At the crossroads of health and temptation..

So for the last 6 weeks or so, I've been carefully watching my weight - no more than 2000 calories a day, and 2 hours of cardio every day. But today I'm blowing it - I'm eating a 500 calorie Ms. Freshly's Chocolate Pie from the vending machine, and I'm probably going to stop and buy some donuts on my way up to NJ tonight. I will hit the gym, but for an abbreviated workout.

The diet has actually been pretty successful - I've dropped about 12 pounds and probably an inch or two. I still have a little bit of a belly, but less than I did before. I'm still on the high side of normal for my height - I'm around 138 pounds, the CDI says anything between 111 and 149 is normal for someone who is 5'5".

One of the reasons I started turning into a weight loss Nazi was frustration about my lack of dating success. But I doubt that losing 15 pounds is going to make a difference. And it's getting frustrating being hungry, not being able to order what I want on those rare occasions I grab dinner with a friend, ect. The workout is getting to me too - if I leave work a few minutes late, by the time I get to the gym, work out for 2 hours, and drive home, I'm not getting home until 8:15 or later. That leaves me less than 4 hours of time to check email, surf the web, watch TV, clean the house, pet the cat, put into my eBay business, ect.

So I think I'm going to start compromising. I'll still watch what I eat, but I'll allow for the occasional splurge. I'll try to do 2-hour workouts when I have plenty of time, like on weekends, but I'll go back to 90 minutes when I have stuff to do at home. I'll probably gain a couple pounds back, but I'll still probably be lighter than I was 6 weeks ago. I have picked up some good habits - smaller portions, more fruits and veggies, better weekend breakfasts, smaller snacks/desserts - that I'll try to keep up with. But I'm starting to think that I've reached the point of diminishing returns - I have to make big changes in food and exercise to get a small loss of weight. I'm not where I was 5 years ago, where I was 100 pounds overweight, where small changes meant big losses, where not losing the weight meant major health problems. Any weight I lose now will do little for me healthwise and appearancewise. I think it's time to ease off.