Shrinking Days of Summer - Week 5

I'm feeling a little blase. Last week I gained .4 of a pound. This week I lost .6 of a pound. No woot woots here. I mean neither statistic is worth reporting.

Overall, I'm going down very very slowly but in some way, that seems like a waste of time. Harry says "you're going down and that's all that matters" and I kind of agree but I have to face the fact that I'm not willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary to really make a difference.

I'll walk until I'm blue in the face but then I'll eat.

I'm up to 4 1/2 miles a day now but I can't say that I'm flying around the course. I do pretty well all day and I've really tried to increase the fruits, vegetables, and water. But then evening comes. Ahhhh reward time.

If I had never tasted a cheddar cheese flavored Quake or a Hostess 100 Calorie Pack Strawberry Cake with Cream Cheese icing and Creamy filling, I'd probably be a stick right now. (Warning. if you're not familiar with these products, avoid them at all costs. They are extremely hazardous to your weight loss efforts.)

I know what I have to do and that's what I vow all the time. I just won't buy them. But then Harry does. He's so nice. I know I should tell him not to buy them but then I forget (on purpose) so that he'll bring them home to me and I can indulge myself at night when I have to eat something to stay awake and watch TV.

Is this thinking a little skewed? Don't answer. I already know. But believe it or not, I'm still sure that my thinking will come around and result in shrinking. I just have to get to that point AND I seem to drop in little bunches after being kind of stuck for a couple of weeks. Yeah, I'll try that theory.

And this week I'll make some sacrifices - I'll try blueberries and grapes instead of Quakes.

And, Harry, this is your notice. Don't buy Quakes. I have to learn to live without them. The cakes? Well we'll see. I can't dump everything at once, can I?

Shrinking Days of Summer - Week 4

This this week for the Shrinking Days of Summer Mini Challenge, I didn't shrink. I gained. I'm not completely surprised what with my poor dinner choice last night, my more dramatic drop last week, and my refusal to cave into my better judgment to go to bed instead of staying up late and eating to stay awake.

My daughter, Amy, tells me that it's okay just don't lose motivation and she reminds me that 6 years ago when we both rocked Weight Watchers and looked our best ever - we had ups and downs.

So it is what it is. I gained .4 of a pound and I'm gonna just keep on keepin' on.

Oh, and yesterday was the first day of the mini challenge where we had to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetable every day and I didn't eat any. I'm pretty sure I can do better than that! We'll see.

Shrinking Days of Summer - Week 3

Today's weigh in reminded me of a line in one of my favorite poems, Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Malay, "I know not how such things can be". Because this week my weight dropped a dramatic and completely undeserved 2.8 pounds. Wow.

I've eaten irresponsibly but conscientiously. How's that, you say? Well, I ate way too much and failed to count my points; but, the food I ate was almost without fail, healthy, low-point, nourishing, Weight-Watcher friendly food.

That definitely didn't help the loss because when I say I ate too much, I'm talking volumes here - big honkin' volumes. I don't feel great about that but maybe the food choices kept me from gaining.

What did help was trying to drink more water from the Mini Challenge the first week and stepping up my exercise from the Mini Challenge of the second week.

And, if truth be told, I give almost all the credit to exercise. I walked 28 miles during the week which equates to between 58 minutes and 90 minutes of exercise a day. Solid.

Then of course there are the normal fluctuations and maybe now I'll gain a little and go up and down some but nothing changes the fact that I was down over 2 1/2 pounds and nothing feels better than that.

So, I'm off to exercise. For the first time in a couple of weeks I only got in a mile and a half last night because of poor planning and a thunderstorm so it's time to re-double my efforts.

Shrinking Days Of Summer - Week 1

Whew! Thanks Shrinking Days of Summer:

That was a close one.

I had the best weekend. Good times, good family, and yes good food - lots of it. Going into the weekend, I intended to stick to the good habits I was trying to form, but it didn't take long for all my good intentions to unravel.

I didn't have time to walk. Not on Friday or Saturday or Sunday. Monday night after everyone had left and Mr. Right was home from work, he said rather incredulously, "Aren't you going to walk?" Normally I don't take kindly to his helping me in my weight loss effort but this time it made me stop and think. I'd spent the day eating what I wanted even though everyone had left by noon. I guess I just thought the ENTIRE weekend should be a wash so I happily, no guiltily, ate my awesome mayonnaise potato salad and macaroni salad and Oreo cookies and whatever else was left over - all day long. I used all my Weight Watchers flex points on the first day of my Weight Watchers week.

For the weekend, I'd rationalized that when I reach my goal weight and my life returns to maintaining that weight, there will be holiday weekends and I will make my mayonnaise potato salad that I love so much and I will eat it. I'll have brats and desserts with my family and I won't take precious time away from being with them to go walk alone at Striebel Pond. This is how real life will be and I'll just have to learn to adjust to it. It sounded so good to me that I allowed myself free reign to eat anything and everything and to forgo exercising.

And, you know what. I still believe all that. It's just that I didn't transition very well from company behavior to dieting behavior.

So, Monday night, thanks to Mr. Right, I walked 3.75 miles while vowing to start all over on the walking-every-day-for-21-days habit. And Tuesday I stepped on the scale. Whoa! Ouch! And my overriding thought was that tomorrow I have to do my Shrinking Jeans weigh in and admit that I gained this weight.

So I checked out the mini challenge and started drinking water. I stuck to my points like glue. And after I did my quick 3.5 mile walk, I worked hard on my water garden re-do. All of this while hoping against hope that I wouldn't have to post a shrinking jeans gain. Yep. Being accountable to the Sisterhood most definitely got me back on track.

And somehow, miraculously, today I can say that I weigh .4 of a pound less than I did a week ago at this time. And I'm so grateful that I'm vowing not to look this gift horse in the mouth. I can't imagine how great I'd do if I kept up this effort all week.

Maybe I'll find out.