Nothing this week except 8 miles

After a fantastic week last week, this week was a big dud.

I started out last Saturday going to my WW meeting and learning about the new program. I was 230.4 Saturday morning.....And I haven't weighed myself since.

We went out Saturday night to the Melting Pot for my mom's birthday - I was going to try to be good, but went too hungry - I had 3 alcoholic drinks, 4 courses. I drank a lot of water as well, but woke up Sunday feeling so dehydrated.

I had a productive Sunday and did some food prep - cooked whole wheat pasta and sweet potatoes and hard boiled eggs. But really didn't eat well during the week. Work continued to be crazy so I was starting work at 8 am and not getting my work out in. I didn't track. I didn't wear my FitBit, I didn't get in steps. I may have been okay with my water.

What I did do was run 8 miles this morning. I ran incredibly, incredibly slowly. And it was 45 degrees and I was a little overdressed and it was humid so my water went more quickly. But it is done.

Originally I was going to do 9 miles this coming Wednesday, but work is too busy and I always do a second grocery store run the day before Thanksgiving to get the perishables. So I will be doing the 9 miles on Friday. That will help me curb things a bit on Thanksgiving. I don't love Thanksgiving food, but this will be extra incentive to keep my plate to one helping.

And the reason for my Friday run this week? I get to see this tomorrow!

And the week to come? I am not making crazy promises.
-I will have some treats tomorrow but will also try to get in some extra water and I will walk a lot even after my 8 miles today
-Sunday is my big grocery store run so we are in the process of getting stuff out of the fridge to make room for all the holiday stuff, so my normal food haul will be small
-I will get in a run on Monday or Tuesday
-Lots of water, less grazing
-Get on the scale at least once

First work week at home/tracking/WW

Let's start backwards with today before getting into the rest of the week.

I had 7 miles on my training plan and decided to do them today instead of Saturday. I want to get to my WW meeting and then have plans after it and there is no way I am going to go running mid-day on a Saturday. Plus it is only supposed to be a high of 32 tomorrow. Though it was about 25 degrees today when I ran (that is ice on the stream in the picture) I woke up at 5:30 am and drove to my favorite rail trail and nailed out 7 miles, getting home and showered before a 9:45 meetingn. Not very fast - average of 14:07 per mile, but I got it done with no walking. I haven't run 7 miles of just running since August of 2015! And then I was more than 30 lbs less than I am now!

It was been a wild and crazy week! Work has just been insane so I've barely had time to breathe during the day. So thankfully I don't have a commute so that made it a little bit easier, but not much. And then you throw in the mix that my co-worker was out unexpectedly for 2 days so I was now doing the work of 3 people (when I was already doing the work of 2), Thursday my cat needed emergency surgery on his ear yesterday (lots of time and $$$ spent on that) and today I had to pick up one kid from school because she got hurt in gym.

But through all of this I ate pretty well and tracked (as much as I track, though some meals I actually tracked the whole thing in the WW app!). I attribute this good week to a few things
1) It is my first week post-period which is always a good week for me - I feel thin and I feel good
2) I had no junk on the house and no time to go buy anything (ie we are completely out of milk right now)
3) The desire to weigh-in each day and to do that I need to feel good about myself
4) The desire to have as good a run as I could and I know eating well helps that.

While I am not going to outline my whole meals, this is what my breakfasts and lunches looked like

Breakfasts
1) Homemade breakfast sandwich
2) Shakeology with frozen bananas and almond milk
3) Old Fashioned Oatmeal
4) Leftovers from dinner (sweet potatoes, chicken, black beans) but with a tad of vanilla yogurt, a hard boiled egg and blueberries to make it more like breakfast
5) Shakeology

Lunches
1) Leftovers from dinner - chicken, pears, peas, couscous
2) Leftovers from dinner - whole wheat spaghetti, ham, walnuts
3) Leftover whole wheat spaghetti, pre-cooked chicken, veggies, asian dressing
4) Leftovers from dinner (sweet potatoes, chicken, black beans)  but it was a very small serving so I had a Shakeology at 2:00 pm
5) Leftover Barilla+ spaghetti from dinner, jarred sauce, cheese

Now that I know what WWPurple looks like, I will be buying more stuff at the grocery store and doing some meal prep, but not as much since part of what I wanted to be able to do as part of working from home full time is actually make my meals (such as my breakfast sandwich and oatmeal).

