Day 9: Stop and Breathe

 

Day 9 of Nutrisystem 2.0. I weighed myself this morning and sure enough, I was down to 239 ! I'm feeling better about "only" losing 5 pounds in the first week, because there are so many things that can effect your weight from day to day. There's a lesson here, because I tend to react too quickly sometimes. I need to learn to stop and breathe first. Since my life has gotten better I'm more able to deal with things as they come, but I still let myself get all worked up for no reason. Does it really matter if you lose 5 pounds or 6 ? Well, sure it does when you have 87 to lose ! I felt like I was doing such a great job sticking to the plan and, to be honest, I was hoping to lose closer to 10. This is another example of unrealistic expectations and setting myself up for failure. Hope to lose 10 .. only lose 5 .. failure. How do you lower your expectations ? Honestly, I don't know. I guess I'm afraid to set them too low and just be happy if I lose anything in a given week. If I had stopped and breathed and reminded myself that I "only" lost 8 the first week of Nutrisystem 1.0 - and I was limited to about 800 calories with zero extras. You also tend to lose more initially when you have over 100 pounds to lose. So I should have celebrated those 5 pounds !

Breakfast was pancakes with sugar free syrup and an 80 calorie yogurt. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a chef salad and a 240 calorie hamburger. Afternoon snack was 80 calorie cottage cheese and 80 calorie pineapple. The serving size for both is 1/2 cup. I kind of like the fruit with the cottage cheese, so I'm not missing the expensive oatmeal cookies ! Dinner was 210 calorie teriyaki chicken & noodles with a big bowl of broccoli. I went for a lower calorie entree because I had a slice of cheese on my lunch burger and that was 45 calories. Even though I don't count all the "extra" calories, I do try to minimize their effects. Evening snack was a 140 calorie chocolate cupcake with an excessive amount of whipped cream. Total calories for the day are 1100. If I add in my "extras" like syrup, peanut butter powder, salad dressing, that slice of cheese and the whipped cream I'm really at or slightly above 1200. I also had a few mixed nuts, so I'm likely over 1200 today. Not stressing about it, just being honest with myself.

My lunchtime workout was 22 minutes. This one had 3 minute intervals at 3 mph with 3 minute rests at 2.8 mph and I wasn't sure I could keep up. I almost swapped it out for an easy walk with Tommy Rivs, but I decided to just go for it. I'm glad I did because it was easier than I expected. After the first 3 minutes at 3 mph the next 2 didn't seem so hard. Yes, I got a little out of breath and I sweated a tiny bit, but I did it. After work was a nice 20 minute walk at 2.2 mph. With warmups and cool downs, I spent a total of 54 minutes walking on the treadmill. I'm happy with that right now. Once these walking workouts begin to feel easy, I will start to challenge myself a bit more. 

Today was another gloomy day with a showers on and off. Heavier rain moved in around 6 pm and I'll take that over snow any day ! I had a productive day "at work" and I already have a project teed up that will likely keep me busy all day tomorrow. Then it's on to a 3 day weekend, courtesy of MLK ! I have nothing planned for the weekend other than getting things done around the house and there are LOTS of those "things" that need doing. I'll need to keep busy in order to not think about snacking. Last night I was a little hungry after I went to bed, but I think that's because I was awake until after midnight. I was playing games on my tablet and watching movies on Hulu. Even though I was hungry I didn't give in to temptation, but that is a daily struggle !

Although I don't want to get in the habit of weighing myself daily, I'm glad I did today. Seeing that extra pound gone did a lot to boost my morale and keep me motivated to get this weight off. I feel good about the consistency I'm starting to develop with my workouts but this weekend is going to be a test. On weekends or days off it's too easy to say "I'll work out later" and then before you know it the day is gone and you didn't do it. After a few days of that you give up completely. I've done that too many times over the past year and I will not let it happen again. Although I've only lost a total of 8 pounds since January 2, I do feel better. I haven't looked in the mirror or taken any new photos since 1/2, but I will try to remember to do that tomorrow. I have to say, looking at those starting photos is hard but I need to look at them frequently. What better motivation is there ? I hate the way I look and I want to get back to where I was. I don't plan to live the rest of my life in baggy tops and leggings. I want to wear those size 10 jeans again and I have a closet full of nice size small tops. I have some mediums too, so the day I can get back into one of those will be a great morale booster !

I've already showered so I'm going to go and brush my teeth and head for bed !