This talk about realistic planning has really got me thinking... In my brain there have been two kinds of 'realistic'. There is realistic... as in all the things I love and want to eat and I would put on my plan if I had 'no rules' and there is 'Realistic for weight loss'. And those two plans looked NOTHING alike.

I started to wonder WHY they were so different and the answer came back that I could probably put a slice of cake or piece of toast on my plan and still lose some weight - but not at the rate I want...

So that started part two of this -- where I asked myself, so why do I set such aggressive weight loss goals? And the immediate answer came back, "Because I want it to be over with quickly...."

and that STOPPED me in my tracks..."You want WHAT to be over with quickly..."

"The dieting..."

Ohhhh crap! well something smells rotten here!

I haven't decided what next steps are for me here... just figured out that something will need to change and maybe THIS is the step I need to take to finally move into phase 3

I actually had a great week in Chicago -- then came home and blew my progress over the weekend. So 1 step forward .5 a step back.  But I'm still headed in the right direction. The focus on making weightloss easy while traveling has paid off - so now I can work on the other opportunity for success in my life - the weekends! So, this week every night I'm going to be spending some time writing about my intent to making weightloss easy this upcoming weekend.

My weight loss progress for the past four weeks... ((a minus is a gain))
9/30/2019    Week 25      -3.410/7/2019    Week 26      -1.110/14/2019    Week 27      -1.110/21/2019    Week 28       3.3


so - there is is room for focus for sure.

 I travel for work at least one week out of every month. I’ve been gradually leveling up each time I go in an effort to make weight loss easy while away from home. I negotiated with my company to not stay at the fancy pants boutique hotel and instead stay at the Hyatt house in a room with a full kitchen (which is cheaper amazingly enough) I plan like I do at home and shop at Whole Foods and tote groceries back to my room for the week. This is this week’s haul. Bacon and eggs for breakfast. A package of chicken to divide into three meals. Tonight I’ll wrap it in bacon and have it with Brussels sprouts, divided the rest into plaid baggies (which I bring with me) and I one dumped pesto which I’ll have other pesto zoodles and the other I dumped some garlic and squeezed in some lemon which I’ll probably have with any left over veggies from other nights. the other night I’m here I’m planning on eating at one of the fabulous local restaurants as an exception meal. I have olives, cheese and lunch meat for snacks and lunches are either meetings with food provided or a salad from Whole Foods.

I just wanted to remind people...it doesn’t have to be hard!

So, please! Add your travel tips!

All reactions:

176Kim Siberski, Jennifer Mueller and 174 others

 I had an 'ah-ha' last night that I think is going to be VERY important for me moving forward.

I recently had a shift in my compelling reasons - Losing weight to 'be sexy' and 'love myself' lost meaning for me, cause I'm doing those things now - I don't need a number on a scale to do that.

Then at camp I realized that the new 'reason' I had come up with "To prove I can do hard things..." mean that weight loss had to be hard... (aren't our minds amazing!!??) and I don't want weight loss to be hard.

Last night I figured out that my remaining reasons "to be fit and healthy" were not sitting well with me. Not because they weren't good reasons but because I hadn't worked them all the way through. I had a definition of what 'fit and healthy' looked liked but I hadn't tied them very well to daily action (other then working out) that also tied into my weight loss goal.

To explain further - I knew that being healthy meant having great lab results (normal A1c, blood pressure, low cholesterol) And I knew that being at at a healthy body weight would help with all of that - but 'healthy' was something in the future something far off to be achieved... I hadn't defined what it meant to be healthy each and every day ((just like I've defined what it means to love myself each and every day)). It was an INCREDABLE shift in my thinking! Being healthy isn't something I'm striving for - it's something I'm LIVING for. It's not a goal for 'someday' it's an intention I can set every day...

so from now on - "I eat in such a way that promotes weight loss and good health because that's what it means to be healthy - today"

