the Caillou episodes. I knew it would be a horrible punishment when I picked the challenge, that was the whole point. But at the point of failure I was struggling emotionally so much that I felt like accepting the punishment would be like being punched while I was down. I was already overwhelmed with everything, that was a big part of why I had failed the challenge, and now I was going to add to it by adding more bad to my life? I just couldn't do it.
But I couldn't just start a new challenge knowing that I hadn't taken responsibility for the last one. Maybe nobody else would care, but being successful in my challenges is only possible if I believe that I'm going to hold myself accountable for the commitment I've made.
I thought about doing a Double or Nothing challenge. I came really close to doing it. I would have let the kids have their Caillou Day, but I would have played double or nothing on the Caillou watching and buying DVDs. The main thing that kept me back from doing it was fear. If I failed one challenge, why not another? And if I failed I'd be in even a worse position. I was still in a really negative and emotional part of my life and I didn't think I could handle another challenge.
So I entered a period of limbo. Months of limbo and weight gain. Some days I would try to eat well, even pledge to do better and start tracking calories. Some days I celebrated the fact that I could eat what I wanted (always with consequences on the scale). I looked forward to the start of West Jordan's Biggest Loser, knowing that the contest at least would spark my competitive nature and get me going in the right direction.
Biggest Loser started and it didn't fix my problems. Life was still full of stress, and I still hadn't found the right skills to cope. Week one I lost 12 pounds. My scale had said I lost nothing. I didn't celebrate the loss, knowing that something was wrong. Week two they said the scale had been broken. Back up the 12 plus another pound. Week three up again. I did manage to get a small loss one week, but overall I'm listed as up 5 pounds. Which is almost definitely more, but I skipped the past two weigh-ins, so I can't say for sure.
The one positive in all of this is that I have kept swimming as much as I could, and looked for other opportunities to exercise. I shoveled the driveway (a lot!), walked on the treadmill, and danced with my kids. I even ran a mini-triatholon. Exercising has been one successful way I deal with stress, but with kids and the never ending winter sicknesses it's often a struggle getting it in. For me, the exercise never makes as much difference in losing weight as eating right, since I am such an emotional eater.
I've been unhappy about the situation, but unsure how to solve it. Then one day it came to me. Forgiveness. Redemption. I needed to move on from the failure of the last challenge and get back on the horse. Within a few hours I had the details worked out in my head, but it took me a few days to work up the courage to try again.
That brings me here. To the more positive part of this long post. The unveiling of my next challenge.
But first, I need to wrap up Challenge #3. Deal with the consequences.
I will do Caillou Day. And I will watch all episodes of Caillou on Netflix. It won't be fun, but I will do both of those things before the next challenge is over.
However, I'm playing let's make a deal on the $50 in Caillou movies I was supposed to buy. I never cashed in on my prize, a new car stereo, from challenge #2. I was waiting for a good sale on car stereo's for my car, preferably a sale with free installation. That prize was worth at least $100. I'm going to hand over my car stereo prize in exchange for not buying Caillou movies. It might be cheating, but since I'm judge as well as participant in this thing, I make the final call. I think it's fair, and most importantly, I will finally be able to rid myself of the bitter feelings from the Caillou challenge, and move on to:
Challenge #4 The Redemption Challenge
The redemption challenge is simple. I count my calories, track my exercise, don't go over calories for the week. I get 2 "oops" or free days during the challenge. It starts tomorrow, March 14th, and goes until May 27th.
The reward: Redemption. I will have proved that I can do this.
The punishment if I fail: Failure.
I know it doesn't seem like much of a challenge. But this one's for me. I need to know that it's okay to fail as long as I learn from it. I needed a safe way to show myself that I can do this.
I'm most successful at weight loss when I make a commitment to it. I didn't commit to West Jordan's Biggest Loser this year, but I am committed to this challenge. Perhaps even more than any of the previous three. This time I have something to prove.
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