Grace

 This is it, this is my last "grace" week.  I've been at 169-170 almost all month.  The whole week after my first weigh-in in February I went down to 166.7, and then by the weigh-in on 2/13 was back up to 170.  This last week I've been 170 or 169 consistently, not dipping down at all.  But today (2/20) I'm supposed to be at 169.33, which means I'm still under at 169, but if I don't figure this out, I'll be in the red from now on.  

This time around I decided to go back to Myfitnesspal to track calories, but last year I was keeping a food journal on paper, and I really like that too, so I'm also doing that.  And keeping track of my daily weight, and monthly measurements, and I started writing little notes when I have thoughts and what I am doing for exercise that day.  

So far, I'm really liking the pen and paper accountability, and I want to look back and see my thoughts as well. 

This morning after weighing in, I wrote "I'm 12 days past my lowest weight this year and am back to 169-170, which is where I started February.  Need to 1) do better, 2) tighten up."  And that is true.  I think I got complacent.  Like I said a couple weeks ago, I tend to sabotage when doing well, and then I see no progress and give up completely because obviously it isn't working.  

I don't want to give up.  This cruise in August and the feeling of fatness last summer in Hawaii is really driving me.  I was at a good weight even just a year ago, and still remember that feeling (although still 10lbs up), but the point is, I'm close enough to my smaller weight that I remember how nice it was and it makes this higher weight feel awful.  I did well with food today, and I did really good with the intermittent fasting.  I was letting things slip.  Oh, I quit eating 30 min ago? that's okay, this one bite, this one drink, this one thing, won't hurt.  Well, I think it is.  I did a strict 8 hours eating window today, and am down to water now.

There are negatives to weighing in every day.  When I don't see instant results (I did well today, obviously tomorrow I'll be down 2lbs) I get discouraged.  This is why I need to record it daily, but keep in mind it's a weekly process, not a daily one.  

New topic

We went to a NHL Kraken game on Monday. It was so fun.  Damian and I have gone once a year since the franchise started in 2021, Maddox went last year, and this was Chris' first year.  I hope to continue with Damian.  We are the really big hockey fans in the family, everyone likes it, but we've been going for close to 20 years now and the rest have not.

Anyway, we lost in overtime, but it was still fun.

Last week

 Last week the numbers were amazing.  I was down 9 lbs since Jan. 1st.  I decided to go all out on the junk food on Superbowl weekend, but I've been amazingly good this week.  My weight on Tuesday (weigh in day) was back up to 170, and hasn't gone down.  I'm worried that I'm going to end February at the same weight that I started February.  

Honestly, I'm still on track, sort of.  This week I was supposed to be 170.14, but I was at 170.2 (is it really that big of a deal???).  Last week I was 169 for my official weigh in.  It's so stupid, I am down overall, one high week is not the end all.  Afterall, in January I went up, and was high for a week while on antibiotics, and the next week was down 2 lbs.  

I am now questioning if it was the antibiotics, or actually my period week.  I don't actually have a period right now because of the birth control I take (and probably menopause stuff), but your body still goes through the cycle (I think).  I mean the bloating and such, not the actual cycle.  Maybe that's what's going on, after all, it's 4 weeks since my last "too high" weight.  

Last week I was good with my food (until the weekend) but did no running.  My only running days were Sunday and Saturday.  5 miles, that's it.  It's hard because once upon a time I was running 20 miles (or more) a week.  Maybe that is also a factor.

I am ready for the weekend.

Last week was a hard, like really hard, week.  My first employee, (the first one hired under me) was fired, and it wasn't my decision, in fact, I had no say at all, and I disagreed with the decision.  There were a few other things that were said to me that made me feel that my professional goals, specifically the most important one of hours to get my counseling license, were not respected and were actually being actively denied.  Sooooo, I applied for a job at my internship that I ended 2 years ago.  I have an interview tomorrow, and was basically told by my old supervisor that I had the job if I interviewed (I talked to him before I applied).

Well, this week, I've had talks with my supervisor and CEO and I feel a lot better about my current job.  But, what should have taken me 2 years to get . . . I'm on my 3rd year now.  Do I trust that they will follow through this time, or do I move on?  There are a lot of negatives to leaving my current job, but do allllll the negatives outweigh getting my license?  I'm really, really conflicted.  My sister says leave, but I'm still conflicted. 

Today I had a counseling appointment, and came away thinking, I really enjoyed that, if I had more of that, I would stay without question.  

Slow progress is still progress

 I don't know if any of you have looked at my weigh-in pages this week, I updated both (the Countdown and the monthly weigh in I've been doing for years), but last week was a success.  😊I truly believe that my January beginning weight was high because of Christmas and all the food that goes with that.  However, it still feels good to see -6 and more weight losses this week.  Even though the week before I was taking those pills and my weight was up, I was still really good with my diet.  And that showed in my weigh in last Tuesday.  My weigh-in on Tuesday was 171, but the next day, I was 168.8 and then on Friday was down to 167.6, although this morning was 169, but still good.  I am also taking monthly measurements and I am down an inch everywhere.  

This weekend has been harder than last weekend with my food.  I drank a whole bottle of wine yesterday and as a result, I ate more than I should have, and later into the evening than my intermittent fasting says.  I have always struggled on the weekend, I don't really know why, but I am trying very hard to change my mindset, this weekend has been hard though.  

There are two reasons I slip and start to back slide (and you're going to laugh at this), when I'm successful, and when I am not successful. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true.  When I am successful and start losing weight, I think I can slack off, I get overly confident and start adding things in, or, specifically with intermittent fasting, I start pushing the times that I eat and I start gaining weight again.  On the other hand, when I am not successful I start thinking screw it, and give up.  It usually takes less time for me to say screw it when I am unsuccessful because I get so frustrated.  

I didn't run much this last week, only Sunday and Saturday.  I know I said I was going to try to run Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday, but this last week I had a hair appt on Wednesday.  I actually took my running clothes to work so that I could run, but my work has been so busy, I didn't have time.  I have been walking on my treadmill while working and actually really like it, but it is really slow and doesn't really count as exercise, it's more just moving.

I keep thinking that I want to run longer distances again, but I'm barely running 10 miles a week, and even then I'm still walking during my runs.  I don't know what other watches do, but when I look at the stats on Garmin Connect, I can see how long I'm running vs. walking.  Today's run was almost 10 min of walking and 26 min of running.  I was feeling discouraged about that, but I just looked at my 3 mile run on Jan. 6th and that "run" I had 14 min of running and 26 min of walking, so not only am I getting faster, but I'm also running a lot more.  

Honestly, I'm probably closer to where I was when I first started running in 2012 than in 2020.  Looking back at my stats from February 2012 and I'm right.  A 2 and a half mile run in 2012, I was running at a 13 min/mile pace (currently I'm close to 12 min/mile).  Back in 2012 I didn't have a fancy watch, just MapMyRun, so I don't have the stats of how long I walked vs. run, but I'm sure it was pretty similar.  Back then I had just started running and was worried I would stop, and was motivated, so was running 6 days a week, even if it was just a half mile or a mile.  I'm not going to do that now, so will probably progress a little slower.  I am doing pilates with weights this time, and they say weights is a good thing to increase fat burning, so we'll see.

I need to be patient and remember that I'm not in the shape I was 5 years ago, I'm not even in the shape I was a year ago, but I'm working on it.  First, work on running at least 3 days a week and not walking during my runs.  I am also still walking when my heart rates gets above 135-140.  It's not really MAF training but a modified version, and I know true MAF training takes a while to see real results, and since I am not doing it the way it's supposed to, it will probably take even longer.