:: travellingcari.com ::

and yes that holds true whether or not you cock your head sideways to see the pictures that I don’t know how to edit.

Over the last few months as I’ve gotten dressed in the morning I’ve put clothes that no longer fit on my desk chair. Over the last few weeks I’ve worried about the stability of said chair. I also picked up my laundry from the wash and fold (my favorite convenience of city living) so basically every piece of clothing I own was clean and ready to be hung and or folded. Eeek.

Knowing I’d be passing the Goodwill store on my way to the grocery store I decided it was time to free the desk chair. While I began to put away my laundry and re-fold clothes, finding things I forgot I had, I realized it was time to do a deeper purge. Everything refolded and I had three bags to go to good will. Tax donation and good karma.

But…..the pictures above are post-purge. If you look closely you’ll recognize the “dresser” situation is solveable. My “dresser” is two stacked Target sets of plastic drawers. All I need is a third one. Technically have one but a) I’m using it as an end table in the living room and b) if I put it any higher I’ll need the step stool to get into it.

Yes, my apartment is very early – post college. But I love it. It’s functional. And cheap. I love the free standing closet although it’s a little wobbly under the weight of winter clothes.

Let’s see if I can manage to stop buying as many new clothes as I donate. My wallet would like that too. Let’s re-visit this in 6 months.

I don’t get it, but I’ll take it.

When I stopped tracking on Friday (I know, I know), I was 50+ points in the red. Most of that damage was last Saturday and Sunday, damn you Sour Patch Kids. However a fair bit had been during the week when my meals consisted of brownies and chicken wings. Gotta love holiday season and events. I can only blame the calendar so much though because I certainly could have made better choices.

On the plus side, the crappy food was the meal and not dessert on top of a meal. On the down side, imagine what the scale could have said if I’d made even moderately decent food choices. Realistically I knew I wasn’t going to made a complete 180 in one week but I’m overall happy with the progress, especially tracking.

One of the things I like about Points + is it’s making me go back to basics because I no longer automagically know all the points. What I’d gotten guilty of in the last few months was knowing the points were bad and not tracking. Now I need to look them up, and once I do I’m more likely to put them in the tracker. I even woke up last Sunday feeling guilty about half ass tracking and I went back and tracked the mess the night before. Personal accountability helped me in March and I think it will again now.

This was also the first week I fully tracked on SparkPeople in addition to Weight Watchers. One of the interesting things I noticed was that I’d be way over my Points Plus target on a given day (Tues 45/29 for example) but I was in much better shape, calorie wise, at 1525. Sure it’s a little high, but I’d have expected to be much higher. So it’s definitely a learning process.

My WW meeting isn’t meeting for the next two weeks due to Christmas and New Years. Last time I skipped one WI it led to a bunch of missed meetings and I don’t want to do that. Going to try and find a meeting on Friday or Sunday but we’ll see. I haven’t set a goal yet but I have a place I want to be on March 10, my WW anniversary.

For the first time in three months I believe I can get there.

someone said yesterday in my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday that the benefit of the new Points Plus program is that it forced her to go back and look things up. The more I think about it, the more I realize it’s true. I’ve been struggling for the last three months, mainly of my own doing. It’s annoying to think I’ve been in a self-induced stall for 1/3 of my time on Weight Watchers so it’s back to basics.

Went back to the gym on Friday and was supposed to start yesterday but a (tracked!) evening snack fest derailed that. So food started today. Hope I can keep it solid through evening. Lunches prepared and tracked for this week. GHGs planned for. Evenings are a bit iffy with plans 4/5 evenings but I know I can do this. I did it for six months.

I’ve also started to track on SparkPeople alongside WW. I don’t want to pay for WW online when (if?) I make goal and I want to be comfortable in a system when I make the switch. I don’t love SparkPeople because entering NI is a lot of work but I like its daily reports and minute goals for things like fitness activity. So we’ll see where I net out. Might also look into MyFitnessPal since many on WW seem to like that.

and appreciating them. They were a huge help early in my weight loss journey.

NSV. Non Scale Victory. Things that are going well when the scale is not.

