Day 36: Keep Trying

 

Day 36 of Nutrisystem 2.0 got off to an early start. I woke up at 6:45 and decided to just go ahead and get up, instead of waiting for the 7 am alarm. It was 37 degrees when I got up and the high for the day is 38, so it was about as warm as it was going to get. The downstairs was a comfortable 70 degrees but my bedroom was at 74 because I left the electric heater on all night at too high of a setting. No wonder I was sweating all night ! I had a restless night in general - I was awake at 1 am feeling like I'd slept all night, so it took a while to go back to sleep. Then I dreamed that my car had been stolen. This was probably because I read a story yesterday about a local guy being arrested for stealing 3 cars in my area. In my dream it was stolen from a parking lot and I remember wandering the aisles looking for it. Stories like this are the reason I lock my car even when it's in my garage. I have this dream once in a while but most of the time the car is missing from my garage. It's always a relief to wake up and realize it was only a dream ! There are many theories about what this dream means and most of them agree it's anxiety and fear. I supposed I was dreading today's weigh in, and that may be part of the reason I had this dream again. 

Breakfast was a 270 calorie Jimmy Dean Delights breakfast sandwich. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake. Lunch was the rest of last nights green beans and a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. Afternoon snack was 180 calorie cheese & crackers. Dinner was broccoli and 230 calorie ravioli with meat sauce. Evening snack was a 140 calorie chocolate cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1160.

First workout of the day was 33 minutes in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. I again increased the speed (2.5 the first quarter, then 2.6, 2.7 and finally 2.8) and I really didn't feel the difference until I went from 2.7 mph to 2.8 mph. I really felt it when we hit the 8% incline towards the end. That only lasts about a minute so I pushed through it. After work I put in 24 minutes of intervals in southern Utah with iFit trainer Ashley Paulson. She is another of my favorites. This workout was scattered intervals with no specific times. Speed was mostly 2.1 mph with pushes of varying length at 2.6 mph. There was a lot of incline but nothing more than 6%. I almost didn't make it through this one as I started to feel a bit weak. I worked until almost 6 pm (story to follow) and I didn't have dinner first, so I was running on empty. I pushed through again and got busy making my dinner ! I got about 69 minutes in today and exceeded my 10,000 step goal, so I'm happy with that !

Today was weigh in day and the scale read 236.8, so no loss this week. I'm not surprised, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. I was. I'm not going to let it get me down because I know why this happened. I thought about skipping the weigh in this week but I decided to just face it and then move forward. I overate Friday night and Saturday and these actions have consequences. I've also had mixed nuts at bedtime a few times this past week and I need to put a stop to that. Yet again, I'm proving to that I can't control myself if temptations are in the house. I wasn't hungry when I went to bed, the snacking is more of a habit than anything else. On a more positive note, I weighed myself later (with an empty digestive tract) and I may just have lost a pound. We'll see what next week brings. I have every confidence that the scale will reflect a loss next week, so I am focusing myself on that. What's done is done and I can't stay stuck in the past. I have to keep pushing forward and keep trying to get this right. When the scale disappoints me I start thinking about every extra calorie I ate. For example, I had a slice of cheese on my burger yesterday. I was feeling guilty about that, but I checked the package and it was only 45 calories. I can't even remember the last time I used a slice. I think the 850 calorie can of beans and the half bag of snack mix I ate Saturday are the bigger issue. This is why I don't count every calorie. I don't count the sugar free syrup (it's 5 calories in 2T), but I go easy with it. I don't count the 1T of peanut butter powder in my shake (35 calories). I don't count the fat free salad dressing (15 calories in 2T), but I try to go easy with this too. I don't count the couple of teaspoons of grated cheese I put on the pasta entrees, since I don't have them often and the calories are minimal. I don't count the fat free whipped cream that I put on my cupcakes (5 calorie in 2T) and going easy with this is pretty much impossible .. lol ! Nutrisystem does allow you a couple of "extras" per day and they tell you not to count items that are less than 10 calories, so I don't feel like I'm "cheating". At one time I was adding feta cheese to my salad but that has a lot of calories so I gave it up. I also added green olives at times, but those have a lot of calories too, so I gave them up. I could actually add pickled jalapenos if I wanted but I also try to avoid adding extra sodium, since all the processed food I'm eating is full of sodium. I could have pickles too, but again lots of salt so I avoid them. Everything in life is a balancing act !

I mentioned that I worked late tonight. Well, about 4:30 I discovered that I had overlooked something last week and I wanted to get it taken care of today. I knew I would not sleep tonight if I didn't. I'm just glad I discovered it ! I actually had a pretty productive work day but I spent all morning working on the spreadsheet I started late yesterday. I completed it just before lunch and sent the project on it's way .. only to encounter a system problem that prevented it from moving forward. With the help of my boss we got that over to the right system folks and they are working on resolution. It was nothing I did wrong, just a system glitch. I expect it'll probably be resolved by the time I log in tomorrow. It irritates me when things don't go smoothly, but that is the nature of all this software we rely on ! Right now I have so many projects on the verge of completion and every day I burrow through my work list to find things that are 100% complete and ready to close. It's become a bit of an obsession, but I think that's a good thing. I take pride in a job well done ! 

Today is the half-way point of the week and I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend. I do plan to go out and get my mail and go to the grocery store, but that's about it. I have laundry and cleaning to do, so I'll keep busy. Weather looks to be 30 and sunny on Saturday and 41 and partly sunny on Sunday. No rain, no snow .. works for me ! This coming weekend will definitely be an improvement over last weekend ! On that note, it's about time for bed.