One snow day down, one to go

Today technically isn't snowing, but because it didn't stop snowing until 9 am and today is going to be bitterly cold (and it being a Friday may have factored in), the kids don't have school again today. The sun is shining but the temps are plummeting - though my husband was able to drive into Boston today. And now a snow day for me - Working hard both days.

Yesterday eating was okay until about 1:00 and then work got more stressful and the snow got more stressful and the eating kind of went to crap.

I barely had any steps because I was sitting in my recliner working, trying to avoid everyone in my family!

After my lunch of egg salad (which I think I have decided won't be part of the rotation, unless I make it that morning), I found myself nibbling on hot fries and chocolate covered pretzels. And I found myself eating a whole entire tub of chocolate hummus - first with grapes, then pretzels, then, just by itself!

Dinner was re-heated pasta prior to going out to brave the clean-up. Because my side of the garage door is broken, I had to dig out my SUV (thank goodness I bought a snow rake last week), then I moved it, cleared it off even more, shoveled out the rest of the original spot, and put my car back. This is all while my husband was snow blowing 18" of snow. i also shoveled the front porch and the front steps and a thin path down to the driveway (my husband later shoveled out the rest), I shoveled  path on our back deck (I am all about safety and wanted as many ways to get out of the house as possible - I must be my dad's daughter) and then I waded out the back of the house to verify that all the pipes were free.

I ended the day with 7,500 steps (you don't get a lot of steps shoveling) and collapsed in bed in exhaustion.

Today it is windy and sunny and bitter cold and just going to get colder through today and tomorrow. I am feeling stress about work. I am feeling very weak in the food department but I will try to be strong.

I would really like to go to my meeting in the morning but it is supposed to be -2 (not wind chill) tomorrow morning. So I may give it another week! But still work the plan on my own. I need to make a grocery list, but I don't anticipate going until Sunday morning (oh look, it will be -7 on Sunday morning). Thank goodness my husband bought milk on Wednesday night!

The good news is I paid off our cruise in April yesterday and I know it will be warmer by then, unlike friends who are in Disney this weekend for Marathon weekend and it is freezing!

Wednesday - the day that ended with ice cream

What is it about the stress of an upcoming storm that makes you want to eat crap??!!

The rest of the day went pretty well. A normal work day with some things of note:

1) I only ended up taking one deliberate walk break during the morning, so I left work at 3:00 with less than 5,000 steps. I should have gotten a 2nd break in

2) I made my chicken salad with 2 flax tortillas - 4 SmartPoints instead of 2, but I was afraid that just 1 tortilla wouldn't be enough filling, but I felt that both was too much food. I will definitely buy 2 packages of these tortillas next week - much better than the flaxseed Lavish bread.

3) I don't think I had an afternoon snack! I hadn't packed one because I knew I would be home in the afternoon but I got home around 3:30 we had to leave at 4:15 for piano - so I don't think I had a snack!

4) My daughter was a ski club until 7:00 pm and I didn't have anything planned for dinner, so it was a "everyone for themselves" day - I spiralized a sweet potato and cooked it with a little chicken, taco seasonings and added goat cheese and dried blueberries on top - I didn't measure anything which I should have. I also spiralized a zucchini and cooked it with some garlic and put a little pasta cheese on top.

5) I really didn't want to exercise and I was only at 6,500 steps at 7 pm, but I didn't have anything else to do, so I rode the exercise bike. I attached my Garmin to my sneaker, but after 5 miles/22 minutes, I only was at 8,000 steps. While the Garmin didn't register 10,000 steps for the day, with the exercise I am taking it as a win.

6) And then the ice cream happened. No, the kids were not having ice cream. I had finished my bike ride and the chocolate ice cream was calling my name, so yep, I had a bowl. I did leave a small amount in the carton for my daughter to have.

So now it is a snow day (but since I can WFH, I am) - I am going to do my best to eat normally, but it is 11:00 am and I've only gotten 975 steps and drank 20 oz of water. No every day can be perfect!

