Had a moment of ‘why bother’ today. I’ve been on again off again all month, but this week started really ‘working’ (yeah two whole days). I’ve been focused in making good food choices and getting up early (oh so early!) to work out. The rub I suppose is the battle between short term pleasures and long term results. Although I’ve been working to stay focused on goals I’ve been bombarded by temptations with no relief in site. Beside my work bringing in lunch (and sometimes breakfast) every day I have plans to go out with friends on Friday and Saturday night.

I have a few choices here... 1) become a hermit and never go out again. Food at home is ‘safe’.  (I’m an extrovert so this isn’t really a viable option)  2) go out and fight with myself about indulging in the food and drink available. (Doesn’t usually work) or 3) give in to the short turn pleasures and put off my weight loss goals again. 

Of course my feast beast, inner pig, inner brat whatever you wish to call it got really excited about these thoughts. After all... what’s so bad about being overweight? Sure, my feet and knees hurt some - but they’ll probably always hurt. I’m getting old after all. And my blood pressure is high and my blood sugar control is getting dangerous, but I FEEL fine. My husband loves me not matter my size and maybe I hate looking in the mirror but hey who needs to look in the mirror. 

But, I can’t give into this!! I have to get past this belief that food (and drink) is the only pleasure in my life. Food should be fuel - not a way to connect with friends, not a way to reduce stress... not a way to relieve boredom. 

I’ll get past this I’m sure. A little success on the scale will help but I’ll have to wait for that. 

Yesterday seemed to be good - though my body decided it wanted to show an uptick on the scale.  There's no way I'm making my end of month goal - but then, I didn't work for it either so I can't feel too bad.

Today... started great.  Got up at five, did a shoulder workout etc.

Unfortunately, my meal timing fell apart a little in the AM so by the time I got to work I was STARVING and I caved in and had a egg and sausage croissant.  Not the worse thing, but not on plan either.  They brought in lunch for us today at the office too but that was on plan w/a salad, roast veg, chicken, and beef brisket.  (YUM!).

The rest of the day should be easily on plan!  Here's too feeling reved up and motivated once again!

Well, yesterday was successful and I’m starting to feel strong again. I’m only 3 pounds behind my ‘easy’ goal right now. Something I could totally make up in the long term scheme of things. I just need tonpractixe good habits!

It’s been a good day. Hubby made an amazing on-plan breakfast and vibe been on plan all the rest of the day. I think this might be the start of success.

It's slow

but it's progress!

I haven't been seeing the amazing results I was hoping to see this year, but then I haven't been applying myself so I'm getting out what I put into the process.  So once I can fix my eating 'bips' I'll start to see the progress I want - I'm sure of it.

No real progress, but I've been inconsistent (at best).  Today I've been on plan so far and that's a huge plus :D  Will keep this up to finish the day.

Nope - not a clean day today either - though it started out really well - even passed up pasta at lunch so and had a salad instead.  But, I'll keep on keepin' on and see if I can make the changes and make this happen!

Still haven't had a 100% clean day.  I've at least havent' been gaining.  But I haven't been losing the way I want either.  I've got to find the determination to get through a day or two and then it'll get easier.  I know it will!

I crashed by Tuesday - soooo tired! skipped workout on Tuesday, and same today.  Still tweaking my food so that I have a program I can follow daily with my work schedule etc that doesn't lead me into temptation ;) I've been getting home so late that I'm eating dinner in the car on my way home and that means fast food - I need better options!

I'm in an amazing mood!  Which is strange considering just a short while ago I was feeling depressed and defeated.  This past week (which included my birthday) was fantastic.  Tuesday night dinner and drinks with friends - Thursday night at chorus rehearsal (with friends) - Friday night drinks, dinner and karaoke 'til 2 AM with friends and - Saturday night dancing with a live band 'til 2AM.  Yeah my food choices were not stellar - but I still lost weight this week (Just not as much as I had set for a goal... but then I knew that was the choice I was making when I chose to eat what I did...)  weight lost...3.1 lbs (1.1%)  Remaining 147.3

It's a new week though and  I got up this morning and did a workout at the gym...  Shoulders and biceps.  Strength isn't that far off from when I stopped going last year so I'm sure I'll be seeing improvements soon.  I'm probably a year from hitting true PR's but just making steady improvement will be nice. Tomorrow I'll get up early and try going for a Wog (Run/Jog).  I'll need to to keep is short as getting back into that will be a lot harder with all this extra weight I've been carrying around - maybe I'll do a walk to run program - not sure.  I usually get bored doing those - I think the furthest I've ever gotten is 4 weeks in.  Guess I better have a plan before tomorrow morning!

