Day 41: A New Week

 

Day 41 of Nutrisystem 2.0. It's a new week and I'm letting the weekend failures go. I woke up at 6:25 but opted to stay in bed, which made it harder to get up at 7. It was 7:30 by the time I went downstairs. I'm going to try getting up when I wake up unless it's ridiculously early. I've said I was going to try this many times and I have yet to put serious effort into it. We'll see what I can do this week.

Breakfast was a 270 calorie Jimmy Dean Delights breakfast sandwich. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake. Lunch was a chef salad with the last of the feta & olive salad and a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. Afternoon snack was 180 calorie cheese & crackers. Dinner was a 220 calorie chicken fettuccine alfredo over riced cauliflower. Evening snack was a 140 calorie chocolate cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1150.

First workout of the day was the Atlas Mountains. I went with the speeds I outlined yesterday (2.6 to 2.9) and got through it. That 30 second stretch of 8% incline at 2.9 mph near the end really gets me huffing and puffing ! I take that as an indication I am working hard ! I almost didn't go with the increased speed because I have some discomfort on the front of my left shin. Is that considering shin splints ? I think the workout helped loosen things up, so I'm glad I didn't opt to baby it. After work I did one of the workouts I'd been dreading because of the incline and the speed. I finally decided to just do it and use my own settings. It was in St. Lucia with Stacie Clark. I love her but I do not love incline so I kept the incline at 1% pretty much the whole workout, which was just over 23 minutes. I'm just not at a point where I can handle 10% incline. My starting speed was 2.5 mph and with 20 minutes to go I increased to 2.6, then added another 0.1 mph every 5 minutes. With 1 minute to go I increased to 3 mph. My leg was hurting and I'm wondering if part of the reason was I tied my shoes kind of tight. I need to watch that. I spent over an hour on the treadmill today and I'm happy with that. I worked a little late so it was nearly 6 pm before I got on the treadmill. I'm trying hard not to use excuses !

I didn't check the temp when I got up this morning but there was frost on the grass. It looked like a Fall morning - not mid-February ! There is no real snow in the forecast for the next week. Part of the reason I'm stocking the pantry is I'm afraid we'll get buried in March. I hope I'm wrong and we sail through this mild winter right into Spring and then Summer ! It got up to the mid-forties today and we had the sun for much of the day. My Amazon orders were delivered today at 2 different times, maybe 2 different drivers. So weird. My first order was fine (2 boxes of Fancy Feast and 10 pumps for my coffee syrup bottles) but the second order had a damaged item. I knew it as soon as I picked up the box. Box #2 had cats treats, a bottle of peanut butter cup coffee syrup and 4 boxes of Perfect Portions cat food. The weight of the cat food crushed the plastic container the treats were in, so some of them were spilled in the box. I scooped them into a container I had and I'll use them, but I also went on Amazon's website and got a refund. This was the first time I received a damaged item and it was pretty easy to get the refund. Next time I order them I'll make sure I'm not ordering any heavy items at the same time ! My new sneakers may be here by Wednesday, so I'm looking forward to that ! 

Work was busy, as expected, and I did work a bit late to finish something up. I was able to close several projects this morning and get started with the work required for the 10 new items I got last week. I finished my part on 5 of them and I have one more to tackle first thing tomorrow ! Then I'll be sitting and waiting for other departments to do their part so I can finish them up and close them out ! I'm waiting for more info on a few, so I'm at a standstill on those. All in all, I got a lot accomplished today and I'm really happy about that.

My quest to practice self-love continues. 

“Choose, everyday, to forgive yourself. You are human, flawed, and most of all worthy of love.”

I found this quote and it resonates with me because I am so hard on myself. I put more focus on the things I didn't do, instead of celebrating the things I have done. I've talked about this before and it is something else that I haven't put much effort into changing. It's not like you can just flip a switch on years and years of hating everything about yourself and your life. The past few years have been really good but I still have that fear in the back of my mind that something will happen to take it all away. It's hard to just sweep away the past. Someone made a comment recently about my expensive treadmill shoes and I thought about that comment when I ordered my new pair the other day. Little do they know that for many years I only owned one pair of shoes at a time, and they were $10 Walmart sneakers with velcro closures. I used to wear them until they fell apart and then I'd buy another pair. Being so heavy I needed wide width shoes and they were hard to find and hurt my feet. When I broke my wrist in 2017 my sister and mom took me to Kohl's to look for slip on shoes and I discovered Skechers. I bought several pairs and finally broke the sneaker habit. I liked the Skechers a lot and they were super comfortable. Once I lost the weight I didn't need wide width shoes and my shoe collection exploded. Any shoe I found that I liked I would buy 2 pairs. I actually own more shoes now than I ever have. I do feel like I have "enough" now, so I don't go actively looking for anything new now. I've talked about the shoe thing before, but the comment about my Hoka's has stayed with me. I feel blessed to be able to afford nearly $200 for a pair of sneakers. I think I'm worth it. For several years I've wanted to buy a Michael Kors handbag and I have yet to do it. I go on the website now and then but I haven't seen anything that I felt like I had to have. I spent $200 on a Dooney & Bourke Disney 50th anniversary handbag and I've used it exactly once. I have a Michel Kors that was an impulse buy but it's white & lavender, so it's a Spring item. Such a waste of money but I guess that's why the wealthy have closets full of bags for all seasons and all outfits ! My point is I'm finally at a place where I don't need "things" to make me happy. When I was at my poorest I wanted everything and now that I'm doing better financially that desire to have everything is gone. Really, all that is wrong in my life today is my weight and it's just not coming off fast enough. All I can do is watch the "extras" and keep sweating on the treadmill. Last night I followed a few fitness brands on Instagram because when I lose the weight I want to get a few new legging sets. I fully intend to buy something extravagant. I look forward to the day I can put the Walmart XXL leggings and XL sports bras in the bottom drawer again and move my pretty legging sets back to the top drawer. I also look forward to the day I can zip my size 10 jeans and actually breathe ! I really miss my size 10 body ! So yeah, I'm flawed as hell and I'm human and I'm certainly worthy of love. I just need to remember that food is not love ! I worked so hard to lose the weight and then went right back to my old habits. It is SO HARD to forgive myself for that. I can't right now. Perhaps when I get back to 160 I might find it in my heart to forgive myself, but I definitely can't do that today. I'm struggling so hard to stay on Nutrisystem and stay with the exercise program. 

Do I need to forgive myself for anything today ? No I don't. I kept to the Nutrisystem program today and I kept to my exercise program. I had a good day. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I have every intention of treating myself to a cookie from the freezer. There are 3 of them in there but I'll only be having one. Wednesday is weigh in and after my Saturday smorgasbord I'm not expecting to lose any weight. I will be happy if I didn't gain, I will forgive myself and I will move on.

On that note, I'm taking myself off to bed !