Month: April 2019

Measures of Success

Even after taking Monday off, this was a long week.  I’m more than ready for the weekend!

I made some important changes this week, took some needed steps.  It was a busy, hectic week, though, with something going on pretty much every evening, and barely any time to breathe.  I am looking forward to the weekend and doing some recharging, reprogramming, getting my head ready for a killer week next week.

It’s funny, I have been moaning and lamenting about how off-track I have been, how I am going in the wrong direction on the scale, yet just a few days ago, my husband told me I look great and that he would be happy if I didn’t lose another ounce.  He was quick to tell me, “It’s your body, though”, and that he loved me either way.

Hmmm.  Well, of course I am happy that he likes me the way I am right now.  Who wouldn’t?  But I know that even with the weight I have managed to keep off, I am not at a healthy weight.  So not losing another ounce is not an option.  Sorry, dear husband!

I am not aiming to be an Olympic athlete or have zero body fat or launch a lucrative fitness modeling career here.  But I do want to be healthy.  I want to look in a mirror and truly like what I see.  I want to be strong.  I want to feel fit.  I want the clothes in my closet to fit again!

I know the scale can’t tell me the whole story, so I am only loosely basing my goal on the scale.  I need to spend some time this weekend setting goals that are not related to any number on the scale, so I have other ways to measure my progress and success, based on what will make me happy and what will make me feel like I finally did it.

A Good Weekend

Does the weekend have to be over already?  I took an extra day off to enjoy Easter with the kids, and to celebrate my birthday.  It was a much-needed break and a beautiful weekend.

The weather was perfect, and our entire crew ended up at the park for most of one day.  These days, when it’s commonplace to see teenagers doing nothing but gawking mindlessly at their cell phones, it was so nice to see them running around, being active, having fun.  So maybe we won’t be scooped up any time soon by sports team scouts!  Who cares?  We had a good time.

My stepkids said their stomachs hurt from laughing so hard.  I even got a headache from laughing and had to round up some aspirin before getting back into the game.  When our own mad skills are that entertaining even to ourselves, well, that’s when you know you are good!  Ha ha.  Okay, maybe “good” is stretching the truth on our athletic prowess.  It didn’t stop us.  We jumped from sport to sport, and we even came back to the park after dinner, heading home only when it got dark.

Everyone slept quite well after such an active day.  And the next morning, when my eyes fluttered open and I tried to stretch…I quickly realized just how active we had been!  Every muscle, tendon, and joint in my body was sore and stiff.  I gingerly rolled over to put my arms around my husband, and he said he was sore too.  We joked about barely being able to move and how odd parts of our bodies were sore, like my forearms.  How does that even happen?

We deserved a good, fun, relaxing weekend, all of us.  So many weekends, my husband and I have to dry tears, answer tough questions, things we can’t possibly explain about why other people do the selfish things they choose to do.  So many weekends, we have to try so hard to heal wounds inflicted by others, do our best to scrape out garbage dumped into their heads and help the kids see that the world doesn’t need to be constantly drowning in drama and negativity.  Instead of being forced to clean up the damage done by others, it was nice to just enjoy being together and laughing and having fun.

I didn’t even realize until just now that I don’t have a single picture from our weekend. When we were at the park, my phone was in the truck, and I forgot it was there.  Come to think of it, none of us even thought about glancing at a phone the entire day.  I would be disappointed about not having any pictures, but honestly, I like it better knowing we were all too busy having fun to bother with anything else.

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Back to WW

The past few weeks, I have been spinning my wheels, starting then stopping, trying to move forward and slamming back down onto my butt.  I would start the day with such high hopes and intentions, have a nice and healthy breakfast, log my food until maybe lunchtime, then gobble down enough junk food to feed a thriving village.  I would work out one evening, beam with pride, then skip three.

Why?  Why is this suddenly so hard for me again?  Every bad decision, every skipped workout, every extra calorie, is pushing me further and further away from my goal.  And I had been so close!  GAH!

A friend of mine had been talking about rejoining Weight Watchers, and I sounded like a commercial as I encouraged her to do so.  I told her the points system encourages you to think about the big picture, on health and balance and good choices vs. restriction.  I told her you can’t beat the accountability of weighing in, face-to-face, or the support of meeting people who are sharing the same journey.

I have been stuck in all-or-nothing thinking.  If I am going to work out, I need to be training for a marathon.  If I am going to watch what I eat, I need to severely restrict my calories.  If I am going to lose weight, I need to do it at turbo speed.  Piling that kind of pressure on myself ended up in a massive blow-out and burnout, then flailing around, trying uselessly to get back on the same worn-out path, but landing in a ditch.  I kept stupidly trying to return to habits that were failing me, but damnit, they used to work!