Today's workout

Standing Barbell Shoulder Press (OHP)
45 lb x 5 reps
 45 lb x 5 reps
 55 lb x 3 reps
 55 lb x 5 reps
65 lb x 5 reps
75 lb x 5 reps

Arnold Dumbbell Press
30 lb x 10 reps
30 lb x 8 reps
30 lb x 6 reps

Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise
15 lb x 10 reps
15 lb x 10 reps
15 lb x 10 reps

Barbell Curl
40 lb x 10 reps
40 lb x 10 reps
40 lb x 10 reps

Ok then. Birthday week is over! No more excuses. Rope to put things in high gear.

Headed to the gym to workout. This will be my new year’s habit :)

I'm happy with the way things are going so far...

The good mood that hit on Tuesday afternoon has remained that that's always a plus when it comes to dropping weight for me.

I decided that I wasn't going to start a formal exercise routine until next week, but I've been getting prepared, making sure my plan is in place etc. 

Yesterday was my birthday and I decided to allow myself a treat.  Unfortunately that tread ended up being much bigger and last a lot longer then I had originally intended.  I'll have to tighten things up a bit over the next few days to meet this week's goal.  But I can do that :D

Oh! forgot to mention - while out with friends I actually confessed to them that I wanted to lose 100 lbs this year.  There was a frustrating moment when instead of "Oh good luck..." or something like that , they both went "What!? That's not healthy! You'll be too thin!"

(This came up because one friend, who is at a healthy weight and always has been, mentioned that her husband wants to lose 50 lbs).

I just had to shake my head at them and told them that I would NOT be too thin - even after 100 lbs I'll still be at an unhealthy weight and that my ultimate goal was to lose 150lbs.  They again had a fit - telling me how unhealthy that would be etc.  I just sighed and let them know that I carry my weight well and I do indeed have 150lbs to lose.  They settled down a bit after that, but as I expected, my friends, though wonderful, are not really going to be much of a support over the next year and half while I go on this journey. 

My husband - while supportive isn't much help either.  He doesn't understand why I need to set specific goals.  He's always telling me things like, "Just try to be healthier..." "Eat healthier and get more exercise" "If you just exercised you would't have to worry about the food you are eating..."  Uh yeah.  I tried "Just be healthier" for a while and go no where (well I might have gotten healthier, but how do you measure 'healthier?', and while exercise is important nutrition is 80% of weight loss.  Just because he can start going for walks after work and skip the bowl of ice cream at night to lose weight doesn't mean that'll work for me *sigh*

But!  I don't need others to make it through this.  In fact it's better that I have my own way and my own motivation - so that I'm not relying on someone else's mojo to get me through.  I'm going to make this happen!

Yesterday had it's ups and downs.

Work had lunch brought in to welcome everyone back from the holidays.  I skipped the Chinese food and stuck with the lunch I brought instead.  I was pretty proud of that.  However...

After work I met up with friends for Happy Hour.  I ate and drank off plan... but! 1) I made sure I drank low carb drinks avoiding the high calorie sugary stuff. 2) I only ate a few slices of pizza rather then the whole thing like I normally would have 3) I had some of the fried cheese curds and didn't eat the whole plate!  4) I hit my steps goal walking to the resteraunt

And - the scale is down today so I didn't screw everything up :D I haven't dropped the Christmas weight yet, but I expect it'll be gone very soon.

I have a goal!

And that goal is to be 200 by July 1st.  I do realize that is aggressive, but I want to be aggressive. I want to push myself and achieve something significant! 

The final goal would be to be 150 by this time next year (130lbs total).  This mean averaging 1.3% weight loss a week! So That goal is my Massively Aggressive Balls to the Wall Goal.    But, I do also have a "Let's not get too crazy here" goal of losing 100 lbs and getting to 180 by Jan 1 2019, but I'll keep my eye on the big prize and then I'll be sure to hit my 'minimum achieved goal' easily. 

How to do this?  Well - I'm going to start with food (as all good plans should)

Pretty typical stuff - Low Carb - Moderate Protein - Moderate Fat - Calorie Restricted.  Right now I'm aiming for 1500 calories/day.  I may lower that as I get fat adapted.  If I do I'll add a weekly re-feed into the mix. I don't want to get into the bad habit of last year where I ate very little every day, but never brought my calories up for a single day to compensate.  So my calories for an entire week will not go below 10,000. Biggest daily goal is to make sure I'm getting enough protein every day. That number is 120g.

Exercise:  My new job has limited my time available for exercise, but I'm going to do what I can.  Goal is weight lifting 4 days a week and 3 days a week of running.  What I may do eventually is limit the amount of lifting I do (like maybe only one large lift a session) to give more time for cardio, but we'll see.  There's also the option for signing up for classes or something similar after work (rather then driving straight home) but that'll have to wait for a bit...I need to get settled into this new routine of showing up at the office every day etc before I add any additional stress into my life.

What else?  drink water, get 8 hours of sleep, lower stress as much as possible... find ways to make all of this FUN!!

New year, so many plans! Blogging more is one of them!