day 44: holiday 6: how am i doing

Today is the last day I am staying with my family back home and although they have made considerable efforts trying to guilt me into staying a few more days, I think I need some staycation metime before heading back to serve the people in the new year. So, how’d I do this week?

Well, I don’t get to reckon with the scale until Wednesday morning, but I can speak to the extent to which I hit the goals I made for myself.

First Goal: Points Boosting

I went for a run 4-6.5 km run everyday not including Christmas, which I had planned for, and today, when I didn’t feel like running and went for an hour long walk. I think I can run daily, but it isn’t really sustainable. It’s not like I can’t do it, it’s just boring as sin. Which is a saying that does not make any sense whatsoever. I need to mix up the running with some elliptical-ising or other cardioing or I will give up completely soon.

Goal Two: Sensible Breakfasts

I did good on this goal most days, with one notable exception - I look forward to getting back to my dull, nutritious peer-pressure-free breakfast routine.

Goal 3: Fill Up on the Good Stuff at Parties

Score one for veggies and shrimp, I made good choices at family gatherings this holiday season.

4th Goal: BackPocketed QuickTrak Guide

I had intended to keep my quicktrak guide in my backpocket all week to make jotting down point gains and losses easy – I totally did not do this at all. Not even once. It probably could have prevented some shortbread snackery, but totally didn’t as it was lollygagging upstairs in my old room.

5th Goal: Day-to-dayness

This is more of a long-term goal than a holiday week goal…or is it? I didn’t fantasize about being thinner whilst eating a pint of cookie dough ice cream this week, so maybe I did achieve this goal.

6th Goal: Blogging

Umm this one is kind of obvious. I like blogging, a lot, but don’t always have pithy or susbstanceful things to say. Hence the name “barely digested”: here you receive my barely digested thoughts about my weight loss journey over the choppy sea of motivation and willpower.

I am hoping to have maintained this week. It wasn’t all jogs and vegetables – I totally went to an all you can eat sushi buffet with my family for lunch today and forseriously raided the cookie tin a LOT this week, so we’ll see come judgment day. I realize that calling it “judgment day” or “my day of reckoning” doesn’t positively connote, but I have to allow for my bitter sarcastic side to reign from time to time.  ; )

day 42: (holiday 4) the answer to life, the universe and everything

Deep Thought noted the simple answer to the Ultimate Question is 42. Apparently, the question was more important. If I lose 42 lbs I will be in the realm of my healthy BMI. Coincidence? Probably.

More family and more food today. I am the sort of person who gets annoyed/irritated/anxious/stressedout if forced so socialize too often. (Weirdly enough I am kind of irritated from blogging even though this form of communication involves me sitting in the study, alone, hiding from my family.) Anyways, I took some me time and went for a run at the gym today (4 miles!) . Running/exercise/alonetime is not only good for pointsboosting – it rocks a stress relief, if only for a little while.

Getting there (to the gym) is the hardest part. If you haven’t pointsboosted yet this holiday season try it out, you might end up with more Christmas spirit AND more points to add to the vault. (To be immediately withdrawn to spend on shortbread. Mmmm shortbread.)

I am going to go hide and read somewhere.

day 41: holiday 3: they’re on to me

Uncle (from across the room): “Are you leaning?”

Me: “hmm…?”

Uncle: “Are you leaning.”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Uncle: “You’re either getting taller or leaning.”

Me: *slightly less puzzled face*

Uncle: “You’re face. It’s you know either taller or… “

Aunt1: “OH! He’s saying she’s lost weight!”

Aunt2: “That’s what’s different! She HAS lost weight.”

All other conversation halts and moves to the new hot topic of discussion: me.

“Oh yes definitely leaner-”

“She IS looking better-”

“What’d he say?”

“Oh, she’s lost weight.”

“She HAS lost weight.”

This went on for like a solid 5 minutes.

Serious.

Soooooooo awkward.

Last time I was seen by the extended family I was in a bridesmaid dress that would have looked lovely on a 6″7 stick-thin amazon type, so they noticed I’ve dropped a few.

