Change of Plans

Perhaps someone is trying to teach me a lesson regarding my tendency to be all or nothing. I actually think I've gotten so much better at NOT being all or nothing when it comes to weight loss. Well, I am not physically able to go ALL out for at least a month (and realistically more like 2).

I find it relatively amusing that my last blog post was talking about how those first 2 days of being back "on" went well and day 3 was going well. It was only hours later that I was in the Emergency Department waiting room crying because of how badly my wrist hurt. Sigh.

It's funny though; the first thing I thought about when I realized I most likely just broke my wrist was how mad I was because I wouldn't be able to do the workouts at Living Lean! I soon decided that I would just have to continue to do whatever I could handle because this is NOT going to stop me!

The ER of course put this huge splint on my arm and had me immobilized past my elbow. I thought this was a little excessive seeing as the break was in my wrist, so I was hopeful the ortho doc would give me a smaller cast. My wish was granted, but of course she said that it was very likely I also broke some bones in my thumb since it was painful when she pressed on it and those breaks tend to be hard to see on X-Ray's. So I don't have the use of my thumb which makes things even more difficult, but I'm managing.

I am managing, BUT, I have decided to change my plans. If you recall, my plans were to try to get down to 185 by August 10th. After breaking my wrist I decided this was not likely a realistic goal.  The night I broke my wrist I didn't eat dinner until leaving the hospital. It was around 9 PM, I was starving, I was emotional, I was in a lot of pain and I was on painkillers. We ended up at the Arby's drive thru and I decided I just didn't care. The next day I had planned to get right back on track; but then I couldn't do anything. I couldn't make my normal breakfast and I was still so frustrated and in lots of pain. My husband ended up just getting us breakfast sandwiches after picking Robbie up from football. This snowballed into me deciding I could take the weekend to feel sorry for myself (cue all or nothing thinking).

7/2016 vs. 7/2018

On Monday I went back to Living Lean. I had only missed one day at LL after breaking my wrist since I'm usually there Mon, Wed, Fri. When I got there wearing my #NOEXCUSES tanktop the trainer said she needed a picture! She took one and posted it to Facebook. I was a little nervous about how I would look in it since I hadn't seen the picture prior to her posting it. When I saw it on Facebook I was reminded of how far I've come and all that has changed for me in the last couple years. I loved so many things about the pic (not the least of which is that I all of the sudden have dimples. I noticed them in some of the Disney pics I took with Mary too. I have never had dimples before). I decided to look for older pictures from July to do a comparison pic. I found the ones from 2016 when I took the kids to the Holden Arboretum. I remember posting a pic from that trip because I was proud of the progress I had made since 2015 (regardless how slow). So I found one of those pics and compared it to the one taken at LL.

It was in this moment that I decided to stop being so hard on myself. I realized that since starting the Whole30 on 4/22/14, I have consistently been losing weight. I have gone up and down over the past 4 years, but I have never weighed what I did on day 1 of the Whole30. My highest weight in 2015 was less than day 1 of the Whole30. My highest weight in 2016 was lower than my 2015 highest weight. My highest weight in 2017 was lower than my highest weight in 2016. You're seeing the trend. So far, my highest weight in 2018 was less than my highest in 2017 (and I plan to keep it that way).

I'm so hard on myself and feel like I'm not succeeding at losing weight because I inevitably gain some back every year. I feel like if I don't lose 60 lbs in one year and then keep every ounce of it off then I'm "off track". Maybe not. Maybe this is my balance. Maybe what I'm learning is how to maintain my weight for a while without gaining as much back before I go back to actively losing. Perhaps I'm learning that not losing weight doesn't mean I'm a failure. I haven't lost anything since I hit my lowest weight before vacation. But I've basically been gaining and losing the same 5 pounds since May. Why is this a bad thing? It's not. It means that I'm figuring out how to keep things in check. I saw 199 on the scale once since back in April when I first hit 199.8. That 200 continues to be my benchmark. If I see the scale creeping closer to 200 I do something about it.

