It’s been a very long time since I’ve written anything on this blog so I humbly and honestly apologize. Part of me could blame the holidays and part of me would say I was just waiting for a good week to report about. The successful weeks did happen, but it was hard to find the time to sit down and write. Next thing I knew, it was over 4 months later and no updates. So if you were one of those following and looking up to me for inspiration, I apologize for letting you down. But on a good note, hopefully this is a good reminder that no matter how often or how long you fall off track from your goals, it’s never too late to pick up and start again.
Let’s see, where do I begin. My weight loss – oh wait – my shedding of weight – do not want to find any of those pounds again. Well, good news/bad news. Good news is that I haven’t gained what I normally would have during the holidays. I was more aware of my eating and consistently paid attention to portion sizes and tried to choose healthier choices. I stayed aware from all the baked cookies, cakes and pies that were at all the parties, food days at work. I even managed to stay away from all the baked goods on my mom’s annual dinning room table spread. I did, however, indulge in 2 pieces of Fannie May chocolates and a chocolate chip cookie the following day. But I still considered that to be one of my biggest achievements. One other huge moment was my mom’s candied sweet potatoes. Normally I take some with the marshmallows, and then smashed them with a fork to create little crevices to hold more of the syrupy sauce, not to mention as a nice gravy over my turkey. But this year, I stuck to just a little serving of mashed potatoes and proudly just passed the entire candied sweet potato dish on when it came my way. I did still use my mom’s mushroom gravy, but opted for more mushrooms than gravy. And probably for the first time in ages, you could still see parts of my plate after I took a little of everything that I wanted.
New Years was also probably one of the best ones I’ve had in a few years. I had to work, and opted to exercise before going home. In years past, New Years Eve was more like a “last indulge before I start my diet” day and exercising was never on my mind. After work, I headed out! Since most of my friends and family are married now, they seem to resort to all having house parties with the kids. While I totally understand how particular that is, being still single and branching out, the new me just didn’t want to be sitting and standing around talking. I wanted fun excitement, with the potential to maybe flirt and experience that kiss at midnight with someone new, like you see in the movies. I spent New Years Eve out dancing and had just 2 martinis. They served champagne at midnight, and thanks to not having sugar much anymore, it was too sweet for me to drink more than a sip. And no, there was no flirting or midnight’s kiss with a stranger, but I had a great night just being out dancing and doing something new.
2013 has turned out to be an interesting roller coaster however. It started off really wonderful, full of energy and excitement. I haven’t given up on it being a great year, but just like life, its sure has had it share of ups and downs already. We’ve had the strangest Chicago
But the roller coaster didn’t stop with the weather. Life threw me a few curve balls too. I’d be good about exercising, but then not make good food choices. Eating proper portion sizes would be out of whack again, and I stopped tracking my food all together. Then when I’d be eating healthy, I didn’t seem to have the time or energy to go work out. And it didn’t help that my company weight loss group program didn’t start up again until almost the end of January. So the added inspiration from my group was missing.
Even as I type this, I know those are all excuses. I really lost whatever it was that I had last summer. I actually realized I was just making excuses by mid-January when I tried to blame it on fruit being so expensive now that it was out of season. And I wasn’t able to grow veggies year round. I seriously laughed at myself in the middle of the grocery store when I tried to blame my 2 pound weight gain on not being able to buy blueberries on sale anymore. Deep down I knew that was crazy. If I wasn’t able to buy as many fruits and veggies on sale, I should weigh less from not being able to eat them, not more. Even if I had fewer fruits and vegetables available in my price range, that was no excuse for not tracking my daily calories. I couldn’t tell you the last time I tracked an entire week of my food. And if I had, I’m sure there would be more than 3 days a week where I was well over my 1380 daily calories limit! And even a few days it was probably double that and no added exercise to make up for the extra calories.
My little angel needed to come back and be more vocal. My little devil was back to making more sense. I pulled out my phone and started tracking my food again. My little rollercoaster car was back on track making the upward climb towards reaching my goal!
Or at least, so I thought….
