what to do?

Just got done eating my lunch of tuna and spelt bread. I've been transitioning myself slowly into some new eating habits but one of the easiest changes I've made so far is switching to sprouted grain bread and spelt bread.

Luckily, our grocery store carries these types of bread. Sprouted grain is actually flourless. And spelt has a TON of protein.

So, every morning with my 2 whole organic eggs, I'm eating a slice of sprouted grain (with a pat of organic REAL butter). I'm still in "minimize carb intake" mode, I think because I still think carbs are going to make me fat and squishy. It's ridiculous. I mean I just can't make up my mind whether I want to add muscle or lose fat. And if I want more muscle, I have to feed my body carbs (plus I just seem to function better with them). Right now is ideal timing for packing on muscle since it's not bikini season anymore. But I still have such a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I need to eat MORE in order to gain muscle. I want DESPERATELY to gain muscle, and the only way to do that is to eat properly along side my weight training program, yet I hesitate every time because I also want to lose fat.

I look at my measurements every week and see that I'm not losing any inches off of my problem areas so that makes it incredibly hard to want to eat up. Because I can't think in terms of "long term" results. I can't see [right now] that I need to be eating more and gaining muscle over the next 4-5 months, before I decrease my calorie intake for fat loss. It must be that I'm scared of gaining fat too.

But right now I'm stalled. Always stalled. In a perpetual state of stallidity (yes I know that isn't a word). My measurements never budge, the scale doesn't budge. I have completed 6 weeks of training without missing a single session. What is the missing link here?

It's probably my diet. I mean, it has to be. I just don't know what about my diet is the problem. I eat the way I'm supposed to most of the time. I'd say 80%. And I'm happy with that. Because I'm never going to be able to eat perfect 100% of the time. And frankly, who wants to? If that is what it is going to take for me to see the results I'm after, then I'm sorry to say, I guess it just isn't in the cards for me.

I shouldn't talk like that, it sounds negative. But I don't think it's negative at all, it's just being realistic. I know that I'm never going to be able to eat clean all the time, nor do I want to miss out on my favorite foods (which also happen to be naughty) forever. Then I guess I don't want results that bad, right? WRONG! That cannot be the case. Because it's ALL I ever think about. I'm dreaming of it constantly and have been for years. By the law of attraction, I should have it by now! I'm serious. It's always on my mind. It's an obsession, no doubt.

Then what is the key? I am desperate to find it. I feel like it's my destiny, I know that it's in my future, I can just feel it. But I can't seem to get there. I get so frustrated sometimes. Like, I'll think maybe it's because I'm taking birth control pills. I've read that the pill will inhibit your ability to gain muscle (and meds screw with your liver's ability to detox your body). But I can't stop taking them. I don't want to.

Or maybe I don't sleep good enough. I wake up a lot during the night and I wonder if I'm really getting enough of that rest full REM sleep that our bodies need. But I don't know what to do about that either. I'm not going to start taking sleeping pills. I really hate taking pills...for anything. I'm even horrible at taking vitamins, and I WANT to take those!

I don't know. I'm spinning my wheels but going nowhere. Same story as last year, and the year before, and .....

Do I need to move more? More cardio? Eat less? Eat more? Eat less of something and more of another thing? It's such an awful process of trial and error, with so many different factors and variables, AND everyone is different so no one will have the sure answer for MY problem. It's so very exhausting. Most days I wish it wasn't so important to me. I think I could find many other more productive ways to exert all this energy and focus on. Like, baking cupcakes with my girls. Or snuggling by the fire watching movies. Just anything that didn't require me to be in constant awareness of my diet and fitness.

I should be proud at the level of awareness I have. Most people (I wouldn't assume) have spent all the time I have researching and reading about living a healthy lifestyle as I have. Most 35 year old woman in this country with kids are probably overweight. I'm sure I could easily find a statistic for that criteria. I have a pretty good fitness level and low percentage of body fat, I should be proud of that. I am. But there is still improvements I want to make. And those improvements are so important to me. I don't even really know the reason it's so important. Acceptance? Self confidence? Youthfulness? I honestly couldn't give you a sure answer. All I know is that I desperately want to wear a bikini without having to hide behind a towel. I want to swim with my kids in public and have child-like fun. I don't want to obsess about if my gut is sticking out or if anyone is noticing my saddlebags and cellulite. It's a prison. I hate it. It makes me feel like I'm a pig who doesn't take care of her body. I just want to be rid of these problems so I can live a happy life, where I'm happy with myself.

I kind of got off the first track I was going down in regards to carbs. I was going to say that I know carb cycling works. I've tried it before and it has worked for me but it's almost unrealistic. It never fails that on a night I'm not supposed to have a starchy carb, something goes wrong. My whole pattern is screwed up, my flow is disrupted and it all falls apart. I have to meticulously follow the plan of 3 low, 1 high, with no cheating, or it simply DOES NOT WORK for me. It's damn hard to be that consistent and unfailingly strict. ESPECIALLY when I have to have carbs on the table for my family. The amount of willpower needed is just inhuman. And I'm human, so it's not working so well.

And I don't even know if it's the limitation of carbs that is what I need. Like I said I need to eat carbs while I'm lifting. I guess if there is one thing I haven't tried yet it's carbing and lifting for months in a row to try and gain muscle. And if that's the road I need to go down in this mess of trying to figure out how to get the body want, then so be it! I've got to try it. I just hope and pray that I will be able to gain muscle (me being a birth control pill swallowing girl, and all) this way. Come March, I plan on entering the "fat loss" phase of my master plan, where I will be eating less and adding more cardio...oh joy. Adding more would be just DOING it because as of right now, I've not been doing hardly any in an effort to preserve all the muscle I can!

Well, I'm done with my rant for now. I think I have more but this is getting kind of long. It helps to let out my feelings of frustration. Even though I don't have any readers to this "journal" of mine that can offer up advice or support, it's good to vent.