New Year, New Foods and my Tuesday

For at least 11 years I've been eating roughly the same thing:

• Breakfast: Yogurt, Cheerios
• Morning Snack: cheese stick, fruit
• Lunch: Lean Cuisine Deluxe Pizza, Carrots --> Downfall, I'd buy lunch instead
• Afternoon Snack: Vitatop, fruit --> Huge downfall, would eat crap once I started going home in the afternoon to get the kids off the bus

The yogurt is Dannon's Light and Fit, but does have sugar - I know I should give plain, unsweetened another try - I will, once I make some other changes first. I do like overnight oats, but the point value is a little high. I can't stand the thought of cooking eggs at home and re-heating at work (I eat breakfast at 9:00 when I get in).

Morning snack - I am going to leave it as it

Lunch - This is the big one. I'll get back to it.

Afternoon Snack: A Vitatop is 4 points and I am trying to eat less processed food, and I want protein in the afternoons, so I am compiling a list - yesterday I had celery with Almond Butter and a few nuts and raisins on it.

Okay, lunch. One that I have been wanting to change for YEARS. I started having these pizzas when my daughter was born (11+ years ago), because then I started eating at my desk and it was easy and convenient. At times when I was losing weight in the past I would have to cut it down because it was too many points. But my desire to change was always outweighed by convenience. And now with the new FreeStyle, it is really bad - one pizza is 12 points and with FreeStyle I only get 24 points a day. And recently Lean Cuisine has changed their formula so it is all bread with very little cheese and pepperoni and veggies.

In the past I had created a list of lunches I could make, but worrying about points made me reluctant. Or making pasta and dividing it into 5 dishes to have for the week, I would find myself having one of the dishes as a snack, or just being overwhelmed by the amount of prep work needed when I had small children, especially when I was having to make their lunches for daycare or school.

But now they aren't as little, and buy their lunches more or can make their own lunches, and time to make me a priority and I need to try this again. So I've made a list again as well as a list of prep work I can do during the weekend. But now, also with only 1 kid at home in the mornings, who eats the same thing every day he brings lunch, I do have the luxury of more time.

So Monday I:
Boiled hardboiled eggs and made 2 days worth of egg salad (of which my husband ate one of!)
Made 2 days worth of chicken salad.

So how did my Tuesday go?
I had a piece of fruit and my vitamin at 7:30 (I can't eat it on an empty stomach or I feel nauseous)

I had my breakfast at 9:00

I got a walk break in before 10:00

I didn't have my snack until it was lunch time - I ate my snack and my lunch around 12:30. I had made the chicken salad on a Lavish wrap with some lettuce, roasted peppers and mild banana peppers to mimic the sandwich I would buy downstairs. The Lavish isn't great and it tears kind of easily. I will try something different for Wednesday.

I got another walk break in before leaving to WFH in the afternoon. I had about 5,000 steps by the time I got home.

Then I sat on my butt and worked for 2 1/2 hours and did have my snack of celery with PB and a fruit cup.

At 5:15 I walked 2 miles on the treadmill (this time changing into workout clothes so I wouldn't chafe myself).

Dinner was tacos - I had 2 flax tortillas instead of shells, chicken, black beans, quinoa, sour cream (light), salsa, guacamole, and cheese (regular, not light). Dinner maybe have been on the slightly larger side. I could have had a 3rd taco but refrained.

Both kids had had teeth pulled last week and we had extra ice cream in the house and my daughter lost another tooth right before dinner, so I allowed ice cream for dessert. I passed, but as I was putting it away, I chose to have 1 spoonful - yep, right out of the carton. Of course I didn't stop at 1 - wasn't as much as I would have had in a bowl (I don't think, but then again I was eating it out of the carton).

But what is done is done - on to another day (and Thursday will be a snow day - ie I will be working from home while the kids don't have school which sounds exactly like all of last week!)

Day 1 and Back to Work

January 1st was never supposed to be "good" eating day - From eating perspective, New Year's Day is a "cheat" day.

Yesterday was the 1st New Year's Day where I didn't run a 5K - I would have done it had it not be so freaking cold! But I never even signed up for my normal race - part of the reason is that they changed the normal medals. I love this medals. The one on the far left was my first medal ever so it has a special place in my heart. And I love this race because of the metal. But they changed it from a bottle stopper

To a bottle opener which just isn't as cool, because it doesn't make it special. So many races are doing that now.

I also considered another race "Hangover Classic" which has a optional Polar Plunge into the Atlantic ocean at the end.

