Day 25: Conquer The Weekend !

 

Day 25 of Nutrisystem 2.0. Another Saturday, another opportunity to do things right ! I woke up about 9:30 and, although I could have slept longer, I knew I had hungry cats downstairs. 

It was nice to wake up to a quiet morning, as in there was no snow or rain falling. That isn't going to last as there is snow forecast for tonight and pretty much every day next week. Temps are forecast to drop into the teens with overnight single digits by Friday night, so I'm not looking forward to that ! My heat struggles to keep up when it's that cold, so I'm glad I have several electric heaters.

Breakfast was 150 calorie pancakes with sugar free syrup and an 80 calorie yogurt. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake. Lunch was a chef salad and 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. Afternoon snack was 190 calorie cheese & crackers. Dinner was roasted turkey medallions with freshly roasted carrots. Evening snack was a 140 calorie chocolate cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1160.

Today's blog is called "conquer the weekend" because so far, the weekends have conquered me. I resolved first thing this morning to be on the treadmill at noon, as I am all week. However, I was enjoying my second cup of coffee at 11:30 and still hadn't eaten my yogurt, so I opted to give myself until 1 pm to get on the treadmill. I don't need to go to the grocery store this weekend as there is nothing I need. I have enough salad greens and veggies for the week. I also have plenty of food and supplies for the cats. 

I was reviewing my iFit history to see how long I repeated the Atlas Mountains walk during my first Nutrisystem journey. I first attempted it on 4-6-19, only lasting 9 minutes and I weighed 260 at the time. I did it pretty much every day after that until 5-25-19, which is 50 days and I weighed 242. So I lost 18 pounds during that 50 days ! I'm going to designate my "restart" date for this workout as 1-24-23 and do it every day until no later than 3-14-23, which is 50 days. If I can move on to the Safari Endurance Hike at Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania before then, great. If I can't, then on 3-15 I'm going for it no matter what ! Can I lose 18 pounds during this 50 days ? Well, hard to say but it's a good soft goal to set ! We'll say I was at 238 on 1-24 and see what the scale says on 3-14. I also need to go back in my old blog history and see when I started using the Total Gym. I want to get that back into my routine soon. It's tough in winter because I can't bear my bare skin touching that cold vinyl board. I do have a couple of long sleeve tops designed for athletes, so I will try wearing one of those. I also have to confine my hair to keep it from getting tangled in the equipment.

I finally got off the couch around 12:15, got dressed and got my shake ready. At 12:52 I finally ate my yogurt and wished I had gotten off the couch to get a 3rd cup of coffee before 1 pm rolls around. Oh well, I finished the yogurt and was about to get my fat ass on the treadmill at 1 pm, but Abby decided it was time to eat. My fault - I knew she would be looking to eat and I should have been proactive. I made myself a 3rd cup of coffee while I waited for her food to warm (I always warm the can of food in a bowl of hot water) and unpacked my Skinny Syrups order. I was so mad - apparently I screwed up and did not order the ONE syrup I really wanted ! It was chocolate peanut butter and seeing that on Amazon (who wanted 9.99 for one bottle) led me to their site to compare prices. I got butter pecan, butter toffee, chocolate caramel truffle, cookie dough, glazed donut, peppermint bark, mocha and s'mores syrup. These are all great flavors that I can't wait to try but I am SO mad that I didn't get the chocolate peanut butter. I guess I'll be placing another order ! Abby turned her nose up at the food I offered so I drank my cup of coffee and got lost on the Amazon site until after 1:30. Sigh. This is nothing new .. I start looking on Amazon, or Instagram or a news website and the next thing I know an hour or more has gone by. At 1:45 I was finally on the treadmill for another walk in Morocco. I was done with that by 2:30 and back on the couch for another cup of coffee and my salad. I got back on the treadmill around 7 pm and completed a 13 minute walk in Mexico. To challenge myself a little, at the 12 minute mark I bumped the speed up to 2.6 mph. At 9 minutes I went to 2.8, at 6 minutes I went to 3.0 and at 3 minutes I went to 3.2 mph. I actually handled the faster speeds better than expected, so that is encouraging ! Treadmill time was about 58 minutes today, which is great for a Saturday !

I was looking at some of the goals I've mentioned and I can see that I've been overambitious, again. I had said I'd like to be at 199 by April 9. Expecting to lose 39 pounds in the next 10 weeks is not realistic. Wanting to be at 220 by March 15 is a more realistic goal but it is a stretch. I'll be happy if I'm at 220 by April 9 and I'm setting a new goal to be at 199 by June 30. So my goals now are as follows:

• 220 or less by March 15 (unrealistic stretch goal)
• progress to Safari Endurance hike March 15 or sooner
• 220 or less by April 9 (realistic goal)
• 199 or less by June 30
• 160 by December 31

These goals may not make sense right now, but I have always changed my goals as time goes on. There is nothing wrong with setting goals you know you can't/won't meet. For me, seeing how close I can get is the challenge and somewhat of a motivator. I will see what my weight is on March 15 and then give some thought to what changes I need to make in order to keep my goals attainable. Right now I feel like 220 by March 15 is not realistic and not attainable, but I'm going to leave it there for now. I had said I'd like to be at 199 by April 9,  I'm realizing that in all aspects of life you have to set goals, review them frequently and reset them as needed. Beating yourself up because you "failed" is not the answer. I have to give myself credit for what I achieve, be honest about what I could do differently and then take action.

That's about it for my Saturday ! I enjoyed my day completely !