Weekly Update, and Victories & Struggles

Weekly Update:


Exercise:

• Monday: 30 min walk; 45 min elliptical; 50 crunches
• Tuesday: 30 min walk; 100 crunches; 7 sit-ups; 10 modified push-ups
• Wednesday: 30 min walk; 45 min elliptical; 100 crunches; 10 sit-ups; 10 modified push-ups; 20 sec (2x) wall sit; 10 lunges per leg
• Thursday: 30 min walk
• Friday: 45 min elliptical; 100 crunches; 10 sit-ups
• Saturday: sunburn from Kevin's outdoor graduation
• Sunday: 50 crunches, 25 sit-ups, 10 modified push-ups

Weight Loss: I'm thinking I might weigh in two weeks from now. Four weeks in between. That should give me a good idea of how I'm doing.


I'm going to add a new section to this Weekly Update,


Victories & Struggles:

• Last week was Staff Appreciation Week, which apparently meant that the staff needs lots of food - mostly the unhealthy kind. Twice I had kids come to my room and offer me cookies and bagels with cream cheese. I said no to the cookies, but said I would take all the love; the second time I took an apple; the third time I took some watermelon. Then when there was candy in my mail box, I picked it up and gave it to some kids in my after school program. No, I do not want to promote childhood obesity, but I just knew I couldn't keep it myself.
• I started bringing some foods from home to slowly cut back on my processed foods. This ended up being Greek yogurt and honey for breakfast and salad for lunch. My salad included: 2 cups lettuce, 10 almonds, 1/4 cup diced bell pepper, 1 Tbsp Newman's Own Light Sesame Ginger dressing, 4 oz roasted 99% fat free chicken breast, and about 1/2 cup of orange slices. Absolutely delicious. And the yogurt/honey combo might be even better. I had these two different days. It's a start!
• After doing a lot of research, reading, listening, and searching over the last 2.5 years, I know A LOT about nutrition/health/weight loss. The trouble is, everyone has a different opinion. Every "expert" says something different. It can be so confusing for me to piece together what is the best for my body, what will help me lose weight the most and keep it off. I'm not looking for quick, easy answers, but some consistency would be so helpful. This is why so many people struggle with their weight! Who are you going to listen to? I want to simply listen to my own body, but I can't - I've trained it to want the wrong things and avoid movement. That is what it tells me to do whenever things aren't perfectly peachy.
• I did my elliptical workout on Wednesday when I REALLY didn't want to. For whatever reason, I misunderstood Kevin about something when I first got home and my mood swung a 180 in about 3 seconds flat. At that moment, I was going to sit down, watch TV, eat any junk food I could find (or just non-junk food in abundance), and not do my workout. I was snippy with Kevin, angry at the puppy for wanting to play, and it was not pretty. Thankfully, I had my new obession with Season 11 of The Biggest Loser (via Netflix) to pull me out of the quagmire pretty quickly. By the time Kevin got back from his haircut, I was back. The distraction and motivation of the show helped a lot. In fact, I started watching the show on my phone while I was doing my elliptical pumps at the gym. It really made the workouts fly by.
• I DID A SIT-UP!!!!! On Tuesday night, I did a sit-up. Then I did seven more. Then I did at least 10 the subsequent nights. It was a huge milestone for me. I am learning what my body is truly capable of, not assuming limitations will hold me back. What a great moment.
• I am loving this Weight Loss Competition. The community there has already been so supportive, motivational, and inspirational. It is incredible how helpful community can be. This is something I have been missing ever since I stopped going to my Weight Watchers meetings. Sitting in a room with people who truly understand your struggle is liberating and relieving. Even if it is long distance and over the internet, I am getting a sense of that now through a Facebook Event page. I am so thankful I decided to join.
• On Saturday night, after Kevin's graduation and family reception (at our apartment), we decided to order pizza. Right then, I would have been fine to eat one slice, one breadstick, and some salad. But I didn't even track all my food... and I ate 3 slices of pizza, two cheesy breadsticks, three of Kevin's buffalo wings, and way too many cookies leftover from the reception. Didn't write down anything. I had no idea how many calories I'd eaten in the day. This is NOT the way to handle weekends or special occasions. Then on Sunday, I didn't want to keep track, and I wanted a burger and onion rings. I finally did sit down and calculate out my calories for Saturday and Sunday (and decided on veggies and yogurt to finish out Sunday), and had to instantly forgive myself for going over. Yes, I should have thought about all of that before I ate way too much on Saturday night and felt super full and bloated - but at least I went back and wrote everything down. Victory and struggle.

So my week was full of ups and downs. Pretty typical, I'd say. I didn't stay exactly to my plan of not eating beyond my daily calorie count no matter what - but I did write everything down (even if a little late). Victories and struggles. I did get in the gym three times and walk all of my work days. And most nights I did sit-ups, crunches, and push-ups. Progress, people. Progress.

As I said, I went way over on Saturday and some over on Sunday. To balance that out, I'm going to work out an extra 15 minutes each time I'm on the elliptical this coming week. And I'm going right back to my usual eating routine today. I'll also try to drink extra water to flush out all the junk I put into my system over the weekend.