I'm finally starting to realize that just because I'm not actively losing doesn't have to mean I'm actively gaining (all or nothing). The clothes that I had to buy still fit just fine. I still feel leaner than I've felt in years and I continue to workout as much as possible. I haven't stopped doing anything; I'm just choosing to eat and drink more than when I was actively losing. And that's OK. 

2015--2016--2018

So I no longer have a goal of hitting 185 by a certain date. My mindset just isn't there right now. My goal is to stay under 200 for now. I can't tell you when this goal will change. There is still a part of me that wants to lose another 10 pounds before Nov so I have a buffer for my usual end of year weight gain. But that's kind of dumb. I'm basically saying I'm planning to gain 10-15 lbs back at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019 because that's what I've always done. I need to figure out how to get my mojo back before I gain back 10+ pounds. So perhaps that's my goal....stay under 200 until I get my mojo back....whenever that may be. I do think it'll be sooner rather than later.

And this post just took forever since I pretty much have to type with one hand. Don't expect another post for a while 😉

So Far So Good

Day 3/32

It's only been 2 days, but they were not necessarily the easiest of days. I'm happy to report that I am officially re-focused. Monday was day 1 and the day was going by  just fine. I had a bacon, egg and cheese english muffin for breakfast that I made at home so it was 8 points. For lunch I ended up having 2 97% fat free hot dogs on one bun with a big bowl of fruit. I had one jolly rancher in the afternoon and even tracked that tiny piece of candy for 1 point. Dinner was chicken marinated in Olive Garden dressing with green beans for only 3 points. That's only 17 points on the day and I get 23. We had Robbie's last baseball game that evening and I brought a baggie of grapes to snack on during the game.

After the game I was pretty hungry and trying to figure out a snack. I ended up eating another 97% FF hot dog with a piece of cheese wrapped around it (with no bun). That took 4 of the 6 points I had left. Robbie then told me that he and Drew were going to go get milkshakes from Steak N Shake to drown his sorrows (they lost the game which ended his season. He was sad to be done with baseball for the season). When Drew asked me what I wanted from Steak N Shake I said nothing. He came home with milkshakes for everyone but me and Robbie also had a burger and fries! I ate my Enlightened ice cream bar and finished out my day at 25 points (1405 calories).

2 days back on track and 2 blue dots...and a blue dot so far today! 

Yesterday came with its' own challenges. The day started with a failed run. My legs were super sore from Mondays living lean workout and I was just not feeling the run. I kept going, but only ran for the first mile+, the remaining 2 miles I walked. I made myself the same breakfast as Monday. I ended up going to my parents house to do some laundry while I worked (long story, but our dryer is out of commission right now). My mom had said she didn't really have much to offer for lunch. I ended up bringing the leftover chicken from Monday night as well as grapes and cherries. When my dad asked if we wanted to order a pizza or something I said no! When my mom said she wished that Robbie would have come because it would have given us an excuse to go get ice cream for lunch I told her I wouldn't have gotten any anyway. Besides the things I brought, I only ate a sugar free jello while there. I was starving when I got home but stayed focused and made myself a healthy dinner. My after dinner snack was carrots with some light dip and an enlightened ice cream bar. Yesterday ended at 22 points (1272 calories).

As of right now I have 2 points remaining for today, but I've only tracked 882 calories. Still so weird to me how the points/calories comparison works. I have breakfast, AM snack, and dinner tracked so far. I still have to figure out and track my lunch and most likely I'll have 90 calorie (3 points) after dinner to have my ice cream bar. The problem is that I need to go to the grocery store so right now I don't have a lot of 0 point foods on hand for lunch. I will still get my blue dot if I eat 28 points so today my goal is to stay in that range. After I go to the grocery store I can better utilize the 0 point foods to increase my calories without increasing my points!

32 Days

Day 1

I've been just a little busy.