I hope not every week was as crazy as this one! I know some people's every day has been like my every days this week and I could never sustain that!

The weekend can't come fast enough - I've still got 1-2 hours left. We don't have a ton planned except some errands in the morning (which is why I needed to get my run in today) and then celebrating my mom's birthday at the Melting Pot (that being the reason I didn't want to run on Sunday). I am going to TRY to be mindful at the restaurant - no alcohol, more fruits and veggies during our cheese course than bread, healthier meats (perhaps not pick any beef), and stick more to fruits during the chocolate course.

And right now Sunday seems like a completely free day! Though I really need to get on making lists for Christmas and start my shopping (I always host Thanksgiving and I make the same meal every year so there isn't much planning involved)

And next week:
Run on Tuesday
Beachbody on Monday and Wednesday
Run 8 miles on Friday
Menu plan better and have enough for leftovers - I am usually an anti-leftovers person, but if I am making good dinners with lots of Zero Point ingredients, then it would be great to have those at lunch as well!

Happy Weekend!

WW Team Purple

While I've only been to one WW meeting in the last 6 months, I decided to actually read my emails when the new program was announced on Monday.

They've broken it out in to 3 programs
Green - This program has more daily points but less Zero Point foods
Blue --This is the current program from the last couple of years
Purple - This program has a lot more zero point foods but less daily points

After looking it over, I decided to give Team Purple a try! (You can keep changing your plan but they would like you to give a plan 2 weeks before changing)

I really do have the desire to more cleanly so I feel that Purple should be a good option for me. Things that are now Zero Points that weren't before are sweet potatoes, whole wheat pasta and oatmeal. While I haven't been eating whole wheat pasta (we eat the Barilla + at home) this would be a good excuse to.

Looking at what I would eat on a "good" day, the things that still will have points are: Milk, almond milk, non-plain yogurt, beef/pork/ham/bacon, avacado, wraps/english muffins, cheese, peanut butter, jelly, salad dressings, Shakeology powder. And of course every.single. junk food I may be tempted with.

I have never been a good tracker (ie actually keeping track of points) but I have been playing around with it to get an idea.

So for instance, I am all excited I can have oatmeal now that I am home (trying to make oatmeal in the microwave at work is just a recipe for disaster!), so I actually had 2 servings (1 cup dry oatmeal) made with almond milk, blueberries, a dollop of vanilla non-fat greek yogurt, and a TB of pepitas = 3 points!

I am going to try to rearrange my running schedule to run on Friday so I can go to my regular meeting on Saturday to hear her talk about the new program. I will not be happy to get on the scale, but that is okay. And then I probably won't go back until mid-January since Saturdays are my running days or we are busy.

We are having tacos for dinner and I've already put my points in - Definitely a heavy point meal despite many zero point items:
2 Joseph tortillas - 3 points
100 calorie guacamole - 3 points
2 TB sour cream - 3 points
1/4 cup Mexican cheese - 4 points

And then the chicken breast, black beans, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos will all be 0 points. I haven't decided if I will make sweet potato rice instead of mexican rice (which I wouldn't eat) or just leave it out all together.

This may actually be too much food for me - I will see! But if not, the 13 points is worth every point to me.

Of course these 2 meals are it in terms of my points for the day (I did have 3 points at snack) and I haven't even had lunch yet! But it could be worth it. Except for the holiday treats I need every excuse not to eat junk food, so if my dailies cut into my weeklies, then I am okay.....for now!

New Beginnings: New Job Location, New Challenges

First of all this happened today: A 2 mile run (I usually never just 2 too miles, but when you are at 198 miles for the year and you ran 6 miles just 2 days ago, 2 miles is what you get!)

