5:30 am workouts

I haven't weighed myself since Saturday and I am kind of okay with that.

Besides Sunday, the reason I haven't weighed myself this week is I have gotten up at 5:30 3 days in a row to work out! And the logistics of changing into workout gear and such, I don't have access to the scale.

Gotta love these pictures - I stink at selfies and since I haven't even looked in the mirror, this is what you get!

I have been doing Beachbody's 21 Fix - So far I've done Total Body Cardio Fix, Upper Fix and Lower Fix. All I can say is wow my body is sore! Like having a lot of time sitting on the toilet sore, but it is worth it!

This morning I wasn't sure if my body could handle the Lower Fix as my legs are still really sore from squats on Monday. I brought my headphones downstairs thinking I may just walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes, but I wanted to try it and it didn't go so badly. I will say that I am always heavily modifying all the exercises, but it is better than nothing and using muscles I wouldn't otherwise, so win-win.

Another thing I've had to step back on the last couple of days is not hitting my 10K steps. Obviously you don't get a lot of steps in doing this but it is 30 minutes of exercise. So I've told myself that I really only need 60 minutes, so another 30 minutes of walking through the day and I am okay with that, so I've had between 8000 and 9000 steps the last 2 days. Plus I've had this big project at work which hadn't afforded me as much time to walk around (and my legs are thanking me).

Eating? So-so.
Monday a co-worker brought in cran-orange muffins so I had that as a mid-morning snack and still had my snack stuff with lunch. I didn't get to eat my mid-afternoon snack because we were so head's down with work. Dinner I made teriyaki chicken, stir fried peas pods and a combo of cauliflower rice (my first time attempting it - didn't go so well!) and regular rice made into friend rice. Only one person, put another serving for leftovers.

Tuesday I worked from home. I decided to forego the Lean Cuisine pizza for lunch and made my spiralized sweet potato bowl with 1/2 a leftover avacado, chicken, goat cheese, dried cherries and pepitas. 4:15 I had a snack attack of nuts/seeds/cherries-  too much of all. And dinner was roasted broccoli (another first, it was very good!), pasta, chicken, and homemade alfredo sauce (not incredibly healthy, and very yummy). Only 1 serving. Win!

Today they are bringing in lunch from Wahlburgers. I had getting a cob salad.....but I am also getting a coffee shake :) There are certain things that if they are on the menu I will order them and a coffee shake it one of those things. Dinner is going to be leftovers as we have a lot of them!

Happy Hump Day

WW Weigh-in #7 and Weekend Recap

I made it to my meeting!
Friday I ate well all day which was challenging because my whole family was away so it would have been nice to cook myself a good meal, but I stuck to my normal Friday meal plan.

Weight this morning: 226.0, so that is a 2.8 lb gain (but really a maintain for the one week)
The difference between my scale and WW was only 1.4 lbs (when it was 1.8 2 weeks ago) so they thought I had less of a gain :)

After my meeting I went grocery shopping since it is going to be pouring rain tomorrow.

I had a banana and a flaxseed waffle with some almond butter and jelly then did some chores around the house before doing my run.

I could have run outside but it was only in the high 20s and with the couple of small snow falls this week the roads were narrower than normal and icy due to it being in the high 40s yesterday then freezing overnight, so I chose to treadmill the 2.5 miles I had in store.

Not a good run. The temperature in our basement was 67 (too warm) and over though I turned on the fans, they weren’t close enough to me. And even thought I was only going for 32 minutes I turned on a movie which was distracting. Needless to say I did do it,  hanging multiple times between 4.8 mph and 5.0, but I wanted to give up at 1.5 miles and the last 1/4 miles I was giving myself a pep talk outload.

My lunch consisted of spiralized sweet potato, 1/2 avacado, fried egg, goat cheese, dried cheeries, pepitas. So yummy!

After lunch the weekend eating kind of went downhill from there. I spent the afternoon reading and waiting for my family to return (the didn't get back until about 5:30).
My mid afternoon snack was:
Box of sugar free chocolate pudding - I made the box of instant pudding and ate it all
Popcorn with a little butter - I bought a bowl from WW to make popcorn in the microwave so not a huge amount - I need real butter but not too much.

My family stopped by a BBQ place after the memorial service they went to. I looked at the menu online and told my husband to get some take out for me :) It was a sampler platter so not much of any of it: 2 kids of meat with BBQ sauce, coleslaw, beans, mac and cheese. And I did ask for a piece of cornbread with bacon. Yummy!

