Eating Habits

Last night was my first workout in nine days.  Nine days!  Wow.  I feel very discouraged right now. Losing weight is hard enough when you have free time to work out.  Trying to focus on losing weight when you are working constantly is nearly impossible.

I skipped weigh-in this past week.  Nothing good could have come of it.  I was exhausted, wiped out, and grumpy.  I worked both Saturday and Sunday, so I have yet to have a break.

It’s time to admit defeat.  Setting goals of losing 2 pounds a week or working out 6 days a week are just silly right now.  I am not saying I give up or that there’s no way to lose weight when you are pressed for time, but it’s got to be slow and sane and in proportion to what I have left to put into it, which isn’t much.

My eating habits have got to change.  Without the time to work out and burn off extra calories, how I eat is going to take center stage.  That is going to take a lot of work.  I have horrible eating habits. Give me soda and junk food, and I’m a happy woman!  Vegetables?  Yuck.  Water?  Gross.

Yeah, I have my work cut out for me.  I wish I had time to think up and run a challenge based on eating better, something to help me focus on it each day.  For now, I’m scrambling to find time to even blog.  I feel disconnected from support when I don’t have time to blog, so I’m glad I was able to find a few minutes today.

Tired and Grumpy

I haven’t abandoned my blog.  Really.  Every time I have started to write something, I have been interrupted.  This week has been, quite frankly, hell, and I’d give anything for it to be Saturday morning and finally my day off!

I am working nearly 70 hours this week between my two jobs.  By now my brain is a fog, my feet are so sore I can barely walk, and let’s just say I just might be a tad bit on the grumpy side.  I really need some solid sleep.

I gave up on even entertaining the notion of workouts this weekend.  Not gonna happen until my day off on Saturday.  Unfortunately, with my all-or-nothing thinking, that has also led to giving up on my eating.  Well, why bother?  If I can’t incorporate one healthy habit, they may as well all go to shit, right?  Yes, that is how my brain functions!  It’s a self-defeating mentality, but one that is hard to shake.

I have managed to log my food this week, at least.  What I’ve been eating may not impress anyone, but at least I tracked it.  My plan is to finally work out on Saturday (no alarm, though, definitely not a morning workout). If I’m working Sunday, I will either work out after work or track my steps/activity at work (it’s at a store, so I’m constantly in motion) and see which way makes the most sense for how I feel that day.

It’s actually been driving me nuts that I can’t work out this week.  I’m looking forward to my schedule easing up just a bit next week so I can get back to at least 4-5 days of exercise for the week.  My exercise ticker has been stuck at 35 minutes all month!  I set a low goal of 600 minutes for May and am determined to reach it.

Back to Zero

You may have noticed that my weight loss ticker has gone from one measly pound to zero.  Big fat zero. *sigh*  Let me explain.

Last week was a lot of eating out, at work and also with my boyfriend, and eating out is a huge trigger for me.  I know there are salads on the menu.  I know there are things like vegetables and grilled chicken and fish.  But who the hell wants that when there are things like hamburgers and french fries that are so much more appealing?

I had a gain this past Saturday, my weigh-in day, and I was tempted to not update my weight ticker, but I want to keep it honest.  Though to be completely honest, my weight loss is now technically in the negative numbers.  I reset my starting weight and am back at square one.

This week is going to be challenging too.  I work two jobs, and I was just asked to work a third night this week.  That makes three 13+ hour days in a row.  How am I supposed to work out or sleep or even think straight?  Ugh.  Not looking forward to it, but I need to plan and get through it.  I need to quit using my crazy work schedule as an excuse to eat crap.  It shows on the scale, and on my butt, loud and clear!

The Next Seven Days

It’s amazing how fleeting motivation can be.  Just a few days ago, I felt energized, revving to go, eager to track my activity points on Weight Watchers, and I bought fruit and vegetables so my food tracker looked more impressive. Today? Whatever, blah, ho-hum.

How does it leave so fast?  And why?  It would be great to have those answers, but bottom line, whether I feel motivated or not, I need to just do it.  Track.  Exercise.  Drink water.

Problem is, I let myself get overwhelmed with the big picture.  I can track points and work out…today!  But then I realize I need to do this tomorrow.  And the next day.  And for days, weeks, months after that, because I have so much weight to lose.  That’s when I feel overwhelmed, and that’s when I start to doubt myself, start to think I can’t keep this up for that long, so why bother?

At a safe one to two pounds a week, it is going to take me most of the rest of this year to lose this weight and reach my goal.  That feels like an eternity.  That is a very long time of analyzing everything I eat and making myself work out when I don’t want to and avoiding eating out because it’s such a trap and a trigger for me.  May as well quit, give up, eat whatever I want, and just forget about it, right?

NO!  I know better.  That’s a stupid way to think.  It’s what was tumbling around in my mind this morning as I got ready for work, though, and suddenly I had what seemed like such a simple idea that just might work: I will focus on one week at at time.  I will focus on nothing but the next seven days. I will set a goal for that week and refuse to look farther than that until I reach that goal.  Then I will move onto the next week.  And I will do that for as many weeks as it takes to reach my goal.

I love charts, tables, lists, etc., so I created a chart with the date for each Saturday from now until the end of the year on it.  I filled in my starting weight, then filled in a goal weight for each week, all the way down to my goal.  Each week, I will focus on doing what I need to do for the next seven days to lose that pound or two pounds.  Then I will move onto the next one.  If I don’t hit that goal one week, then I just need to step it up and work harder the next week.

I can’t put in the work only on days when I feel like it.  I need to make each day count.

Workout: Done!

Being awake before the sun is even up is painful. Being not only awake, but perched on a Spinning bike and pedaling for all I’m worth, sounds crazy but was actually a great way to start the day.  I love my instructor (it helps that she shares my taste in oldies rock ‘n roll), and class flew by. My workout for the day is checked off the list.

I got lazy with tracking my Weight Watchers points yesterday.  Seeing as how I only re-joined about a week or two ago, that’s not good!  It’s a little early to be konking out.  Back at it today and tracking everything.

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