The 200 mile goal was a goal I made when I restarted C25K in January. I don't think I thought it would take me until mid-November, but here I am. My next goal is 275. 300 will never happen and that is okay.

But back to my topic. So, today, lots of starts. No, I didn't start a new job, but as of today I am officially Work From Home all the time! I no longer have a desk at my job location. They are consolidating floors at my location and some people are moving into the Boston office. In order to have an actual desk I had to commit to 3+ days in the office. I don't want to commit to any so I am Work From Home, which feels a little weird because work is only about 13 miles away. So 25 minutes in the morning, 18 minutes in the afternoon (not rush hour) but it was such a waste of time to be doing any commuting when there are many things I could be doing that would be better use of my time and I am way more productive when I work from home.

The highlights of WFH:
1) I no longer have to get up at 5:30 to work out - I can fit in work outs between dropping kid #1 at school and either bringing kid #2 to the bus or driving him to school (driving him gives us an extra 30-45 minutes and school is 2.5 miles away)
2) I can eat real food. Today I had a breakfast sandwich - I toasted an english muffin, I microwaved the turkey sausage, I panfried the fried egg. I've gotten so bored of the foods I've been bringing to the office - I have been a "same thing every day" type of person for years and I am sick of it!
3) I can spread out my "home chores" and errands - typically I've been trying to squeeze them all in on Fridays and sometimes Wednesdays making Friday not as productive as it should be, which results in needing to do work over the weekend.

What I am most worried about:
1) Lack of steps - I sat and did not move today from 9-1 because I was in meetings. I did invest in wireless headphones for that reason, but my husband and kids are off school/work because of the holiday so I sat on the couch in the office. So I am going to make sure I get my steps in. It is 475 steps to the end of the driveway and back, but I am used to 1,000 step walk breaks. And I do have a treadmill in the basement
2) Eating too much - I need to be disciplined. We don't keep a ton of junk in the house, but junk food isn't  necessarily my downfall, portion sizes is.
3) Loneliness, but this is the least of my worries. I've been working with people all over the world for a while, so I haven't relied on the persons in my physical office for human interaction for a while. That is part of the reason I was okay with moving to WFH full time. Yes I met my husband and best friends at work, but really since I've had kids in grade school and thus I am not in the office 40 hours a week, I have not relied on the office for socialization.

And more reasons for New Beginnings:
7 years ago yesterday my MIL passed away. We had just gotten back from vacation/seeing her and I was horrified with my weight and stepped on the scale. 236.6. It took my 3 weeks to rejoin WW at which point I was 231.2 (232.6 at WW). Over 18 months I lost 50 lbs and maintained for a few months and then regained it all back in 2 very large chunks. The "good news" is I've only fluctuated 10-15 lbs over almost 4 years. The "bad news" is I haven't seen under 220 in that time. I got close back in March or April of this year, but not actually there.

So while I am training for a 1/2 Marathon on January 11, I need to concentrate on losing some weight in that time (and being the holidays as well, oh my!). In order to do so, my plan is to :

1) No soda/ No buying my lunch - should be easier WFH
2) Drink 100 oz of water
3) Strength train 2x a week, run 2x a week, cycle 1x a week
4) Go to sleep between 9:30 and 10:00 and wake up at 6:15
5) Weigh myself every day, no matter what ----this will be VERY hard but it is the biggest factor of me being successful or not
6) Tracking --something else I need to do to be successful - not even necessarily WW points, but writing down what I eat
7) Don't drink my calories --I can't go through the holidays with zero alcohol, egg nog, and peppermint coffee/hot chocolate, but I am going to greatly reduce it
8) Walk breaks --get in 5000 conscious steps plus whatever is "normal" - I am not going to try to kill myself to get to 10,000 at this point
9) Pre-plan my breakfast, lunch and 2 snacks
10) Smaller portion dinners


We will see how it goes!!!!!