Hello and good morning!  apparently I haven't 100% figured out the 'how to lose weight while in Chicago' (traveling) thing.  There's still room to level up so I'm not upset about it - just more curious than anything.  I guess I'm a little bummed that It wasn't as simple as cooking in my room.  to be fair, even though I wasn't eating out I was still eating some things I don't have when home... so, as I said, room to level up and I go back in two weeks so... I get to try again

This week I'm going to Phat camp.  I 'think' I've managed to get over most of my 'fear' for the weekend.  Ready to relax and just see what the event brings.  I'll have the experience I was meant to have.   In other news I've decided it's time to really get serious about triathlon training again.. so I SHOULD be running 3 days a week - doing some biking 3x a week as well as some cross training.  10 years ago I was doing tris nearly every weekend and loving it.  I want to get back to that habit. I also didn't order any prepped meals this week so I'm going to spend more time cooking then I normally do - because of that I spent more time doing weekly planning then normal.  Im going to give this a try and see how it goes.  I expect I'll be back to at least a few prepped foods - but maybe not every night like I've been doing.  We'll see it's all just my n=1 experiment.

So, gained 3.5 pounds this week.  Wasn't a perfect week - wasn't even an 'almost' perfect week - but I plan to learn all I can from it.  I have reinforced that I need to work on a better system for planning on the weekends and for even more structure around Chicago visits.  I have a few ideas to try - one of which included writing a more specific weekly plan that I fall back on if I don't write a daily plan for that day.  I've also been feeling better about pushing a little into 'uncomfortable' some days.  I'm not talking about being HUNGRY... but about saying 'no' do extra carbs - drinks etc.  I think a lot about making weight loss easy and honestly it DOES get a lot easier when I'm not funking up my blood sugar with carb bombs.  ((mentally it can get 'harder' but we all know how to handle the mental stuff right?)) What's held me back from falling into this full force is my determination to  'lose it like I'll live it" and I haven't been able to get past this block of 'what if I never had a piece of bread again" (sounds extreme but it's the kind of thing I need to answer if I want ANY change to be a lifetime change) I've been thinking and writing about this almost daily and feeling closer and closer to making a 'shift'  I've at least gotten to the point that my wild child doesn't have a FIT every time I think that thought... as I said, progress.  In truth, low carb here at home is pretty easy.  I just don't bring that kind of stuff into the house much.  But it's when I go out - other peoples homes, restaurants, to Chicago that stuff starts to find its way into my daily eating.  Do I want to live the rest of my life eating salads 3x a day? NO - but can I start to picture myself eating bread and sugar no more than 1x a week... maybe... working on it. :D . In the meanwhile I'll keep planning daily, and trying small level-ups.

Hi blog...

How's it going?

Where have I been?  Well I've been out finding myself I suppose

At the end of last year I found myself once again at 295 lbs!  I got determined, focused all the 'things' and lost a little, gained a little and basically found myself in the same place (292) at the first of April. 

Then I got an email... the "PNP Tribe" was opening up - would I like to join?

I had seen the adverts and even signed up for a newsletter but had never listened to the podcast or read any of her stuff.  What I knew was:

1. Corinne had lost 100 lbs 10 years ago and kept it off!
2. She was all about losing how you live - no batshit crazy diet plan
3. She cussed...
4. She was affiliated with Brooke Castillo - who I had worked with in the past and appreciated her approach

So, I said "what the hell" and gave her some of my money.

What an amazing six months it's been since!!  I lost my job, totaled the car I got for my birthday, got a new job with more authority and responsibility, have traveled to Chicago for a week at a time 6 or so times (for work), gone to Rockabilly, and Tiki events, visited my daughter in Missouri, and have been dealing with a failing personal business while losing 50 pounds... Yes... LOST 50 POUNDS!

Mentally I feel better then I have in my entire life!  I'm losing while eating foods I love and not being overly hungry.  I'm losing while exercising inconsistently.  I'm losing while going through drama and traveling and vacationing and all the stuff!

Has it been easy? Not always.  Changing your brain, taking control of your thoughts isn't easy.  Bypassing urges to eat when you have a habit of turning to food for comfort and entertainment and other things food isn't meant for, isn't easy.  But I wake up every morning and focus on, "How can I make this easy?"  "How can I be a badass today?" "How can I love myself today?" and it's been A-Maze-Ing!

