ANOTHER GOOD WEEK

Week 2 has continued well,  only 3 trips to the gym but the weather was so nice I was happily working at getting my outdoor mosaic area cleaned up and started a new project.  I have planned out some garden projects which I am buying plantings for today, my day off, and I will manage 5 trips to the gym this week now that things are in order.

I lost 3 pounds this week and can feel it in my work clothes.  No big revelations to discuss - just that I made Broccoli Salad which sustained me most of the week!

I am off to the garden center now...

CHECKING IN

Just a quick post to check in.

I am very proud of myself!  I have been completely ON.  I have tracked my foods everyday and kept my calories under 1500.  Been to the gym 4 times and have lost 3 pounds this week.

I treated myself to a mani-pedi and 1 cocktail when out to dinner.

More postings to come...but now I am preparing a nice dinner for my night off - salmon for the grill, broccoli salad and brown rice.

It finally stopped raining and I am going to take the dog for a long walk.

WILL POWER IN A MINE FIELD

What is there to say?  Yo Yo Me here.  Although when I got on the scale at the gym on Sunday and saw the upwards creep I was shocked and have been on track since.  I also had occasion to put on the old vest they gave me when I started my job in November and I can't button it.  Yikes.  So then I measured myself and I am many inches larger than I was in early November. 

Not good.  Not the direction I want to be going.  No, no, no.

I could do a show and tell ( but I won't because running around the lobby and office with a camera would be frowned upon) of all the temptations I am surrounded by every night I work and you would understand.  Bowls of candy, trays of pastries and cookie jars which I must keep stocked also popcorn and these amazing flavored peanuts in the bar.  And yes, there are bowls of fruit, too. 

I bring my nice healthy dinner each night and drink lots of water and green tea.  The majority of the time I am not tempted.  I am busy or  good at distracting myself.  It is just those nights that I slip, I can't even say what it is that happens or why some times I am just so hungry and nothing fills me up.

I have always had extraordinary "will power."  I realize at some point after the summer I just stopped having the will.  Now I need to summon it up again.  Times are tough but I need to get tougher!

I AM A YO-YO

I never thought of myself as a yo-yo dieter because I would stick with a diet and lose weight,  then over a period of years gain it back and start again.  That would make me a very slow motion yo-yo, at best!  So although I have gained and lost over and over the past 20 some odd years, I didn't label myself that way.

Now it is different.  I have been going up and down over and over in the past 7 months or so.  Repeatedly and quickly in true yo-yo style.  I know that there is this trend to say that dieting somehow causes this.  I don't use diet in that way - I just think it is a bit phony and forced to use other terms.  Dieting means staying on a healthy plan.  No dieting, for me, means overeating and eating the wrong foods.  I have no problem with being "on a diet" for life because it is the best way for me to eat mindfully.

What I want is to deal with those things which compel me to eat poorly. Especially stress and to some degree depression.  Stress makes me anxious, eating sooths me.  Depression is the loss of  a sense of worth which I also sooth with "treats."  If the general overeating and eating of sweets and breads, etc. didn't work so well, I may have turned to drugs or alcohol for my solace. What this tells me is that it is time to make a greater effort to deal with the issues which bring on this behaviour so I can stop being such a yo-yo.

DIET MYTHOLOGY

Myth Buster #7

Myth: You can spot-reduce to lose weight.

Fact: On the contrary, the way to achieve sleeker legs or a flatter stomach, if that's where you're carrying your body fat, is to increase your lean muscle tissue throughout your body. By working all your muscles, you increase your metabolism. Up your metabolism and watch your eating, and you'll start looking the way you want to.

This was one of the "Fitness Myths" on a website I clicked on today. Though the idea was to "bust" the myth - I think they have just proven that anyone can get their body to "look the way you want to" is the biggest lie yet. No matter how hard I ever worked, my body never   looked the way I wanted it to because I wanted to have slim thighs and a small butt!

In my day bootylicious was not the ideal - I had a body like Beyonce and was considered fat.  No one asked me to dance in the clubs, they asked my skinny friends with hips like little boys. 

 No amount of diet and exercise was going to make me look like Farrah! 

The reality is that ideal body types come and go, just like fashion. To some degree JLo, Beyonce and Kim Kardashian have made the girls who are have womanly curves acceptable to society in a way we weren't for many years.

They are proof that women don't have to look like boys with boobs to be attractive and that is great - except for the girls who look like boys with boobs who now wish they had "junk in their trunks" and are padding themselves up or going in for dangerous cosmetic procedures to make their bodies look  "the way they want to look."

We come in all sizes and shapes and no amount of diet and exercise is going to make us look the same - or look like something we are not genetically made to be. 

So - Diet Myth # 7 isn't about looking like we want to look - it is about looking the best we can  - whether it is in style or not.

BUILDING A ROUTINE

I finally updated my statistics to show my yo-yo activity of the past few months.  I hated putting a gain for December because I had started off so strong and had been losing until the end of the month when it all reversed! 

Working 5 days a week is really helping me stay on track.  I have breakfast and a good sized lunch and then pack my dinner to take with me to work at 3.  This keeps me out of the kitchen during the hours I am most likely to snack and otherwise run my calories up.  I have gotten past feeling hungry when I get home after 11 by breaking my dinner into 2 parts and having the second part around 8 pm.  Then when I get home a cup of tea is enough to help me relax before bed. 

Lately I have been relying on the "protein pretzels" from Lifestyle for part of my dinner.  I can dip them into hummus or eat them with some string cheese or Laughing Cow soft cheese.  I have a couple of carrots and celery sticks and a little tomato and I am full.  My second dinner break favorite has been 1/2 cup each of strawberries and vanilla Greek yogurt -   kind of like a dessert.

I have been managing my calories at 1200-1350, and I am back to losing 2 pounds a week.  Next step is to up the exercise intensity and hope my knees continue to feel strong.

Plus, 2 more days and I get a manicure!

CHECK THE TOES

Next carrot is a manicure - I hardly ever go in for those so it would be a real treat.  I am saving my pennies and calories for that.  One week on plan plus 5 gym visits and my cuticles will be as happy as my toes.