Day 114: Reprioritization

 

Today is day 114 of Nutrisystem 2.0 and it was an almost balmy 45 degrees when I got up ! I poked my head out the front door to see if the porch was warm enough to work out there, and it was a big nope until after lunch ! By then it had warmed up into the 60's so I spent about 4 hours out there. I woke up shortly after 6 today and it seemed to be pretty light out, so I grabbed my phone to check the time. For some reason my alarm is shutting off on Fridays and I haven't quite figured out why. I got up shortly before 7 because there was no point in trying to go back to sleep for less than an hour. I got dressed, made the bed, fed the cats and sat down to enjoy my first cup of coffee and start this post.

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 & 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. Afternoon snack was 80 calorie cottage cheese & 90 calorie oatmeal cookies. Dinner was a 190 calorie artichoke & spinach stuffed chicken breast with green beans. Evening snack was a 130 calorie strawberry shortcake cupcake. Total calories are 980 but I also had some low fat wheat thins and (too many) Hershey Kisses, so I'll go with 1200+ for today.

I checked the Nutrisystem app this morning and noticed they are offering 40% off on shakes this week. I always shop the sale for these because they're expensive ($40 per container) and buy 12 containers at a time (6 vanilla, 6 chocolate). This is enough for 6 months so I only buy them twice a year. With the sale, I get these for $287.92 but they also charge shipping of $19.99, so the total is $307.91. I bought gift cards from Costco and saved $60.03, so I'm only paying $247.88 or about $20.66 per container. If you break that down even further it is about $1.48 per shake, which is quite cheap for a protein shake. I've looked online at various times to see if there are any other options out there and found nothing viable. Most other products have more than 120 calories per serving and are more expensive. I really like the Nutrisystem product so that's why I stick with them. 

Ok. Today's self-sabotage topic is "Reprioritization". Say that 3 times as fast as you can ! So here's what the Forbes article says:

Some individuals may replace an intended activity or goal with another obligation. An example of this, might look like someone saying, “I was not able to go to class this semester because I had to take care of my sick neighbor.”

I'm not really on board with this example. Turn it around to say "I opted not to take class this semester in order to take care of my sick neighbor" and it sounds completely different. I wouldn't take that as self-sabotage. To a degree, I don't see reprioritizing your goals as self-sabotage. What I see in that paragraph is someone feeling like they need to justify their decision to forego class to care for their neighbor. I guess maybe the author is inferring it was a deliberate act to avoid something they didn't want to do but I think they could have used a better example. To me, this topic is more about making excuses. Did the author call it "reprioritization" to make it sound more scientific ? Regardless, I'm taking it as making excuses and I am 1000% guilty of doing that, over and over and over again. Take this week for example .. I opted not to exercise in the evening because I worked late. Well, I could have walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes at 7 pm. I just didn't want to. Plain and simple. I used working late as an excuse to "reprioritize" my workout. LOL. So yeah, I'm guilty of this and it's a problem and I need to work on it. I think I'm doing better but there is always room for improvement.

Work was busy today but to be honest, I wasn't very productive. I think I was a little burned out and I opted not to work late tonight even though I had an hour of OT left. Most of my projects are in process and there wasn't much more I could do with them until other teams complete their part. What usually happens is everything gets done at once and I'll be buried in stuff that is suddenly ready to go !

Today I bit the bullet and ordered a battery powered lawn mower ! It cost me $523 with tax but it will pay for itself by the end of this summer, since I typically paid $120-180 a month for Doug to mow about once a week. The mower will be delivered on Monday. I need a trimmer too and I'd like to get a battery powered one, but I need to go to a store and actually look at them to see what they weigh. If the battery is on board it might be too heavy for me. If this is the case I'll buy one you plug in to an extension cord because they're more lightweight. I decided to buy a mower because I didn't want to go through the hassle of finding someone new to mow and it'll be good exercise for me. I will still have to find someone to plow for me next winter but that shouldn't be a problem. 

This was an expensive day ! $523 for the lawn mower and $300 for gift cards to buy my shakes. Not to mention I spent $300 for Nutrisystem gift cards on Monday to apply to my monthly food shipment. I'm not complaining. As I already said, the lawn mower will pay for itself by the end of summer. The shakes will last me 6 months and I'm on an old Nutrisystem plan and my cost doesn't increase, despite rising food prices. I pay $304 for 24 breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack items, which is less than $13 a day. However, I use discounted Costco gift cards for payment and it reduces that $304 bill to $244 .. which is about $10.17 a day. My food choices ARE limited because they don't allow me to choose many of the newer offerings, but I haven't seen anything new I'm dying to try. They have meals for 2 - nope. They have meals you have to "cook" - nope. They have plant based meals - nope. They also have "hearty" meals that are nearly 400 calorie - double nope ! Fish meals - nope. I also shop the sales and buy extra food, which allows me to space out my monthly shipments. Nutrisystem often runs sales with 50 or 55% off and I stock up !