What Have I Done?

Who'd think that a salad would make you freak out ... but that's where I'm at. I got up this morning and again wasn't happy with the scale. I' pretty sure I won't have a gain tonight at TOPS but not too sure about a loss either. I've been trying to drink loads of water to prime the pump so to speak to spurt out any excess water.

I had brought my "Smart Ones" to have at lunch but my boss offered to buy lunch if I go pick it up. Can't turn down an offer like that. He even gave me my choice of where to get it. I knew that Cafe 251 had good salads and I knew he liked their wraps, so that's what I choose. But, I'm so afraid. I know that lettuce tends to hold water. Now, I'm doubting my choice. So, if I doubted it why didn't I just have soup or something else? At least with having to walk about one mile round trip I got some exercise. For just once I'd like to get up on Monday morning and see the scales definitely down two pounds or MORE. I felt that I did work at it last week.

I know that I have a tendency to weigh more when I first get up in the morning, so I'm counting on that. I'll face what I see tonight with a positive attitude. Stay tuned for the results tomorrow.

Friends Makin' Monday

This is from Kenlie's site at All The Weigh. This is a first for me but I thought what the heck and traveling is something we do alot and I want to do more of.

1. Where did your most recent trip take you? We went to Illinois a couple of weekends ago. Guys were teaching knot tying. Gals were shopping.
   
2. Is there a place that you’d like to visit that you haven’t yet? If so, where? We're out to visit all 92 counties in Indiana, staying in a B&B and learning some local history. Got alot more counties to visit. It'll take several years.
   
3. Do you travel lightly, or do you cram as much into your luggage as possible? I always overpack. You never know what the weather's going to be or something special you'll be doing :)
   
4. Do your eating and exercise habits change when you travel? If so, how? I'm back on the wagon again and out to prove to myself that you can travel and eat sensibly and return with a loss. The Illinois trip I did just that.
   
5. Tell us about a place you’ve been that you’d like to go back to. While I like the adventure of new places, there are a few places we visit every year, but one place that I've only been to once and would like to return to is Ireland.
   
6. Do you prefer to travel at a certain time of year? No, if someone says go ... I'm in the car waiting.
   
7. If you had to choose, would you go to the beach or the mountains? Never been to the mountains on a vacation. Check that we went to the Smokeys but mountains to me mean snow and cold, so I'd rather go to the beach.
   
8. Have you ever needed a passport to travel? Yes
9. Do you collect anything in your travels? Nope.
   
10. Where do you plan to go next? We're headed to Maryland this weekend to see the kids and celebrate our granddaughter's birthday
    

Lots of Basketball

After a late night the evening before, we got up early yesterday to head to the Y. Nope not for exercise but to watch the grandkids play basketball. Jacob was playing at 9:00 and Gracie at noon, so during the break we ran a couple of errands and then met Stephanie, Jim and the kids at Chick Filet for a really early lunch. My usual there is chicken strips and waffle fries but yesterday, it was soup and salad. I really am finally making choices ... maybe not the best possible choices but hopefully better ones.

I had told Gary earlier that I definiately wanted to hit the gym and at first I thought maybe we could go between games but found out that there really wouldn't have enough time. I also told him this on the way to the Y and he didn't have his workout clothes on like I did. After Jacob's game we headed home and I was under the impression that we would go to the rec center when we got home and he changed clothes. MONKEY WRENCH. Gary said he was starting to feel puny and wanted to lie down for a little while. I took that time to update my blog, check Facebook, and catch up on a couple of games of Words with Friends. Lately when I'm wanting to snack I turned to the games as a distraction. The clock was telling me it was lunch-time even though we had already eaten but I know that I'm not hungry and it's just one of those eating cues so I needed the distraction. Gary came downstairs about an hour later and it was obvious he wasn't going with me. Should I blow it off ... no, I knew I couldn't do that but I wished he would have said something earlier ... I would have went ahead and gone when we got home from the Y and my exercise would be over. The dialogue went back and forth in my brain but I headed out. It was really hard to go by myself and it was hard to do the whole routine that I had planned to do this week. A little bit of exercise would be worthwhile and who would know I didn't do the entire program. But I knew finishing what I started out to do would work wonders in helping me feel stronger about my progress and if I had turned a corner. I finished the 5+ miles.

