Day 29: Oops .. I Jinxed Us !

 

Happy February ! Day 29 of Nutrisystem 2.0 started with a good old fashioned blizzard. Oops .. I spoke too soon yesterday ! Woke up to some heavy snow falling. I didn't mind since I didn't have to drive in it and actually propped the curtains open so I could watch it snow from my seat on the couch ! By 8 am the snow had stopped and we got maybe an inch, so I'm glad I got to see a little bit of the "blizzard" while it lasted ! It was a balmy 16 degrees, not cold enough to affect my pipes and hopefully not cold enough for the roads to be slippery. We had some sun today and that was nice to see too. I am forever grateful that I no longer have to commute. I still dislike winter, but it brings far less anxiety now.

Breakfast was 160 calorie buttermilk waffles 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 180 calorie cheese & crackers. Dinner was 260 calorie roasted turkey medallions with green beans. Evening snack was a 140 calorie chocolate cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1080. They're a little lower because I never got around to eating my yogurt, so I treated myself to a small bowl of mixed nuts at bedtime. I haven't had any in the past week, so I've been doing really well with not having extra snacks. Today I also allowed myself a little butter flavored salt on my green beans. I've been staying away from that for the past week too !

It's hard to believe it's February already. It seems like I just restarted Nutrisystem yesterday ! I haven't had the level of success that I'd like, but I'm working on accepting that. I still find myself setting lofty goals and having unrealistic expectations, and that is what leads me to be disappointed time and time again. I read an unverified story yesterday about the death of Lisa Marie Presley. It claimed she had gone to extreme means to lose 40-50 pounds in a very short time, to look her "best" for the media circus associated with the awards surrounding the Elvis biopic. It also indicated she had relapsed and was using opioids again. If the story has any truth to it, it is sad that she felt the need to suddenly drop a ton of weight, possibly in an unsafe manner. People need to accept you as you are and stop judging based on appearance, and we also need to stop judging ourselves based on appearance. This story made me step back a little and start thinking about what I'm doing. I'm not going to extremes and I am losing the weight. Yes, I am losing it slowly and yes, I'd like to lose it faster .. but at what cost ? Why do I need to lose it faster ? Guess what .. when I reached 160 pounds I didn't suddenly have more friends. Nothing changed. Why do I want to lose it faster ? Same as before .. I want to be "done". Well, truth is I will never be done and yet again I find myself realizing that I have not accepted this. Maintaining my weight is going to be a life long battle and the sooner I accept that, the sooner I can stop beating myself up. 

On that note, the scale read 236.2 this morning ! I was dressed, so it's possible I could have squeaked in 235 if I were naked .. but I'll take 236. That is 11 pounds since 1-4. I'm going to give it one more week and then make a decision about weekly or monthly weigh ins. If I could lose 11 pounds a month I'd be at my goal weight by September. That's probably not going to happen because the less weight you have to lose, the harder it seems to be to get it off. I'll be happy if I am at or near 160 by December 31.

First workout of the day was 33 minutes in the Atlas Mountains. After work I started the February iFit walking challenge. First up was nearly 25 minutes of loosely organized intervals at 2.6 mph, with rests at 2.1 mph. It had some incline here and there but nothing drastic. I was easily able to keep up with the pace but afterward I got a bit weak. I was super hungry and devoured my dinner, which made me feel better immediately. I also went outside and shoveled the little bit of snow outside the garage.

The number on the scale didn't make me feel so dejected today, so I'm hoping that means I'm beginning to accept the reality of how long this is going to take. It took over a year to gain these 87 pounds so I need to give myself a year to get them back off. I think that's fair. Yes, I want to lose them sooner but you don't always get what you want. I will say that I feel better already and my abdomen seems a little flatter, so I'm encouraged by my progress. I plan to take updated photos on the 4th of each month, so we'll see what I look like this Saturday ! 11 down and 76 to go ! Sigh. 76 pounds is a lot and I'm still mad at myself for letting this happen. Why, why why I keep asking myself. I looked good and felt good, so why did I go back to food ? I can cut myself some slack from July 2022 forward .. but most of this weight was gained before July. Life was good so I had no reason to be "comforting" myself with food. 

I had a very productive work day today and Friday I will get the results of my performance review. I had an incredible year so I'm hoping my review and salary adjustment reflects all the hard work I put in. Today I took the final steps with the oldest item on my worklist, which I took over from a colleague. It dates back to July 2021 and I will be SO happy when I can close this one out ! I also volunteered to take on more assignments because I always have capacity to do more and some of my colleagues are struggling. The busier I am, the faster the day goes and the less time I have to think about food ! Actually, I just really love what I'm doing and the better our team performance is, the longer our team will stay around ! I get an incredible sense of satisfaction every time I close a project. Before our team took on this new work in 2021 I was so bored with the job. Nothing challenged me because I'd been doing it for so long. This new stuff involves customers all over the world, so it's been a breath of fresh air and an opportunity to learn quite a lot. I struggled at first because our training was not the best and I still sometimes struggle when something I haven't encountered before comes along, but for the most part I feel like I have a solid grasp and can handle whatever comes along. I know my boss is impressed and that means a lot to me. Professionally, life could not be better. I just hope and pray it stays that way for years to come !

In summary, the past week has been a good one. I kept to my exercise goal, I followed the Nutrisystem program 100% and I'm killing it at work ! 2023 is starting off well and I hope it continues. On that note, I'm heading for bed !