February 2017 Weigh-In: Stay the Course

We had a Weight Watchers At-Work Open House today, and 25 potential new members showed up. I know only a handful of those signed up — I watched to see how many people took a payroll-deduction form — but it was still encouraging to see the meeting room so full of new faces.

It was also eye-opening to me to see where I stand on the weight spectrum. Sometimes I forget to be thankful for the health and fitness I currently enjoy. Sometimes I forget that I’m only 15 pounds above my current Goal Weight, not 50 or 100.

Me in 2003, 2008, and 2017

This morning’s preview weight on the bathroom scale led me to believe I’d be up a smidge today, but I actually lost 0.6 lbs from last week. I’ll take it, especially since my weight has been slowly trending upward over the course of this month.

I haven’t really been keeping up with my Non-Scale Victories lately. I should really get back to that. I guess one pretty big NSV is the paczki that sat on my desk all morning long, untouched, waiting for my weigh-in, and went home in the container with the remainder of the blueberry muffins I brought, with the intention of splitting it with my son for dessert later. (Edit: unfortunately, my son opted not to split the paczki with me, and I ended up eating it after he went to bed.) Another one is the fact that I ate the WW snack buffet for lunch — muffin, cooked veggies, fake guac with chips, and a chocolate whoopie pie — and felt sated enough not to go get an additional lunch on top of all that.

It’s important to focus on the little things: the small habits changed, the feeling of health. I’ve recently lost that lovin’ feelin’ about active weight loss, and focusing on the little things — and having my eyes opened to where I really am in the journey — makes all the difference.

I remembered that, to jolt myself out of a previous slump, I had gone back to my blog and re-read the entries from when I was experiencing awesome weight loss. So, I did that again, and came across this gem that I so badly needed right now:

I’m too close to let myself screw this up now. When I eat healthy, I feel healthy. When I eat crap, I feel like crap. Like I said last month, wearing cute clothes is its own reward; so is feeling awesome.

Stay the course.

The answer isn’t adjusting my Goal Weight back upward to 170, like I’d briefly considered this month. The answer is to get back on track, be mindful, be active, be appreciative, and stay the course.

A Case of the Mondays

Garfield is copyrighted by Paws, Inc., owned in part by Jim Davis.

Really, it wasn’t all bad. I actually had some pretty good saves that balanced everything out.

Bad news: I forgot to make my overnight oats for breakfast. Good news: We still had instant steel cut oats in the pantry.

On the plus side, I finally remembered to bring Connor an extra pair of underwear to school (backup clothes are important, especially those). On the down side, I accidentally left my key card for his school and my badge for work clipped to the blazer I wore on Friday. After I dropped off Connor (thanks to the nice mom who let us in), I swung back by home to get my badge. (It wasn’t really out of my way at all — Pre-K is only a couple minutes from our house.)

Can’t believe I forgot to bring more K-Cups to work for my Keurig! At least I still had a bag of non-skunky coffee in my desk drawer and filters for my pour-over. #firstworldproblem

Ouch: The annoying crick in my neck from late last week that became an annoying tension all down my left arm was even worse when I had to sit at my desk and work. Yay: I called my chiropractor right when they opened, and they were able to get me in for an 11:15am appointment.

Bummer: The chiropractor told me I should go easy on the workouts this week until my neck becomes less inflamed. That means I have to give up my spot in Thursday’s Cardio Drumming class. Bonus: Not only does someone on the waitlist get to try this super-fun class, but now I get to go out for a camera walk on a beautiful spring day.

I totally forgot to take my Mucinex this morning, so my cold ran rampant: coughing, sneezing, and snotting. At least I had plenty of cough drops on hand! I also drank tea like it was going out of style, and guzzled water to flush all the “toxins” (I hate that word) out of my muscles after getting adjusted and electro-stimmed and lasered this morning. After I ran out of tissues at my desk, I had to resort to napkins; we’re well-stocked at home, though, so I’ll be good to go for tomorrow.

I’m counting it a giant win that the evening (i.e. the parenting portion of the program) didn’t seem affected by the Mondayness of today. Things were pretty typical, and that’s a good thing. Actually, maybe things were better than typical, since there were no shouting matches and I didn’t succumb to an after-bedtime fourth meal.

I feel like I dominated Monday as well as I could… but I’m not going to taunt the rest of the week by telling it to Bring It On. Really, please don’t. I’m good.

Fun New Glasses!

Took Friday afternoon off work for appointments: dentist, chiropractor, glasses, and picking up my son’s kindergarten registration packet. Fit in a solo lunch at my favorite Chinese-Korean joint (a special treat, since they’re closed on weekends and are nowhere near my work) and a brief camera walk at the Metropark near my house (until the camera battery balked at the cold temps).

I love it when the planets align and I can have a productive and enjoyable afternoon like that.

BTW, in case you can’t see in this pic, the new glasses are sort of a brown and aqua tortoiseshell with a couple bits of straight-up rainbow thrown in. Subtly fun, without being committed to a bright crazy pair of glasses for two years.

Designer Sunglasses

Let me state for the record that I am never again going to schedule a morning optometrist appointment with the intention of working in the afternoon. She dilated my eyes as part of the standard exam; I hadn’t realized the dilation drops can take upwards of four hours to wear off. I had a headache all afternoon from trying to focus close enough for computer-screen work.

Apart from that, though — and the fact that their Optical provider doesn’t accept my vision insurance — I had a pretty uneventful visit, and am looking forward to getting my new frames in a couple of weeks!

In a Cheesecake State of Mind

Cheesecake with Weightwatchers name tag in background

I snapped this photo because I absolutely loved the irony of the giant dessert juxtaposed with my Weight Watchers nametags.

Then I ate the whole piece of caramel apple cheesecake.

That’s kind of been my MO this week: self-medicating my fatigue with caffeine and carbs. That’s a spiral I don’t like to be in, so I’m hitting the hay just a smidge early tonight.

At work, I harp on leading indicators vs. lagging indicators — basically, reacting to the past instead of predicting and shaping the future. The caffeine and sugar binges are (partially) due to fatigue; my lateness to work is (partially) due to my multiple times hitting the snooze on my alarm — and it all traces back to sleep. Find the bedtime sweet spot, and things will start to work out better for me.

I hope. Sweet dreams, all.