Well, now you know. It's all out there. And I'm glad. :)


So tell me: What are your recent victories? Struggles? How do you move on from set backs?

Krispy Kreme

This is:

a) The Stash

b) Why I avoid the teacher's lounge.

***Today's post is brought to you by will power and an intense and inexplicable craving for donuts.

Weekly Update, and Surviving Sabotage Situations

Mondays are my weigh-in days. So, for better or for worse, I will give you all a weekly update.


Today I am happy to report a little over a pound lost! I often don't think this means much, but...

One pound of fat.

... it really does. See? So gross, but also encouraging! I can also report that I did in fact work out last week as I had planned. The exercise wasn't as intense as I had hoped, but it still happened, and I'm trying to see that as a success.


I would like to be losing closer to two pounds a week - which would require working out more intensely and cutting a few of those extra calories. Hmm. It is so much harder to do than talk about doing.


So about my weekend. [Weekends are SO HARD for me anyway. Usually, my husband and I get time to rest and veg over the weekend. We get tasks done, too, but mainly we chill. All week long we work and grow increasingly more tired, so we enjoy the weekends of next to nothingness. When I am relaxing like this, it makes me want to eat junk food! Why does lounging around doing nothing somehow mean that I need to add worthless, empty calories to my lethargy??? Boredom, I suppose. That is one of my junk food triggers.] This weekend we had some extra time off to run errands, some of which were up where my husband grew up; a.k.a. we stayed the night with my in-laws.


Don't get me wrong, I love these people dearly, but that kitchen has a Stash of its own. It knows I'm there. It hears me coming. It shows now mercy. Chocolate dipped cookies, tubs of caramel and toffee chocolates from Costco, delicious (and certainly not low fat or sugar free) coffee creamers, and CHOCOLATE CAKE to boot!


SPOILER ALERT: Chocolate is one of my main TRIGGERS! Especially when it is put in the form of moist, gooey, several-layer cake. Muffins, cupcakes, cake pops, chewy cookies - this taste/texture combo almost always gets the better of me. And I can't have just one! That's simply not how The Stash works!


Eggs and sausage for breakfast. I drank three glasses of water in an attempt to fill myself up and thereby eat less food. It sort of worked. (This is a tip I picked up long ago: drink 8 oz of water before a meal, wait 15 minutes, and you'll be more filled and less likely to binge on the meal itself. I didn't wait the 15 minutes.) I also ate an orange and a banana to slow down the oncoming binge. Again, it sort of worked. I ended up eating one each of the Costco goodies, one chocolate covered cookie, too many little smokies (probably 5-7), about two eggs (so hard to measure when there are 20 scrambled eggs in the pan), 2 Morningstar sausage links, and a decadent and deadly slice of chocolate cake. Chocolate is a vegetable, right?


My mother-in-law is one of those women who keeps lots of food stocked up so she can feed the armies that inevitably show up at her house unexpectedly. This is the kind of kitchen/home I hope to have someday. But for now, I need strategies to survive a situation like this that can sabotage my weekly weight loss.


I did track everything I ate (at least what I could remember, i.e. mindless snacking), and I was able to finish out the week without going over my allotted food points. And I did my planned workouts. AND one more little marble went into the Pounds Lost glass this morning (which makes the mirror more bearable). But I need to plan ahead for sabotage situations. And I need to really think hard before I eat a food I know to be a trigger.


Here are some things I've picked up over the years, even if I haven't often used or perfected them (not to mention, I do not have any data or stats to show you, only common experiences and wisdom from others):

• Don't eat yellow snow. You're right, I'm sorry, that was immature. :)
• Drink as much water as you can throughout the day. (I love Sobe Lifewater Zeros and always keep some stocked in the fridge - unless they aren't on sale, so I go with a cheaper, similar brand.)
• Talk through (out loud, and with someone you trust) your plan to get through a sabotage situation.
• Take snacks with you! (I love baby carrots, bananas, grapes, high-protein snack bars, and even Snapea Crisps.)
• When you feel a craving coming on, take the time to figure out if it is emotional or physical. If your body is hungry, drink some water, wait, and if you're still hungry - grab a snack. If your craving is emotional, also drink some water, and maybe send someone a text or call a friend. Even if you don't tell them why, it might distract you long enough to forgo the potential binge.
• Keep small, pre-portioned amounts of your favorite "naughty" foods somewhere in the pantry. Maybe two or three Hershey's Kisses will tide you over. Or perhaps a serving of the salty Snapea Crisps. I personally enjoy Jelly Belly jelly beans (10 for 1 point) and Lindor Truffles (1 for 2 points). Sometimes you need to indulge a little to keep you from indulging a LOT!
• Keep words of encouragement and inspirational images in your bathroom and maybe even in your pantry or on the fridge. Remind yourself regularly why you are doing what you're doing.
• Forgive yourself when you mess up. It's going to happen. Let yourself feel the pain of it for a bit, and then move on! (This is when I tell my husband to just pipe down. :-) I am learning to move on! Okay... not my greatest skill. But I'm working on it!)

So tell me: What are your sabotage situations? What are your triggers? What do you do to battle these?