Some that still hold true:

• I get compliments. Both from people I see regularly and people I haven’t seen in a while.
• I’m comfortable in my clothes. I don’t need to change as soon as I get home due to tight fit. I still prefer comfy, but the comfy clothes are smaller.
• When I change in the morning because something doesn’t fit it’s most often because it’s too big rather than too small.
• 60m of cardio is comfortable

If you couldn’t tell, I’m yo yoing again.

But we’re not talking about that right now. We’re talking about the good things. I am not letting the scale rule/ruin my life.

up, down, up, down.

Good news is, I weighed in today and lost all of last week’s gain as well as 3.6 down from two weeks ago, which was an official WI. I’m now lower than I was on Labor Day which was either two weeks into the yo yo or the beginning of it. I’ll get excited if I maintain or lose next week, I’m tired of the yo yo.

Since Sept I’ve lost a grand total of 3.2 lbs or 5lb/week. If it was a case of getting close to goal and losing more slowly, I’d be happier. But it’s not. It’s my own poor choices. I did well this week, I want to see if I can do it two weeks in a row instead of one week on, one week off as has been my habit. It’s not that I’ve lost the motivation – I still have that. I’m not sure what it is though. Numbers don’t lie though.

An interesting parallel: I’m at 154.4 and I’ve lost 54.6 lbs total. Fun numbers.

I have been on a damn yo yo since I hit the 50 lb marker on Labor Day weekend.

I am tired of losing and gaining the same 4 lbs.

I have no one to blame but myself.

The latest insanity? 50+ points in the red last week. On the plus side, I tracked it. The B2B challenge keeps me honest in that respect but I need to re-break some bad habits that are creeping back:

-night munching
-munching from container, not a portioned out amount
-giving in to cravings (Hi, 26 points in a Subway sandwich)
-soda (although diet)
-bad food choices

It’s all excuses, I know this. Add in a bit of “might as well” as in “well I’m already over my points for the day so I might as well have a triple scoop of chocolate peanut butter cup from Baskin Robbins”. And yeah, the week was a disaster.

I didn’t actually weigh in today, but I did go to the meeting. I wanted the accountability but I didn’t want “that number” on my record. My goal for next week is to erase this week’s gain. But I did that two weeks ago. And a month before that too.

More than one month ago, I was a hair from 25% of my body weight loss. I’m still not too far from it, but if I’d maintained even a nano of the focus and drive I had in my first six months, I’d have been past it.

I know this is a normal part of the weight loss journey. I’m just disappointed with myself because the blame for this is all on me. Not tracking it doesn’t mean I didn’t eat it. Because it’s there doesn’t mean I need to eat it.

I need to go back to this post and this post that inspired it:

Oh and let’s not forget all the times we wanted to shove crap food in our pie hole but instead reached for water and fruit while chanting to ourselves “The stomach doesn’t care what it eats, it just wants to digest. It’s the brain that wants to eat (insert food) and it will learn to love (insert food) instead”.

Giving into the craving for tuna last week started the week off poorly. I’m not doing that this week. I am focused. I am going back in the right direction.

NFL. Weight Loss. Life. My attempt at blogging. Anything but the Yankees.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely thrilled with the Giants being 3-2 and two strong wins, but there are a lot of crap teams in the NFL. Not crap as in “oh my god they’re awful”, but crap as in “really? You didn’t know you needed to show up all four quarters?” But of course, I’m watching all of it. I am a junkie.

I shouldn’t be calling 51 lbs lost mediocre, I know that. I’m just in a rut and it’s frustrating. Shouldn’t be, because it’s on me. Crap food choices and not the best tracking. Net is .4 up since Labor Day. Hope to turn it around with a good grocery shop yesterday and a re-focus. 158 is a lot better than 209, but it’s not at all where I want to be. Need to get back on my game. B2B challenge on the WW boards helps, 50+ points days like yesterday don’t help.

Lack of sleep isn’t helping and because of it, drinking too much (diet) soda. My baby steps for progress this week is two-fold: get back to the gym more often and tracking. Gym should be doable because Yankees don’t play until Friday.

We’ll see.