Sunday's eating was kind of a disaster. I woke up pretty early (7:00). I got a ton done around the house and some reading done. At 9:30 I TRIED to make breakfast - the 2 bananas we had left in the house looked good on the outside - not so much inside. Then I decided to try to microwave oatmeal - the bowl was too short and it ended up all over the microwave. So I finally settled on the 2 microwaveable bowls of Mac and Cheese we had left in the house.

11:00 snack was nuts and dried cherries.

I had made stew in the morning, originally for dinner, but since it was done and warm I had a bowl for lunch along with some french bread.

3:00 snack was 4 sugar free fudgicles, slightly melted, with skippy PB.

I didn't feel like more stew for dinner and the kids wanted pasta so I cooked a whole box of regular white pasta and had a couple small helpings :(

You'll notice that no mention of weighing in or walking. Yep, because neither happened on Sunday. And I am okay with it. It was a wonderful day!

 On to Monday!

Longest week ever!

Not that is over yet - I've still got Friday to get through, with lots of meetings on late Friday afternoon - what a crappy way to end the week!

Wednesday was a crazy work day. I ate normal in the morning but had so many conference calls that I only got one walk in at 8:15.

My daughter had been begging my for chicken fingers from this fast food place in town and she and my son wanted Shamrock Shakes, so she and I drive through TWO Drive Thrus. We usually never do drive thrus or food delivery, so 2 that are about 1/4 mile apart just seemed glutenous (and expensive! Wow!). It was almost 2 when we went because I had meetings until 1:30 so I decided to get McDonald's (I only have it maybe 2-3 times a year) - Big Mac, fries, chocolate shakes. But boy did it taste good! (I should note I ate this at home - I don't eat in the car)

Then I had meetings for another couple of hours before leaving to get our hair cut. We didn't get home until 6:00 but I wasn't too hungry from having had lunch at 2:00 pm, so I hopped on the treadmill for 20 minutes and then had for dinner what I would have had for lunch - carrots and a Lean Cuisine pizza.

Then at 7:15 I went grocery shopping! It was going to be icy in Thursday morning and I was eager to just get some healthy food in the house. I will need to go again on Sunday to stock up for the upcoming week.

And then when I got home I go back on the treadmill for 20 minutes just to get to my 10K goal.

Thursday morning the scale was STILL above 228. Since it was icy, I worked from home again. I did well until 1:15 when a 30 minute binge of sorts happened. First it was nut/dried fruit combo, followed by my actual lunch (Lean Cuisine pizza) followed by more nuts/dried fruit followed by my single serving Nutella which was supposed to be for my dinner on Friday.

I had planned to run at 5:00 but I just felt so sluggish so only got a mile in - my stomach just felt so full. But I reached my 10K goal. Dinner was a salad and some leftover spaghetti. I still was just so full feeling. Can my monthly please just arrive (it isn't supposed to until Tuesday).  Next month I NEED to do better - overeating/under hydrating during this time just makes me feel awful!

And now it is Friday. I am just going to get through the day. Since i had the Nutella yesterday, I will have PB instead in my tortilla/banana wrap.

Silence is not golden

It's been a struggle but I refuse to give in. I am not going to wait until the monthly visitor arrives to turn things around. Or wait until next week when the kids are back in school (because the week won't be "typical" for me as I have a huge project and a lot of hours in the office). And if you wait until "typical" you can be waiting forever.

Despite being 228.2 on Monday morning, Monday was a pretty good day until dinner. I worked from home and got in 4 walks so was at 12K steps by dinner. I hadn't menu planned my snacks so my snack was a Nutella/Banana/Tortilla (aka my pre-WW dinner).

My husband and I had a date night planned. I chose Mexican. 3 drinks (should have stopped at 1), chips and salsa, queso and tortillas, and steak/fajitas later I felt gross. The food was awesome (this was a more high-end Mexican restaurant) but I just ate way too much. I should have gotten a salad, not fajitas. I lay in bed and had to prop myself up because I just felt so sick (I really try to not eat anything for 3-4 hours before I go to bed but that wasn't the case). Around 1:00 my husband didn't feel great so I decided to go sleep in my son's room (he was at my mom's) so didn't sleep well (I had visions of the stomach bug making it's way through our house - thankfully my husband didn't get sick).

Tuesday he woke me up telling me we had no heat on our 1st floor but he was able to get it running again.

