WEIGHT LOSS CHALLENGE - 7 Weeks-10#'s

[firenze11]

No change in weight this week: 147.5 I've been trying to do this without counting and taking a sort of intuitive eating path. I was reading Nancy Clark's sports nutrition book and trying to eat right but I'm not so great at it. I think I'm going to start logging calories tomorrow just to keep myself in the right direction.

I really want to be at 130/135ish and strong when spring rolls around so if I get serious about it now I can make it happen.

on an off topic note: my laptop has been ticking as I write this. Any ideas as to what could cause it? My hard drive is doing ok, I'm pretty sure. Oh well, maybe it's scolding me for not being more proactive about my weight loss (tsk, tsk, tsk) hehe, kidding!!

[Over50Newbie]

Hi ladies,

I am very sad right now because we had to have our sick cat euthanized today. He spent the weekend in "kitty hospital" but he was just too sick so we made the very tough decision to put him down.

He was a very sweet, gentle soul and I miss him. His name was Snuggles.

So I haven't been journaling my food or exercise for the past few days. I also haven't been making great food choices either. I haven't gotten on the scale, but I'm sure that if I did, it would just make me sadder, so I'm not going to.

The good news is that I exercised a little on Saturday, swam on Sunday, and did a tiny bit of cardio today.

So I plan on making better choices food-wise tomorrow, and get back to journaling my food and exercise soon.

But for right now, all I want to do is cry...

I will be fine, I just need to have some time to grieve for my little friend.

So I guess that is about all for now. Thanks for listening.

Lynette

P.S. I also like the idea of a new thread every Monday - that would be a little more manageable for me.

[Tuckervill]

I'm so sorry about your kitty, Lynette. Of course give yourself time to grieve the little life.

But all is not lost even if you didn't eat well or exercise. You can start again.

I've been thinking about this a lot, lately. A health plan has to work through whatever else goes on in life, doesn't it? I started thinking about this with regard to PMS, when I get very carb hungry and emotional. This is going to happen every month for however many years I have left--maybe 5 or 6, right? I can't let a predictable thing derail my efforts towards a healthy body every 3 weeks! I can be a little more forgiving of myself, and allow my focus to drift to other things, because I know it's only temporary.

But what about the unpredictable things? If I don't predict that there will be unpredictable things, and figure out how to handle them wrt my eating/exercise ahead of time, I am setting myself up to fail. So during those times when things are going well (no PMS, no crises), I should try to habituate myself to the best habits.

I'm trying to predict what I can do when baseball season begins in earnest starting in February. (I'm president of the league and work basically full time for no pay from February to August.) I can't let my eating and exercise get out of balance during that time. I'm also trying to predict what the effects of dark gray skies will have on my psyche for the next 3 months. I'm taking the boot camp class again so that should help, but what about my eating?

So, grief is a huge burden to bear, and it's understandable that we would get derailed from the plan. But it's only temporary, and if the common thread in the thought process is to always stay near enough to hop back on, there's really no harm done. Just keep going.

Karen

[Over50Newbie]

Karen,

Thank you, you are so right. So I am going to take a few days to grieve, but I am not going to lose sight of my overall goal.

It is important to remember that unpredictable things like this will happen again and again in my life, and as you already said, I will need to "hop right back on" the plan if I get derailed.

Thank you again - your words are wise...

Lynette

[Flybye]

Tuck and Over50-

You are both right on track about the unpredictable stuff - the times we just get smacked in the face with something we didn't see coming. Those times require extra attention to keeping up with the exercise and dieting. I know personally, when I have let my self slide by eating more carbohydrates and exercising less, I feel worse physically. Top that off with a good dose of stress or grief, and I guess we have actually done more damage than help to the whole process of getting through what we are going through. Like adding insult to injury or that two wrongs don't make a right. I hadn't really thought about the unpredictable stuff tripping us up - I guess that it is because until reading through your posts and thinking through things, I would have done the same old thing I usually do - blow it under stress. Now I have a plan to have a plan!!! Thanks!

In other news, I forgot to weigh yesterday - so here are the results:

11/5 158.2
11/8 156.4
11/12 155.2
11/19 153.4
11/26 Up from Thanksgiving- don't have the #'s
12/4 152.4
Total loss so far this challenge: 5.8 Pounds
I'd like to lose 4.2 more - I only have 21 days to do that in - that's a little more than 1.3 pounds per week! Yikes!

[Pedal Wench]

Sorry about Snuggles. What a sweet name for a kitty. You do need to take time to grieve, and exercise only when you're ready to pick back up.

Regarding diet derailleurs... I think that if you have a good base of what you eat, what you don't eat, then even when life throws you a curve ball, you know how to deal with it. I just don't eat fried foods, creamy foods, white bread or white flour. So, no matter what's going on, I make healthy choices. I'll have fast food, but it won't be fried or on a white bun. Then it can't be that bad. Have your carb-cravings, but make it a sweet potato. Or low-fat/salt popcorn. Just my 2 cents...

[ibcycling]

Hey ladies. Sorry to be MIA but my puter is down w/a bad video card and dd spilled water on dh's and fried the motherboard. I'm using a Palm right now and it sucks.
Weight is holding steady at 161. My cold is mostly gone so I'm going to ride this morning. Need to focus on eating right.
Have a great week everyone.

Lora