Day 88: Happiness At Last

 

Today is day 88 of Nutrisystem 2.0 and it was 25 degrees when I got  up. Quite a change from yesterday's 50+, but not unexpected. Although it was cold we had blue skies and sunshine and I love that !

Although I said I would wait until Tuesday (4-4) to weight myself I ended up on the scale this morning. I'm glad I did because I FINALLY hit 234 ! I am officially back to 70 pounds lost and I now OWN the 70 pound bear again ! Wow, I can barely describe how happy this made me. It took me 88 days to get here and the real hard work starts now, because it's going to take 10 more pounds to get the 80 pound bear back ! I feel like I wasted most of the first 60 days of this but in reality I was working on getting my mind and body in sync with the job ahead. I made a lot of mistakes. I overate, ate a lot of things I shouldn't and I didn't exercise enough. I feel like like I'm in a good place with exercise now. Finally accepting that I couldn't just pick up where I left off was the turning point. I started doing what I could, instead of what I wanted to do, and things started to happen. I've reached the point where I can sustain 3 mph and it's only a matter of time before I can dust off my custom speed settings and start my workouts at 3.2 mph ! I'm not pushing hard on that because I am still trying to keep my workouts in the fat burning zone. 3.2 and beyond is more cardio and I'm not ready for that progression. I have a lot of fat to burn .. lol ! 

"You will never find YOUR happiness anywhere but within yourself. Love that looks to another human being for completeness is not love its dependency."

I did a google search for quotes on finding happiness, and this one fit the bill. When I met Alex in 1997 I was totally looking to another for completeness. I didn't find it with him for a lot of reasons. #1 - I never loved him. I don't even think I know what love is. #2 - he never loved me. I think we were both looking for someone to take care of us. He found that in me, because I did take care of him until the day he died. He never really took care of me. Even when I had leukemia I pretty much took care of myself most of the time. I can remember vacuuming after coming home from my first stay in the hospital, which caused bleeding from my port site. In reality I should have been spending my time resting but things had to be done. Being in the hospital was wonderful, to be honest, because everything was fresh and clean and people were taking care of me. It was my sanctuary during that time in my life. Pretty sad ! Should someone come along that touches my heart in the right way I would consider a relationship, but I will never actively look for that again. I think I would have a hard time trusting anyone again. So now it's all about taking care of myself and making myself happy. Getting the weight back off and getting fit again is my #1 priority for 2023. That is what is going to make me happy. 

As the 90 day mark approaches, I feel like I need to set some goals. Nothing cast in concrete, because that is always demotivating. It's taken me this long to lose 13 pounds and I feel like I should be able to lose 20 in the second quarter of 2023. That's a reasonable goal but it's not enough. So I'm setting a stretch goal of reaching 199 by June 30th. 90 days, 35 pounds. This is not quite 13 weeks away so I need to lose more than 2 pounds a week. This is a BIG stretch but I'm going to work harder than I have been.

Yep, I am going to be honest with myself and admit that I have NOT been working as hard as I could have to lose this weight. Now I'm feeling a sense of urgency because I'm going to Disney. This is a good thing but it's unfortunate that it took a vacation plan to spur me into action. Had I worked harder starting on January 4 I might be at 20 pounds or more lost by now. I didn't and I can't change that but I can use it for motivation. Getting to 199 by June 30 would be huge and would put me on track to be in the 160's by December. So that is the goal and it's up to me to get there. This means clamping down HARD on what I eat. No more candy. No more bread. No more restaurant or fast food meals. I also need to reign in some of my little extras. I put syrup on my pancakes and waffles and I'm a little too generous. So I plan to scale that back to the bare minimum. I also add olives & feta to my salads, with a liberal splash of fat free dressing. My salads often end up too "wet" so I'm using too much dressing. I will scale that back as well. I also add  a LOT of fat free whipped cream to my evening snack. I will scale that back hard. I used to make sugar free jello for an extra snack and I'm going to start doing that again. Basically I need to go back to what worked before.

Food has always been a reward for me and I intend to reward myself in different ways as the weight comes off. I've subscribed to the Instagram's of a few companies that sell really pretty workout gear, with the goal of actually splurging on some luxurious things. One day I will make the splurge but today it's only a dream. First step is fitting back into the pretty things I already have. I look forward to putting the plus size stuff away (again) and sliding back into the size medium sets I have. Once I get there, I will treat myself to some expensive things.

Breakfast was pancakes with sugar free syrup and a yogurt. My morning snack was apple slices, cheese cubes, grapes & almonds in a little snack tray from Wegman's. Lunch was a pepperoni pizza melt. Dinner was green beans and roasted turkey medallions. Evening snack was a lemon zest cake.

About 1 pm I headed out to drop off my water/sewer payment at the village office and then grocery shop. After stops at Wegmans and 2 Walmart's I made it home just before 4. I managed to avoid temptations of fast food or sweets and opted to grab a little tray of apple slices, cheese cubes, grapes and almonds at Wegmans. This held off hunger until I got home. I didn't need a lot of the stuff I bought but I wanted to stock up on some frequently used items. I now have 3 jars each of green olives, kalamata olives, pickled onions and roasted red pepper slices. I got some nice fresh lettuce, celery and radishes so I'm all set for salad this week. I have 2 cucumbers so I didn't need to buy those. I was also able to get a big box of the salted caramel k-cups at Wegmans, so I now have a full box of each flavor. I went to 2 Walmart's because Cicero never has the big bags of dry cat food that I buy for the strays and they didn't have any of the beef baby food that I buy for Abby. I had 8 jars of it but I like to keep a good stock of that because it's often hard to find. I was able to get the baby food but not the dry cat food in Central Square. I have an unopened bag but I also like to keep ahead of this because it's also often hard to find. I also picked up some items to try and cushion my baby toe better. My homemade cushions are just not working and I'm tired of being in pain when I walk on the treadmill. I also grabbed some corn removers because I have a corn that keeps growing on my big toe on the same foot. I shave it off when I soak my feet but it keeps coming back. I must have an oddly sized foot because I have no trouble with my left foot. I bought 2 different products to protect the toe and will see which works best. I looked around in the garden center at Walmart and found they have easy to install plastic posts for garden fencing. They also have plastic garden fencing to use with them. I didn't buy anything today but once I decide what I want to do I know where I can go ! This would be an easy install but I don't know how durable it would be. They also have all kinds of bulbs you can plant and many of them are plants I was looking at online last night, such as bleeding hearts and day lilies. I really want to plant things that will come up every year. I will also put in a fair amount of hosta's because those are green all the time. It'll be a fun project !

Today's workout was 21m29s in Italy. This one had a brief period of 5% incline so I decided not to go for 3 mph steady state on this one. By the time I got on the treadmill I already had over 6k steps on my Fitbit, so I got some exercise while I was shopping ! With 20 minutes to go I set the speed at 2.5 mph and increased by 0.1 mph every 4 minutes, ending at 2.9 mph. I didn't get any other workouts in as it got too late and I really needed to clean litter boxes and the laundry room, so I did that instead. I'll get back to it tomorrow !

I had a great weekend ! I'm happy that I got in 3 workouts yesterday. I'm happy to see 234 on the scale today ! I'm happy to know I can landscape to my hearts content. I'm happy my taxes are filed. I'm happy Spring is coming !

On that note, it's time for bed !