Tuesday was kind a s*** show.
It started out with my breaking my streak. My weigh-in-every-day streak. I felt horrible about it. But I knew no good could come from it. So 47 days. But I will start a new one! This will NOT be a habit!

From then on it was a pretty normal day until 10:00. But then I had a ton of conference calls, our cleaning people were here from 11-1 so I felt trapped in my office so by the time they left at 1:00 I had only gotten 1 walk in and hadn't eaten in more than 3 hours. Yeah, that wasn't pretty. "Food" consisted of trail mix, way too much Nutella and my husbands leftover fajitas.

Then I was stuck doing work until 4:30 so still had only walked once. I did a 20 minute walk. At this point I realized the treadmill wasn't at a 1.5% incline- it was flat. I am not sure how long it had been that way. My husband was fixing the vent over the treadmill last week so perhaps he moved it (which means my fantastic run on Saturday was flat.....). So I moved it back to 1.5% as well as upping my speed to 3.2 (from 3.1).

Dinner wasn't until 7:00 and an everyone-for-himself. I made spaghetti with zucchini. This time I cooked the whole box so there would be leftovers for the kids and I definitely ate too much :(

After dinner I fit in another 20 minute walk to just get me over the 10K mark.

So here we are at Wednesday. 228.4 this morning. Telling myself that despite the Nutella in the closet and lots of leftover spaghetti in the fridge, I am going to TRY to have a "normal" day. I am getting my hair done tonight (one of my least favorite things to do) and normally we get a pizza after, but we've got frozen pizza in the basement and lots of salad fixings that need to be eaten, so that will be the plan.

Weekend didn't help make things better

Friday I did eat well (except 2 small cupcakes, but they were my snack). I got in 3 walks totaling 60 minutes and had my normal Nutella/Fruit/Tortilla dinner.

Saturday I woke up with a splitting headache and dizzy. 3 lb gain (226.2). I decided to go back to sleep. My husband was leaving in the morning for an overnight with the guys and I just wanted a relaxing morning. I went back to sleep for 2 1/2 hours - Weighed myself again (225.2).

I had a banana and then went for a 20 minute walk on the treadmill.
Later had a flax waffle with almond butter and jelly and then at 11:30 went for a 2.25 mile run on the treadmill. I could have gone outside but just wasn't feeling it and people had said it was icy earlier in the morning, so since I was Single Mom for the weekend I figured the treadmill was better.

The run felt fantastic!

I had my normal weekday snack and lunch. My daughter needed to go to the mall so I had some PB crackers before we left. She really wanted a Shamrock Shake so after the mall we went through the McDonalds drive thru and I didn't get anything. Win!

I did munch on a bunch of homemade salsa and chips and then dinner made myself spaghetti and sauteed zucchini (the zucchini was too small to spiralize so I just cut it up). there was 5.2 oz of spaghetti left in the box so I just made it all which is more than I normally would make, though I didn't quite eat it all.

I did have a small bowl of ice cream.

Overall I got in 15,000 steps for the day.

Sunday was just a craptastic day (but at the same time it was wonderfully relaxing!)
I slept horribly but just lounged in bed watching TV and reading until 10:00. And this is the breakfast of champions:
Rest of the ice cream
6 chocolate chip panckaes
Leftover spaghetti (very small amount)

I spent the morning reading (not walking, not exercising, doing nothing!). I did snack on 2 string cheese and some peaches at 1:00. At 2:00 my kids hadn't had lunch either so I made us Kraft Mac and Cheese (2 boxes and I probably ate almost a whole one).

I did manage ONE 15 minute walk on the treadmill around 3:15.

My husband doesn't go to the grocery store very often mainly because he buys junk along with whatever items I've asked him to buy. this time the culprit was buffalo pretzel bits - 2 small bowls full.

I wasn't really in the mood for anything for dinner, but was a little hungry so I had Nutella/Banana/Flax tortilla.

Last night again I slept horribly. I feel like I didn't sleep at all. I had set my alarm for 5:30 but turned that off around 2:00.

Scale was 228.2 today. Ugh.

The rest of my family is off today and I was WFH - Walking and water, again the mantra. Though is some of this is due to the joys of "perimenopause" I am not sure how successful I will be at feeling better. But all I need to do is try every.single.day.

It's going to be a weird week because the kids are on break. So schedules are off, but I am going to try to keep mine as well as I can (we have no kids this evening though so we are going on a rare Monday night date night).

And I WILL go to WW on Saturday NO MATTER WHAT!