Yeah, that’s high loss in one week, but it was basically last week’s water gain on WI eve. Even with all the scale’s nonsense in the last 4-6 weeks I’m averaging 1.7/week since March and am very happy with that.

Oddly enough, I didn’t plan to WI this week. I knew I’d be going home and didn’t think it was likely I’d get to WI on Friday. Didn’t want to weight in today because of last night’s dinner plans. Scale games, me? NE-VER. Just hate seeing an artificially inflated number due to one meal. So with the plan not to WI, I had two slices of buffalo chicken pizza and mint chocolate chip ice cream with butterscotch. And I enjoyed and tracked every bite. Proud of myself for tracking and I think the B2B challenge is a big part of that. I didn’t want to bomb out yet again.

Also last night was a fest of trying on clothes at mom’s house including my prom dress (above). Have always sworn I was going to get married in the dress but never thought I’d fit back into it. It’s stained and wrinlkled, but I did. Without any of the suck and tuck garments I was wearing on prom night. Not quite sure I can still live up to the 17 year old pout though.

Was feeling guilty about the decision not to WI and began to reconsider. Found some light weight pants and headed to the center near mom and was well rewarded. Not getting too excited, it was water. But nice to see the scale pointing down. Today was a good shopping day and I’m ohsoclose to my next mini goal.

Huh?

I don’t agree with, but I can at least understand, some of the logic behind calling for Tom Coughlin’s head. People are frustrated with on field product and it’s on Coach to make players play. Fine. Don’t think it’s Coach’s fault that there’s been some sloppy and unprofessional (ripping helmets off) play, but I can see a scapegoat. Moving on from that.

But Reese? I’m not even talking about the Super Bowl honeymoon. Issues in the last 2.5 seasons have been injuries and inconsistent play. Is Kiwi suddenly a bad draft because he got hurt? Ditto Chad Jones for being in car accident? Haven’t seen much out of some such as Barden and others didn’t quite develop (Sinorice Moss) but there’s also been some good: Hakeem Nicks, Kenny Phillips, Corey Webster. Sure, some free agent signings haven’t quite panned out (yet) due to injury like Rocky Bernard and others that flat out didn’t work (CC Brown), but others did. Maybe he got lucky with the Super Bowl out of the gate, maybe it was Accorsi’s team. But to blame Reese because the team has issues?

Now people want Reese gone along with Coughlin? Yesterday, as well. Ugh. Give me a break. Might as well say the team needs new owners too while you’re at it.

No doubt the challenge against the Bears just got harder due to the injury to Kiwi. But I’m not panicking or giving up. This team has flaws, but they’re not yet fatal. Need to step up. Show what they can do without beating themselves like last week. Can this team channel 2007? I think so.

The main reason? Manning’s growth. He’s a far stronger QB than he was then. Get him some protection and he will lead them.

It’s a long season.

or something like that. One of many good points that my weight watchers leader often makes. Wasn’t sure how/if that would apply in the case of this week’s gain because I’d been up and down over the course of the week. Well as of this evening’s scale hop (serial weigher, guilty as charged) after a lot of water, it’s all gone.

Even with the increased calories of the wings and the dressing, I knew I had not possibly gained 4lbs. I’d have exploded if I’d eaten 14K extra calories. One of the things this weight loss journey and the reading I’ve done during it has taught me is some of the reality behind weight loss and gain. It makes the fluctuations much easier to deal with. I don’t “count” the daily weigh ins, only the Saturday morning. Now with a scale maybe I should at least keep record of daily. Maybe

I think that’s going to help me get/stay on track this week. Last few weekends have been entirely off the rails. Nice to face the week with 34 WPs and 9 APs. Need to find time to get more though. Also had a good shopping trip. Tempted to bring some things into the house but read the points and thought hard about whether I wanted to do that. In end only things that came with me are Junior Mints and crackers. Both can be overcome. Proud of myself there.

Unrelated . Cute new boots Looks like I’m about to get rain in which to wear them too. Yay.

Currently reading: Outwit Your Weight, Naturally Thin and Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls: Tackling the Chaos and Controversy That Reign over College Football. Variety much? That’s one or two purse books and one in apartment book.

No comment on Giants game at this point. Maybe tomorrow.