You are definitely not a "failure", you just made a little over-indulgence. When I was on WW a counsellor made the analogy of spending too much money. When we go to the mall and spend a little more money than we were planning, we feel guilty and may cringe a little, but we don't say, "That's it, I've screwed up!" and go blow our entire bank accounts. Eating is the same, if we have occasional "slip ups", we just need to know that it's a mistake and we haven't blown our whole diet. You asked the question "i just don't know why i do this to myself. i know that that pizza was not near as satisfying as seeing the scale go down. i just wish i had it in me to resist these foods." I can explain this with behavioral psychology (bear with me, psych person here, I am NOT psycho-analyzing you AT ALL, and noone can over an online forum, just sharing information that I have learned in my career that has helped me understand myself better, I hope this will help you too). It's all about rewards and punishment and time lags. When we eat pizza or foods we like (behavior), we get rewarded as soon as it touches our tongues by the taste. In weightloss most people's mean weekly weightloss is 1 to 2lbs. Not a HUGE reward for a weeks worth of diet and exercise, Not to mention that it takes 7 whole days for this to happen while tasty bad food rewards are instant. Also that 1 to 2 lbs isn't consistent across weeks for everyone, that is just an average AND the scale fluctuates normally AND the overall reward of being thin is going to take a long time for most people. The distance of time between behavior and reward or punishment is a MAJOR factor in determining whether or not a social creature will link that punishment or reward with a particular behavior which will then determine whether or not that creature will be motivated to continue or increase that behavior (see Skinner)[man I am a HUGE nerd!!!!]. So since humans are social creatures who tend to increase their behaviours that are rewarded somehow and decrease their behaviours that are punished somehow it's easy to see how weightloss is so challenging depending on how you look at life. It has helped me to make a conscious effort to pay closer attention to the little rewards that come from eating healthy and exercising AS WELL as rewarding myself for doing something good, like resisting that take out pizza. For example, the next time you want that pizza try calculating out how much that pizza will cost and then buy yourself something non-edible that you want with that money...I like to buy fresh cut flowers for my house, this way after I've set them up, the craving is over, I have the reward of the beautiful flowers and they are a reminder of the good decision I made. Also paying really close attention to how great you feel after a work out or how satisfied you feel after eating well and how sick you'll feel after over eating helps me out. Also social networking like with 3FC is a great reward! All in all you are an amazing human being who has almost lost 20 lbs!!!! You are doing fabulously!!! Great job!
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