"Maybes" rolling around in my stuffy head

My cold is actually worse today, but I'm at the office (possibly an ill-advised idea) since my cleaning lady was coming today and I have a problem being there when she's working even when I'm well (although I am grateful I can afford her and with my full-time job I really need a cleaning lady, there is some part of my Midwestern upbringing that has a hard time sitting around while someone else cleans my house...lying in bed while she changed my sheets would be worse!). ;-) I'm now thinking about cancelling my dinner plans (yet another birthday celebration for ME...yes, it goes on for at least a month or two!) and heading home as soon as I think Cleaning Lady is gone.

In my foggy-headed state, I've been trying to figure out what is keeping me on the rollercoaster. It is clear that I am not as committed to this as much as I need to be to have the quicker success that I want. I'm not sure if it's lack of willpower, but it feels like that most days. And I'm feeling very interested in figuring out what is making this such a struggle this time. When I lost over 100 pounds in '94-95, I remember it practically falling off (at least at the beginning). As long as I ate ok and exercised, the scale kept going down. I think I am frustrated that that is not happening this time. I am not eating perfectly by any means, but in terms of the 94/95 diet, I am doing very similar. Why isn't the weight coming off?

Maybe it's that I'm older...maybe it's hormonal changes (although the hormones I'm on are supposed to mitigate those changes). Maybe it's that I don't have nearly as much to lose. Maybe it's that I'm not smoking this time. Maybe I actually ate less back then because instead of a 100-cal popcorn bag, I'd have a cigarette. Maybe it's because I never went back to full-on "bad" eating so the dietary differences in terms of WHAT I'm eating are not as distinct as they were last time -- for example, before I lost the Big Weight, I would eat a bag of regular Doritos without even thinking about it; I could NEVER do that again and haven't. Maybe I'm just not being honest with myself about what I'm eating and should start writing it all down again. Like Lori often says, I don't really want to do that -- I really think that losing weight has to be a long-term "I can do this forever" type deal and I know me -- I will not ever be consistent with writing down everything I eat, no matter how effective that might be.

I am confident that I can figure this all out...somehow, someday. Today I'm just rolling around in the maybes.