Examining what went wrong this week

Right now I have the desire to sleep in tomorrow, not get up and go to WW, not get on the scale and face the music. But I will get up and go even if it shows a 5 lb gain. While I've done nothing worthy of losing weight this week and perhaps my Saturday weight was too low (down 2+ lbs from the day before). But this much of a gain.

Let's examine the week..... (and I should say that the week isn't even over yet. It's only 10:15 on Friday, but I need to reverse this NOW)

Saturday: was a good day except perhaps the water
Sunday : +1 lb - The start of the Energy Ball consumption. Not enough water drank. Not enough steps (as I hit 10K at 10:00 am and probably didn't have 12K for the whole day). Not enough fruits and veggies
Monday: Stayed the same. Good day until 2:30 when got home and binged on Energy Balls. Stressed in general. Not enough water. Not enough walking. Dinner was grilled cheese, corn and tater tots = not enough fruits and veggies.
Tuesday: +1.6 - WFH: Woke up very dehydrated. But had no calories until 9:00 am, my normal breakfast not until 10:30 and fell off the wagon big time at 12:00 - Didn't eat my normal foods (stress!). And then had a salty meal at 7:00 pm. Not enough water. Not enough fruits and veggies.
Wednesday: +1 - WFH: Okay until 11:00 then binged on not horrible foods (because we don't really have any in the house) from 11:15-11:45 and then didn't eat again until 6:00. Not enough water. Not enough fruits and veggies.
Thursday: +1.2 - Woke up to ovulation pain.Add well until afternoon snack - they were having fantastic cupcakes for Valentine's Day - Had 1. Had salty mexican food for V-day. I did skip the crappy grocery store cupcakes. First day all year that I didn't hit 10K steps - Probably ended up with 9100 but didn't have any extra steps until 4:00 pm and just didn't feel like walking after dinner (overate at dinner for the first time in a long, long time)
Friday: +.4 - Grand total of +5.2 in 6 days. When the scale jumps 3-4 lbs in a day, you know it is water weight. When it is a steady gain all week, that is here to stay. So my sole focus needs to be to get rid of it!

So the consensus is:

• Keep with my schedule - do no deviate - Eat the foods I normally do at the times I should
• Get in my waters - know mater how hard it is
• Have dinner with not so much starch and lots of veggies
• Get in my steps

Every morning I wrote a note about water and walks - but really not sticking to the foods I normally do and not the schedule (ie letting myself get too hungry) didn't help. Even today I decided to have a smoothie but I just had it at 10:20 - That is NOT good!!

So I will continue with my day and get through this and try to think about next month - while this isn't all ovulation, part of it is - maybe I am more stressed during ovulation?!

But I did keep weighing myself this week no matter what and that is a HUGE plus!!! Win for the week.

What will next week bring?
It's a little odd week. The kids are on vacation, but I am not taking any time. My husband has Monday off and he's taking Thursday and Friday off. I may WFH days I don't normally. And the weather seems a little iffy next week, but I am really going to TRY for it to be as normal a week for me as possible. *crossing my fingers*

It keeps going up and up and up

228.0 this morning - yes, almost 5 lbs from Saturday.

Wednesday started out well, but at 11:15 I ended up having what I am calling a 30 minute binge:
2 small bowls of pumpkin seeds and dried fruit
4 string cheese
2 packages of PB/Ritz crackers

Yes, overall the food wasn't bad but all was unnecessary. If I was hungry at 11:15 I should have just had my normal 11:30 snack of 2 string cheese and peaches.

I didn't end up eating anything for the rest of the day until dinner. I got in 2 25-minute walks in the afternoon so got in my 10K steps.

Dinner was spaghetti/sauce/cheese (1 helping, though potentially slightly larger than normal), salad (which also had croutons and bacon on it) and 1 piece of garlic bread.

I was just feeling so gross yesterday afternoon/evening and then this morning. I definitely have what I feel is ovulation pain. So now my challenge for the next 2 week is to get some of this 5 lb OFF. Not using the next 2 weeks to eat like crap.

Tonight for Valentine's Day we are having fajitas, chips and homemade salsa, and cupcakes and ice cream. I bought a little bit of chocolate. But nothing crazy.

Then honestly, after tonight there is NO reason to have dessert type foods until St Patrick's birthday. So not going crazy today and back on track tomorrow.

Life will always have up and downs. That is life. But getting back to a healthy lifestyle as quickly as possible is what is important.