Weight: 154.4
You have no idea, and I mean NO IDEA, in capital and bold letters, how much, after stepping on the scale this morning, I did not want to put: Weight: 154.4 as the first line on this blog post.
"Oh, it doesn't really matter," I said to myself, "I can just put 153.something and no one will know the difference." But that is not what this is all about. This is all about keeping it real, keeping myself on track, and being open about the challenges of living everyday life while staying fit and healthy and strong into my very old age. I had a bad week. I had a bad two weeks. OK, OK, OK; I had a horrible couple of weeks.
There were moments in the last two weeks that I was almost holding "it" all together. "It," is defined as my health program. There were other moments that I didn't give a shit about my health program and I ate and drank whatever felt good. Yeah. That's the truth. That's what happened.
The stress level I have felt for the last two weeks has been off the charts. I cannot talk about specifics, but there were some unexpected life events that I could not control that I had to respond to in a well thought out and productive way. I am OK. There is no need to worry about me. I will work my way through this, so please don't worry. I only post the fact that this two week period of time has been difficult because of how it impacted the way I ate and how often I exercised.
As I said above, for the most part I tried to maintain my healthy lifestyle throughout the last two weeks. I wasn't always successful. I gained a few pounds.
Each morning I would get up determined to eat on program. The days started well, but most days, by mid-afternoon, I was looking for something extra to eat, usually something sweet. All of those candy jars around the office that I have been able to ignore for so long seemed to have my name on them. I didn't eat a ton of crap, but I ate some crap every day. If I ate just a little crap, I'd weigh the next morning and say, "OK, 151.something, I can live with that right now." If I ate more crap, the scale would jump up to over 152 pounds and I knew that was a problem. That next day I would force myself to eat less crap so the scale would drop back below 152 pounds.
After two weeks of see-sawing back and forth between a decent food day and a bad food day, I had two bad foods days in a row, yesterday and the day before. Thursday afternoon I went out in the evening and had chicken nachos for dinner. Is there a worse food? I have no idea, but chicken nachos comes pretty close to ranking right up there when it comes to too many calories with very little nutritional value. I looked at the menu and none of the healthy-ish foods sounded at all appetizing. I wanted junk food. I like chicken nachos. I haven't had them for ages. I ordered them. I ate them. All of them.
I also had a few drinks. Yeah, I did it up right. I was lit up. It was quite the evening. A real dam-burst kind of night.
I woke of Friday morning feeling pretty rough around the edges and didn't even weigh myself. Not because I didn't want to, but mostly because I was stumbling blurry eyed through my morning and I was half-dressed before I realized that I hadn't weighed myself. At that point it seemed silly to strip down just to get on the scale, so I skipped the weigh-in ritual yesterday morning. I started the day with the intent of staying on program, but by mid-afternoon I was back into the candy jars and I scarfed a treat off of the engineers' goody cart. I ate a healthy dinner when I got home and got a little too full. Then Jack and I went to the ball game and all I could think about was food, so we split an order of fries. I ate most of them. *Sigh* So there you go.
My exercise program didn't go quite so far off program. I lifted weights three times last week and I ran twice. I wanted to run three times, but I'm not going to complain about a 5 exercise session week. I want it to be six, consistently, but 5 exercise sessions during a very stressful week is not that bad.
I had a very productive exercise session this morning. It was the first time Lauren and I worked together for a few weeks. We missed one week because of the camping trip and then we missed a couple of weeks because of her surgery. She used her time off productively and designed a new workout for me, focused on increasing strength, particularly keeping in mind my goal to do a pull-up by the end of the year. The weights are starting to get heavy, I did barbell squats with 70 pounds on the bar. It's getting tough, but it is strangely satisfying. I don't know why, exactly, I like lifting weights, but I do like it, in an odd, masochistic sort of way.
Today is about the reboot. Decisions have been made, a plan is in place, and I know what I need to do. I have an awesome support group among my family and friends. I have a weekend with no planned events so I can get my house clean, my blog updated, the bills paid, the meals cooked, and even go get a pedicure. It's all going to be fine. It really is.
Here's to all of us having an awesome day, today!!!
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