Why is it so embarrassing when people call you out on you weight loss? They are (generally) trying to acknowledge/complement you and yet it made me blush to the max. The above completely true scenario was funny, but nonetheless embarrassing. Probably something to do with acknowledging loss means acknowledging I was bigger, I guess eh? What do you do when people notice your weight loss?

Christmas dinner was hella-delicious and I went for a nice walk with my brother and his girlfriend afterward to check out the Christmas lights. All and all an awesome day.

Happy Christmas!

day 40: holiday 2: score one for sugar

I posted my holiday strategy the other day which involved, as a second pillar, eating sensible breakfasts to avoid front-loading all my calorie consumption in the morning. So I started today off with a cinnamon bun.

Shitshitshit.

My dad went out to Tim Horton’s to pick up some coffee (and tea for me) and brought home cinnamon buns. I resisted for like maybe 3 seconds, dove in and enjoyed/became irritated with myself. I realize we are supposed to allow for things but it wasn’t something I had intended to allow for. I feel like I need backup but am 10 days away from a meeting. Hence the blogging Christmas eve.

Maybe now is a good time to remind myself why I started WW…

I started gaining weight during my second year of university. I moved out of residence, was studying (i.e., sitting, eating and reading) a lot and working several jobs to pay the bills. Grad school made my weight gain reach whole new heights. Err…widths. About a year ago I started to notice new stretch marks, took a look at my life and realized I was in a rut on several levels. I wasn’t taking care of myself or my apartment, I sure as hell wasn’t dating and I hadn’t really looked at myself in the mirror in awhile. So I joined a gym! Worked out solidly for 3 months….and then fell back into old habits, regaining what I had lost and adding on some additional pounds for good measure. And by good measure I of course mean bigger pants. Then, just over 40 days ago I took another glance at my life and realized I wasn’t doing anything I wanted: I was dating someone completely not for me just because he thought I was worthwhile, was spending all my spare time working on a zine project I didn’t really care about just because some of my friends wanted me to – just generally ignoring myself and avoiding creating and following my own goals whilst helping my friends achieve theirs.

I’ve read about other people hitting “rock bottom”. I didn’t have that experience. I just became fed up and made the decision to change. Change what I ate, how I live and who I spend time with. Eating for comfort isn’t all that comforting and dating someone who called me beautiful didn’t make me feel beautiful. I joined weight watchers as part of that change, I think. So, although I ate that cinnamon bun for breakfast I made smart choices throughout the afternoon and evening (and went on a 6.5 km run!).

Tomorrow (err Today at this point) I am intending to allow myself to use many of those additional weekly points and I’m not going to be irritated with myself for eating the foods I have been avoiding because it’s Christmas and WW is about enjoying yourself, living your life and being happy with your choices.

Merry Christmas and best of luck with your goals this holiday season.

day 39: holiday 1

Word up readers. Err…like reader. The first day of being away has gone well. After a four hour train ride that took six hours, I arrived in my hometown. I slept in till 10:00ish today, found and hit up the gym (which happens to be inside a grocery store) to get in some pointsboosting, picked up some veggies and yogurt so I have the option to make good choices and have stayed on target thus far. Woot!

I am very excited to be away from work – not only because of the break from serving the people, but also because Christmas time seems to be try-to-fatten-your-colleagues-for-the-coming-winter-months time or like pawn-off-delicious-baked-goods season. On Friday alone I received: 1 piece of carrot cake, 1 giant box of chocolates, 1 bag of baked goods AND 1 bag of fudge – I gave most of it away and chucked the cake (the person who gave it to me is creepy and I am fairly sure she would kidnap me and keep me in her basement if given the opportunity). This was preceded by our “End of Calendar Year Team Networking Event” luncheon on Thursday. I skipped the department wide breakfast Friday morning which was also wrought with goodies.