Just like with all of us, I really have to accept that not all days can be happy upbeat moments to keep me focused and on track with my goals. I’m starting to learn that some of my bad habits, while maybe be broken, they aren’t completely gone. It’s sort of like when you clean your house. We’ve all seen it. You have your house all clean and the tables are dust free and shiny. It’s so pretty and a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders when it’s all done. You put all the cleaning supplies away and sit down to relax. Maybe read a book, catch up with a friend on the phone , or watch a movie or program you recorded. Next thing you know, that pesky dust starts to come back, one speck at a time. If we had all the time in the world, we could just use a dust cloth and continue to whip the dust away as a starts to form. Never letting it get built up again. But most of us have lives outside of keeping a table dust free. So we get ok with letting the dust fall and land a little here or there. We realize that we just need to dedicate a little time each week to keep up on top of the dust, and we’re back to being on track with a nice clean house, ready to show off. If we don’t make time to stay on top of the dust, it just keeps piling up.
Well, it has to be the same for my healthier journey. If I’m truly going to get and stay healthier, I not only have to make sure I make time each week to stay on top of it, I must except that even though I may have “dusted” away a bad habit for now, that doesn’t mean the habit isn’t still lingering around me waiting to land again. It’s something that I’m always going to have keep an eye on to make sure it doesn’t start piling up again. If I allow it to pile up again, its going to take a lot more time and effort to get rid of it again. So no more putting off tracking and monitoring my food and calories. I need to make sure I am tracking every day so that the pounds don’t start piling up again. I can just focus on “dusting away” the extra pounds I already have.
So here’s to a brand new week. Weigh-ins are now on Thursdays, instead of Tuesdays. Not thrilled with the change, but life doesn’t stay the same, so what the heck. I’m going with the flow.
Work also started few new programs to help with healthy wellness initiatives. One, they installed a “tread-desk”. This is an actual work station with a computer and phone . But instead of a chair to sit on, you stand and walk while you work. It can’t go more than 4 miles an hour. Which works great for me, since I pretty much only speed walk at under take anyway. And since its not like we’re supposed to have a true workout on it, like we do in the fitness center. Its just a new way to work and not having to sit at your desk all day.
The other things they’ve started doing is creating new “challenges” to help us create new healthy habits. When I started, they already had the incentive that if you walk 7000 or more steps for 45 days in a quarter, they’ll give you $50 in your HSA account. They’ve also have random challenges to avoid gaining weight through the holidays, or maybe walk from Chicago to Las Vegas (counting steps) by specific time, and be entered to win great prizes or money. On top of that, they’ve added a “drink water” challenge and this new one, to eat 2-4 servings of fruit during the next 3 weeks. No clue on what the weekly prizes will be yet. But knowing that I struggle getting fresh fruits in during the winter months, I’ve very excited about embracing this new challenge to help me bring this great habit back again.
And the other habit I need to focus on, is letting my little angle be the bigger voice. I have to go back to letting her remind me while grocery shopping why the instant gratification of the non-healthy options are no where near as satisfying as the happy dance feeling I get after weighing in and seeing the number get smaller and smaller. I also need to stop letting my little devil talk me out of exercising so much. She especially needs to stop convincing me that its ok to work during lunch and just work out at home later. Not only because I know I’m not great on working out after work, but I’m entitled to take a lunch break and should absolutely take advantage of the free fitness center in my building!
No more allowing my little devil to make excuses for me!!!! I have a couple big goals this year. And the biggest one is to get a tattoo on May 27, 2013! It will be the anniversary of me needing emergency surgery to save my life when I was 13 days old. The original scar was apparently less then a centimeter and had 6 little stitches. Instead of staying that size, it grew with me. Even in my younger skinny days, I was never comfortable wearing a 2 piece swimsuit because of it. Over time, it began to remind me of thorny stem of a rose, but without the flower on it. So I thought it would look better if I had a rose tattooed over it to disguise the scar. But the problem was that by the time I decided that would be a cool idea, I no longer had my flat stomach. So I made it a goal for me this year. I would lose enough weight and exercise to flatten my stomach my May 27th. It would be very fitting to get the tattoo on the anniversary of my life-saving surgery. Not only because the scar symbolizes how my life was saved, but the rose has become a symbol for life too. Add to it that being on this new health journey is bringing a new beginning to my life, I’m contemplating making it a yellow rose, which is sometimes considered the rose color for new beginnings, course, I’ve also seen white and black. But I have a few months to decide as I workout and reach my goal.
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