I nearly slapped myself in the forehead when I realized I needed to listen to my own advice!  Why have I been resisting my own words for so long?

Yesterday, I signed up for 3 months of Weight Watchers.  I need to shift my focus from calories to the quality and health value of what I am eating.  For now, I need to focus on just moving my body, not trying to kill some challenge or beat a running PR or rack up a certain number of minutes or miles.

For right now, I need to clear my head of competitiveness, deadlines, dates, anything that adds to the pressure I already put on myself in all areas of my life.  I just want to get back to doing what is sensible, healthy, and positive for my body.  I had to admit I am sucking at doing that on my own, so hey, Weight Watchers…time to do your thing!

I have a 3-day weekend and a birthday to celebrate, so I am going to officially start WW on Tuesday.  I am already logged into the app and tracking my food, getting a feel for what has changed, how many points my usual foods are, etc., so I can hit the ground running on Tuesday morning.

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I am going to train my cat to do this 🙂

I am actually sort of looking forward to it.  It will be odd for a while, getting used to tracking points instead of calories, but it will force me to make better decisions and really evaluate the value of what I am putting into my body.  And that is exactly what I need to be doing right now: resetting my mindset, getting into a mentality of taking care of myself, not punishing myself.  Getting back to a positive place so I can finally move forward again.

Look Who’s Back!

I don’t think I have even been gone long enough yet for Psycho to properly miss me.  Luckily for her, Blogger has been an uncooperative jerk, and after one technical difficulty after another, I gave up.  Either people are not receiving the link, or they can’t comment, or Blogger refuses to notify me that anyone has commented…you name it, it’s not working.

So…ta-da…I’m back!

I decided to make some updates around here instead.  I toyed with the idea of changing my blog title, but the “sparkle” part has significance and sentimental value to me, so it is one thing that will stay the same.

I saw this on a notebook yesterday, and I thought it was perfect:

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I have stumbled the past few weeks, all right, and I have set myself back several steps.  But the time to moan, whine, and sob about that is long over.  It’s time to get back to dancing.

It’s important to learn from our mistakes and stumbles, and I have done a lot of thinking about that.  I am quite good at taking care of others.  I have always been, and will always be, there for my husband, my stepkids.  I am only one call away from my family, and I will drop everything to help a friend I care about.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I have no intentions of changing that.  But I need to stop letting myself be one of those things I am willing to drop to help someone else.

Last night I took some time for a face mask, and I deep-conditioned my hair and painted my nails.  It was nice, just taking those small moments for myself.  I also sat down with my planner and scheduled my workouts for the week.  I have a few new workout DVDs to try out this week, which is exciting because I’m easily amused 🙂

This morning I felt the need to sheepishly explain to my husband that I am back on track today and that I’m not just giving up.  He looked at me like I was nuts and said, “I never thought you were giving up.”  Well, then he’s had far more faith in me lately than I’ve had in myself!  But this week I feel like I am starting from a more peaceful place.  This is just my new starting line, that’s all.  I am ready to stand back up, move on, and get back to dancing.  I hope you’re still with me!

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My All

I am so excited!  My walk-in closet project is about 80% finished.  I can’t officially complete it until I reach goal weight and do the final clean-out of clothes from the dresser and closet, so I know exactly what I am working with and how I want everything organized, but it’s come a long way already.

It’s so nice to not have to dig for things, to just open a drawer or pull something from one of the baskets.  Everything is neat, organized, tidy, the way I like it!  And don’t worry, I took “before” pictures so I can post closet makeover pictures when I am finished.

This weekend, I asked my husband to help me hang some pretty jewelry organizers I bought to go with the other organizers in the closet.  He has a much better chance of hanging something straight, since I seem to be rather challenged in that department.  I will swear something is perfectly straight, then stand back and wonder what drunk person just hung that crooked mess.  When he whipped out a ruler and a level along with the drill, I knew he meant business, ha ha.  Suffice it to say the new jewelry organizers look great…and are perfectly straight!

I’m looking forward to getting 100% back on track this week and seeing how big a dent I can make in the scale before weigh-in on Saturday.  I have a new workout DVD to try out this week.  It got great reviews, so I can’t wait to check it out and review it for you guys.

The kids were home with us this past weekend, and my husband told me this morning that they are excited and proud of my weight loss and how well I am doing.  It made me smile and pumped me up for a great week.  Definitely time to get back at this 100% and show them (and myself) just what I can do when I give it my all.

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