I hope that in the New Year my co-workers will have resolved to bake less.

day 35: x-mas strategy or, NO X-S

It’s not exactly fitting that the time of year we celebrate the birth of Jesus is wrought with enough temptation and subsequent gluttony to cause your clothes to be not exactly fitting, but that’s the way we roll here in Canada. I head home sometime Saturday for a week of staying with my parents. There I will have less control over the food that is made and will be tempted by many a delicious snack. So, it’s fairly important that I have a strategy in mind to keep my goals in mind (so I don’t go completely off program, again). Here it goes…

Points Boosting: I find that exercising really helps me to keep my weight watching goals as a priority – whenever I start to slack with the exercise, I fall into old eating patterns. (Not exercising was the catalyst for my last adventure in being off program – granted that was due to injury, but still.) And exercise helps me stay positive, so the first pillar of my x-mas strategy (hereinafter “NO X-S”) is to exercise it up over the holidays. I am a member of Goodlife, which means I can go to any Goodlife with my membership. There just happens to be one in my home town. I called them up and have jotted down their hours of operation – they are open every day but the 25th, so I am going to head there every day they are open for a run. On Monday I think I will hit up the 10:30 Bodyflow class, too. I am debating about taking Christmas day completely off, or using the exercise bike at home.

Breakfast: I figure working out in the morning will help me avoid using up too many points on decadent breakfasts (I am going to be on flex this week), except on Christmas morning, when I fully intend to have glorious pancakes drowning in maple syrup. So, the second pillar NO X-S is to stick to whole grain cereal + fruit for breakfast (3 pointsish) or maybe a vegetable omelette if I feel like I need some protein or variation.

Parties: I believe I only have to face off with two parties while I am back home (note: NO X-S does not include New Year’s Eve, that requires it’s own plan): Christmas day, and then an extended family Christmas celebration, both of which are occurring at my parents’ place. I tend to be very involved for preparing food for both occasions, so I am just going to ensure there is some WW-friendly food for me to fill up on. I am still going to eat sausage rolls, other appetizing appetizers and turkey with gravy, I am just going to do so in moderation. I like eating fistfuls of appetizers, but that fills more of an emotional hunger than an actual one (especially if I actually fill up on veggies and other core foods first). The third pillar of NO X-S is to ensure there are WW-friendly options available at family gatherings and to fill up on those foods.

Back Pocket QuickTrak: 4th pillar of my plan is to keep my QuickTrak plan in my backpocket at all times, as a reminder to stay on program and so I can write down what I consume shortly after I eat it.

Day-to-Day-ness: One of the other reasons I fell off track last week, aside from not exercising, was I started thinking VERY long term, like how awesome it’ll be in the summer to be able to ride my bike to the beach and play volleyball (instead of bus-ing it due to outofshapeness) and things like that. I stopped taking it a day at a time and when I stopped that, I completely stopped following program. Long term weight loss is about making a series of small, good choices. Those choices add up and after awhile they manifest into a lifestyle change – but it does not and cannot happen all at once. I have to be patient, diligent and keep my goals short term and reachable if I am going to be successful. So, day-to-day-ness is the 5th pillar of NO X-S. (No excess daydreaming!)

Blog: The 6th and final pillar is to update this blog whilst I am at home – when I am blogging about my goals I am thinking of my goals (funny that). Even now, for instance, I was totally planning to skip out on the gym tonight and blogging made me pack my gym bag and I’m about to go! Woot!

Weigh-In Update: I am down 1 lb from last weigh-in (2 weeks ago). I was expecting to have gained because of my week of debauchery and programlessness, but running and water consumption seem to have helped – I just have to work on making these things more of a routine than a chore. So, I have lost 8 lbs in 5 weeks. Woop de do, some would say; I, however, am fairly pleased and look forward to continuing my slow and steady progress.

 

If you have any other X-Mas Strategies or Tips let me know!

off track

Pulling a back muscle turned out to be a catalyst/excuse to accidently? go completely off program for just over a week. I had  a pint of ice cream in one sitting, ate out, stopped counting points, stopped boosting points, skipped the meeting – you name it and I did it, all whilst happily? ignoring program.

I finally got my head out of my ass yesterday, went for a jog at the gym and grocery shopping and am finally back on track and feeling less sketchy about myself. Ran again today and am counting points and whatnot. I think I am going to switch meetings – my crappy team leader is retiring, BUT there is this “better backs” class at the gym I go to at the same time as that meeting, so I think I am going to head to the (grossly overpopulated) lunch meeting.