But it was cold, cold, cold outside and it was nice to stay inside and continue (and finish!) organizing the house like crazy. Part of the organizing was grazing on some of the treats we still had in the house, treats that as of the morning, are now in the trash.

But in addition to running around like crazy, I did consciously exercise. To start the year off right and get 10,000 steps, I stepped on the treadmill and walked a mile and then the bike and biked 2.1 miles, so while it wasn't running, I got a 5K done and ended the day with 11,500 steps.

It is a good start! Tomorrow I'll talk more about my plans for different foods. Time to get away from the same foods I've been eating for 11+ years!

Happy New Year!

Bye Bye 2017, not sorry to see you go!

2017 was not a stellar year at all - I lost and gained and lost and gained the same 10 pounds and am now back where I was 5 years ago - 230 lbs. Ugh. Starting to get really uncomfortable so need to do something stat - like tomorrow!

I ran 166 miles - 43 runs, but have not run since September 17th. Really no reason. I was looking forward to the coolness that October brings and it didn't bring anything except heat and humidity, and once November arrived, I was just busy and just gave up. That will stop today! I would love to run 365 miles in 2018 which means 7 miles a week - which means a 3 mile during the week and 4 4 miles on Sunday - I can do that!

2017 was no good financially - we start the year with much more credit card debt than we had a year ago, mainly due to the vacations we took this past year and already paying some for vacations for 2018. But I have a plan to be lean and mean in the first 3rd of the year and really pay it down.

Other things I plan on doing in 2018:
"Blog" more - even if it is short, to help keep me accountable
Get back to WW on Saturday 1/6 and don't plan on missing a meeting until the end of April when we are on vacation
Move more - more steps at work, light weights, walking on the treadmill, using our bike
Better sleep
No buying lunch at work - I am challenging myself (and me and my friend) to see how long we can go - but that doesn't mean going back to the normal stand-by which I've come to hate (and is way too high in WW points)
Less screen time/more present with my kids

The above aren't resolutions - I am not going to try to lose X amount of weight - I just need to do something!!!

Back to WW and a busy weekend

I did make it to WW on Saturday - I was 224.8 on the scale at home - that is a +4 gain since September 29, the last time I went. But I am so glad I did go! They will go over the new plan next week, but I got the email so I kind of get the jist - A lot more 0 point foods, so a huge incentive to eat more protein and starchy vegetables.

But then the weekend just got crazy and the eating was bad.
Friday night I made Chex Mix and Chocolate Pretzels which I always do the day before we get our tree. But I didn't eat any Friday - I told myself maybe we should do all our holiday baking on Friday nights!
But then Saturday, after doing some shopping, I let myself have 1 Chocolate Pretzel. Which ended up way too many over the course of Saturday and Sunday.

 I had a healthy lunch on Saturday with the anticipation of a date night Saturday night to celebrate our 15 year dating-versary. I had bread and butter, onion soup au gratin, salad, filet mignon, green beans and a little of my husband's baked potato, coffee ice cream with chocolate sauce, and 2/3 of the bottle of red wine.

Sunday I wasn't feeling great, but I got up, showered, and did more and more shopping which included a trip to the Mall - ugh. But the good news is I am done shopping!

The rest of Sunday was trying to get decorating done, decorating the tree, and my usual Sunday craziness. The day resulted in poor eating and not clearly defined meals.

But today is another week and I am going to eat well!!!!

2 months away and I am back.....

I never, ever intended to be away for 2 months. When I went back to WW in September, I really thought "this is it" but one bad weekend and things slipped and we were busy.

I stepped on the scale this morning....226. Could be a lot worse. But it is time to own it.

5 years ago Saturday I walked into WW weighing 231.2 - Lost 50, gained 45 back. I've been feeling pretty low lately, but I am eager to walk back in on Saturday morning.

People think I am crazy to go back at this time of year, but 1) they are launching the new plan this week or next and 2) I need to keep myself in check during December. 5 years ago I didn't lose in December - I may have even gained a little, but it was a lot better than it could have been.

Last weekend we drove to Maine and visited the house we are renting in August. I stood on the beach and thought to myself - I can't feel this way in August, I can't look this way in August. So I need to start NOW! I've lost the last 2 months of progress. But I CAN do this!!!!!