In the evening we stopped and had dinner on the way to the high school basketball game we were going to. We ate at Ponderosa and I had made the decision before we walked in the door that I was only going to have a salad off their food bar and a steak and baked potato and I stuck to it. We went to the game because it was Super Booster Night which Gary and I were inducted two years ago. After the game, there was a reception for the new inductees. I knew there'd be alcohol and snacks and again I pre-planned all I was going to have was a diet coke ... no snacks. Well, the snacks turned out to be enough to have had dinner there. The best of the spread was pulled pork sandwiches which looked so good and I saw it close up because Gary had fixed him a plate. But, last night it wasn't so hard just sitting and nursing my diet coke while others around me were eating. Rather, I just enjoyed seeing alumni that I hadn't seen in awhile and felt good about my choices and progress for the day.

Party Time

My nephew plays in a band called Big 80's. They band is quite good and for awhile every time we heard about them playing and we didn't have anything scheduled for that particular weekend we would go see them. It's probably been close to a year since that time but we saw on Facebook that they would be playing last night. Gary reminded me a few times of Jay playing and I pretty much just let the conversation end there. There were a few things that makes me less than enthusiastic about going. The first is that they don't start playing until 10:00 p.m., the second is the last time the smoke was so thick in the bar I actually got sick and most importantly I didn't know if I was strong enough to resolve not to munch and drink myself to a gain on Monday. I have found that bar food can sometimes be pretty tasty. I looked over the menu and there were a variety of sandwiches and lots of fried stuff like pickles, mushrooms, onion rings, fries, etc. I could get a steak but decided to go with the Chef Salad. Gary mentioned getting some mushrooms later in the evening when the band was playing and I kept the dialogue going in my head that maybe I'd have one but I was going to stay in control. The mushrooms were never ordered because we saw someone eating popcorn and asked the waitress about that and that was our table munchie for the evening. I started with diet coke but wanted something stronger later into the evening, I ordered a MGD64 and got another one just before the set ended. When I had it about washed down, I noticed the bottle and it was a regular brew, not the 64 calorie variation. I started wondering about the previous one I had ... what was it? I was starting to be bummed out that I had four times the calories I should have had and should have stuck with the Diet Coke.

It was a fun evening out and while we were there mainly for the music, I remembered the time, when we were much younger, that we got all dressed up like the gals I saw in the sparkly and off the shoulder tops, high heels and perfect make up for an evening that was just a big party. I think the purchase for me when I get to goal, it's going to be something jazzy like I saw last night.

I didn't notice until I posted the picture of my salad that on the table there was the phrase "drink responsibly". I think they should put that on restaurant tables with the word "drink" interchanged with "eat". This morning I got up and was afraid to get on the scale. I'm going to forego doing that until Monday morning and hope for the best ... while I continue to be conscious of what I'm eating because we have another evening out tonight.

TGIF

As you know, I'm not a morning person. Maybe I live in the wrong time zone. Would it be easy to get up three hours later in California? I drug myself out of bed again this morning and things didn't go well. I wanted to wear slacks today but I'm way behind in my ironing and the couple of pairs I was thinking about needed to be pressed and since I stay in bed until the last possible minute there was no time for that. I went to my closet to see what was in there and found a pair of black slacks. I went to put them on and couldn't get them over my hips. Oh, they were THAT pair. Then I pulled out a plaid pair and got them up but really had to suck it in to get them buttoned and zipped. I hate this. I feel like I'm making no progress at all. I remembered back to the time when I could pretty much pick anything out of my closet and it would fit. That was such a terrific feeling. It would come again, if I just kept my head in the game. I headed downstairs and got on the scales something I hadn't done since Monday when I had my weigh-in. I didn't like what I saw but kept reminding myself that I had to stick it out and I would have positive results on Monday.

