Sunday, November 11, 2018

Small pieces complete big puzzles

How many blog posts have y'all started then ended up deleting after a few paragraphs?  That's been me a bunch lately.  I'll start off with something good to say but end up thinking it's complete crap.

Since it's Sunday, I've decided to give myself some short term goals for the week.  Sometimes the problem with goals is that they are too big or take too long and I lose sight or even forget I made them.  So starting today I'm making a plan.  This week I will count calories 4 days and log 150 minutes of exercise.

I wanted to make a plan that I think I'll actually stick to. Something that isn't very aggressive, but is still working towards my overall weight loss goals.

The 150 minutes of exercise comes from a health documentary I watched yesterday.  If I remember correctly it is the American Heart Association that gives the guideline of 150 minutes of exercise per week.  That's totally doable, especially since I took a nice long walk with a friend this morning and got a good start on counting exercise minutes.

The reason I'm going with 4 days of counting calories is because it never fails that something will come up and I need to be lenient with food.  Sometimes my boss will want to buy lunch or I'll have a rough day at work and want a couple glasses of wine.  Going with 4 days gives me permission to relax 3 days (NOT to go hog wild) but still keep a watch on myself.

I probably should've weighed myself this morning, but I will stick to just weighing on the first day of the month for now.  It stops me from obsessing over the scale.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

The scale can't tell the whole story

I had my yearly physical yesterday and the doctor and I were both happy to see all of my labs came back normal. Even my anemia has resolved since last year! 

BUT her scale shows me up 3 pounds since this time last year. Normally I'd be all "Pssh 3 pounds in a year ain't a thing!" But my scale shows that I'm doing well so it's very frustrating to see something different on the doctor's scale. 

At home I always weigh first thing in the morning, naked, after using the bathroom. So I'm sure that coffee I had and those clothes I wore could make the scale at her office give a different reading. 

My main concern was making sure the bloodwork was good. As I inch closer and closer to 40, weight loss is less about being cute and more about sustaining life.

Thursday, November 1, 2018

I won't back down

I love that Tom Petty song.

In a world that keeps on pushing me around
But I stand my ground
And I won't back down

It's easy right now to sing a song about not backing down.  I weighed myself this morning for the first time in ages and I was pleasantly surprised to be below 230.  229.5 to be exact :)

Looking back at my notebook of weights, this is the lowest weight of 2018.  I hit it one other time early in the year, but never got lower.

With these milder temps, I've been doing things like taking hour-long walks outside. Being outdoors when there's a slight breeze and it's not 80+ degrees is so invigorating.

It's nice to come here and report something upbeat.  Now if only it could last more than a couple days.