I'm going to start sharing a bit more of my journey here - I feel like I have a story to tell - I still have 110 lbs left to lose and I'm sure there will be good days and bad.  I want to remember them.  I want this story to finally have a happy ending to finally post "I've hit my goal!" and transition to maintenance and all the opportunities for success that'll bring - I want to help someone else who's struggling, who's been overweight for years, who's gained and lost and gained again....

So, yeah -- hi blog! 

 I have to tell you guys... they hits keep on coming! My husband has been going through some stuff, and I've been doing my best to gently coach him. Luckily he's seen the change in me and it has opened him up to listening bit by bit. Last night I finally got up the nerve to tell him a bit of 'real truth' being open to the fact that he may or may not be ready to hear it.

When he told me (over the phone cause I'm traveling for work right now) "If X will just happen then I'll be ok" I told him, "Honey, no, it won't. You can't change your feelings by changing your circumstance. Look how many times you've tried that! There will always be something that stresses you out or makes your frustrated or doesn't go your way. You need to also work on changing your mind!"

AND HE AGREED WITH ME!!!!

This morning he slacked me and told me

so I heard the saying which I think was really cool and think maybe I'll adopt it as my mantra
Make today better than yesterday
It's a mini goal but it seems pretty good

and we talked about that a little - I think it's a good powerful thought

and just now he messaged me again and told me

I don't know if you saw that but I ordered a Kindle book called the seven-day mental diet
I want to try and read a little bit of that every day it's supposed to be something about not judging people and taking everything as it comes

12:39 PM

Basically what we were talking about how I need to change my Outlook not my situation

I'm so damn proud of him and nearly in tears over how amazing life is right now. ((and I don't cry people... I just DON'T))

So just know - you probably are being a light for others in your life as you work to better your own. We may not all be Corinne and able to help thousands, but sometimes just by helping ourselves we can help even just one or two of the people around us....

 Did my first ‘run’ outside this year. (Took a partner around with me for company) found myself thinking ‘this is so hard!’ Over and over and over again. I decided that I needed to do a little mid run thought work. So - what’s the real circumstance? The best I could come up with was that running outside requires more focus to keep the desired pace then running inside. My unintentional thought was ‘this is hard’ which makes me want to quit - and probably makes it less likely I’ll run outside again. My new intentional thought could be ‘I just need to practice more’ and the feeing is ‘challenged’ in a good way. And the result I ‘practice’ running outside more.

At the end of the run I stopped my Garmin and got a notice that I had run the fastest mile (while wearing my watch) plus... RunBet is done whoop!! Just did 25 runs instead of 21 cause I did four that didn’t count.

Only bad thing is hubby thinks I broke the dog...

All reactions:

9Tracy Bainum, Mary Beall Adler and 7 others

 For some reason about 9 years ago I lost site of my inner athlete. She was fairly young - I had only learned I had an inner athlete about a year proir - so maybe that’s why she got drown out... but whatever however whenever... I’m starting to hear her again. I actually spoke out loud to someone outside my family the fact that I want to do tris again. While thinking about that I pulled up my old blog and was reading some of the things my inner athlete wrote... and thought damn! Where did that girl go!? And then while pulling out some fabric from my sewing closet I found these stuffed in the back. I had kind of forgotten I even had them! So I pulled them out and I’ve put them in my workout room. As a reminder that I AM an athlete no matter my size or shape! I did my first tri (lavaman) at 240 lbs. but it wasn’t the race or my weight that made me an athlete. It was the commitment and belief in myself that I was going to show up and do my best no matter what.

So, today I commit to being an athlete. To kicking ass and taking names. To let letting my weight or speed (or lack there of) discourage me. To doing triathlons again - anyone in NorCal want to do one with me? I’m aiming for a sprint next summer.

All reactions:

24Judith Young Fender, Tracy Bainum and 22 others