Last night when we got to the gym I told myself that there was no rush to go anywhere else and that even though I hadn't planned on increasing my time until next week to seize the moment. I did an extra mile on the bike and an extra 1/4 miles on the treadmill. I liked the way I felt when we headed downstairs to the car. The back of my neck was wet and my spirits were lifted. I need more of that. On the way out, I stopped to talk to the brother of a friend of mine. He was saying that he was really dedicated last summer going to the gym on a regular basis and was able to drop 15 pounds right away. Then in September the weight stopped coming off and he said well, this isn't working and threw in the towel. Well, throwing in the towel didn't work either and he's back at it just like me. I'm determined to "make it work".

Boy, I'm sure glad I only have to work four hours today and then IT'S THE WEEKEND!

Just Another Day

No news is good news, so they say. Not much happening. Feeling pretty good about where I am in my program. I was thinking back ... remembering that in my younger years that I'd rush home from work and there would be some other activity to race to from there. That's when the kids were home. Now they have families of their own and are probably repeating those long lost days of mine. Now there usually isn't any activity except on Tuesday and Thursday where I have made it a priority to go to the gym. Monday's I have my TOPS meeting, so I guess I am on the run then but Wednesday's ... good ol' hump day finds me vegging out on the couch. Yesterday I was thinking about how I should increase my activity in the evening and thought about maybe ironing. Standing is better than sitting, right? Well, it didn't happen. I really didn't feel all that great, waking up with a headache and a sore throat. I felt better when I got home but still fell in that routine of vegging out. Tonight it's to the gym and tomorrow is the weekend where I'm always more active, so I guess Wednesday is the day I need to work on. But, all in all, I'm doing pretty good.

Important Steps

It seems like I've been doing this forever and I guess I have ... but with this latest do over when it comes to losing weight, it really does seem like I've been into it for weeks; whereas Monday was my first weigh-in since I've been back blogging. Probably since the first of the year, I have only been in the preparation mode. Psyching myself up, trying to convince myself now was the time, wishing and hoping with no action. While they say it's easier to get somewhere with a road map, maybe I've felt like I've been on this road before and knew where I was going and just needed to go. Evidently, it dawned on me that I needed some kind of help because since the first of the year all I had been doing was yoyoing the same few pounds which meant no progress in the direction toward and destination at which I wanted to arrive.

A couple of weeks ago after following my daughter's blog, I decided to go back and reread mine, starting at the beginning during the period I was doing so well. At times there was a lot drama with the scales but there was also success and I saw determination in what I read. Did blogging actually help me to continue to strive for what I wanted. I truly believe that it did. I feel that getting away from it contributed to my slide and regaining of most of what I worked so hard to lose. It kept me aware, it forced me to try harder, it opened my eyes to emotions and how to act on them instead of reacting out of control.

If I wasn't blogging I truly believe that just because yesterday was Valentine's day that I would have used that as an excuse not to go to the gym ... heck, if I wasn't blogging I probably wouldn't have gotten back to the gym period. I know I wouldn't have passed on the bread which I so felt was a part of eating a meal out. I truly believe blogging is my number one tool to be successful. Not the only one but the main one right now.

A little sidebar story. I had told Gary that even though we were going out to dinner, I still wanted to go to the gym. Another tool ... tell people your plans, it makes you accountable. We couldn't get into the restaurant where we wanted to go until an 8:30 reservation, so this proved no problem to do both the gym and dinner with some time management. My workout routine since last week, starting out slow but plan to increase, has been to do about 15 minutes on the bicycle and 15 minutes on the treadmill which computes to about 3 miles on the bike and 1 mile on the TM. I was finishing up my walking/running and saw I wasn't going to hit a mile in my 15 minutes but thought ... No, I want to do a mile so I kept pushing myself. When it hit 100, I realized that I was watching calories burned and not distance. Oh well, my first thought was that would allow me to spurge with a slice of bread at dinner. In times past maybe but last night I passed on the bread.