We decided that this is going to be our summer to get lots of projects done around the house. Project #1 was actually our front steps. We did that back in May when the top step completely crumbled under my feet. We hadn't quite decided what order things would go in after those steps, but when we got on the pool deck for the first time this season we realized that had to take top priority. The old deck was just incredibly unsafe and we didn't want to have anybody over to swim with the deck in its current state.

The deck was quite the under taking, but it is now done and absolutely beautiful and incredibly safe! The deck was finished on July 4th and by July 8th we were working on doing the demo of our dining room! This dining room project is going to be even more daunting than we had anticipated (and we anticipated it to be a huge project).

The good news is doing all this demo and construction is great for working out. There were plenty of days when I skipped my run because I figured I'd burn enough calories doing the work I had to do on the house (and I did).

The not so good news is that my eating has been horrible lately. I've eaten significantly worse since being home from vacation than I did on vacation. I do this EVERY time I go on vacation. I don't know if it has to do with being on vacation or just getting out of the habits I was in. I obviously didn't track for 2 weeks on vacation. I came home and tried to immediately start tracking again and I think I only lasted 4 days. In those 4 days I was able to get back down to where I was before vacation, so that was good. I haven't tracked anything since then. And not only that, I got back into the habit of eating things "just because" or eating things because I know I'm going to restrict myself from those things later so I mind as well get my fill of them now. It's so stupid! It's back to the mindset of the food not always being there. I worked so hard to change my mind earlier this year and realize the food will always be there and I can make the choice to have it if I REALLY want it, and I can make the choice to skip it if my goals are more important than having that food.

All clean and ready to be torn apart!

I still have been getting on the scale though and I was surprised to see the scale not going up as drastically as I thought it might (or should). The bad thing about that is I also wasn't feeling any push to get myself back on track because I wasn't gaining weight rapidly. There isn't really anything wrong with that mentality. I mean, if I can take a little break and basically maintain my weight within 5 pounds of my lowest that's not such a bad thing. But, there's no reason to eat as poorly as I've been eating for as long as I've been doing it.

I kept pushing the envelope and kept eating horribly knowing that at some point the scale would reflect the damage I had to be doing. 199.9 is the number that drove me in April and continues to be the number that drives my motivation currently. Back in April it was about getting to that number for the first time; now it's about not going past that number. I do NOT want to see 200 on that scale EVER AGAIN! I am so proud of the fact that I hit 199.8 on April 18th and I have NOT seen 200 again since the day before. Even with weighing myself daily and seeing the normal fluctuations, 200 has never been a number that appeared on that scale since April 17th.

So, I need to find a new number to help drive me to get back on track. I had already decided that today was going to be my day to re-focus. The scale this morning was closer to 200 than I want to be so it definitely helped push that motivation to actually re-focus today and get back to losing weight. I have 32 days until my parent's 50th wedding anniversary party and my goal is to be as close to 185 as possible. I honestly can't remember the last time I weighed 185 pounds. I know after I got married and before I got pregnant with Mary I was hovering somewhere around 160. By the time I gave birth to her I was over 200. I was 189 when I got pregnant with Robbie; so it's probably been about 15 years since I was consistently 185 (or less).

32 days is plenty of time for me to reach that goal but I have to focus and work at it. I will have to track my food every single day for those 32 days. I will need to keep my calories/points in my allowed range every day for the 32 days. I've done it before and I can (and will) do it again. Today is day 1. I have had 2 meals so far today and have already planned and tracked my dinner. I will be tracking using WW and will try to have 5/7 blue dot days each week. My goal/plan is to only use my dailies and weeklies each week and not dip into my FitPoints. These are all the things I did back in April when I lost 14.6 pounds. During April I still had days where I ate popcorn at the movies, I had ice cream on basically a nightly basis, I had a couple days where I just lost my focus and binged (but estimated it as best as I could after the fact). I'm saying all this to remind myself that it's not that hard! It doesn't have to be as hard as I make it out to be. Track my food and move on!

So there you have it. I'm back and re-focused on continuing this weight loss journey. I've given myself a long enough break. It's time to get the scale moving back in the right direction!