What a week!

Insane. 

If I had to pick one word to describe this week, it would be: insane. Work has been crazy, life outside of work has been crazy. Everything. Crazy. I guess it's to be expected, since the holidays are quickly approaching. It's hard to believe they are just under 3 weeks away. 

Once again, I survived Thanksgiving eating with flying colors. I imagine the fact my future MIL is also point counting has a little something to do with it. But I made sure to work my ass off so that I had enough activity points to hit Turkey Day plus the Raven's game with ease. I weighed in that week on Friday, the day after (bold, I know!) because we were headed on vacation with friends for the weekend which I knew would be an all out binge fest. So, I weighed in and lost .2. Okay, okay, a loss is a loss... and a loss over Thanksgiving was something to be happy with. Really, I just wanted to break even. This puts me down 5lbs, with 10 left to go to get back to goal. I want to hit goal by wedding day - 2/8. I think it's do-able. That's about 10 weeks away. 

Over the weekend we went to the mountain house with about 6 of our friends. We had a fantastic time. It was relaxing, great to get away with good people and there was snow on the ground. We only left the house once to pick up a birthday cake for Neale's surprise. Between drinking and snacking, I'm fairly sure I ate my fair share of points - and then some. By the time I came home Sunday night, I no longer wanted to eat. Starting Monday, I had the worst carb hangover. I was tired, bloated, cranky, puffy in the face. It was upsetting. Why do I do that to myself? Not only can my body no longer handle it, neither can my ulcerative colitis. I think this was my final wake up call that I just can't do unhealthy anymore. 

By Wednesday, I was back to feeling close to normal. It was Neale's birthday! We had a fabulous dinner at The Food Market in Hampden - if you've never been, you HAVE to go. Absolutely delicious drinks, comfort food and desserts. While we were there, Justin Tucker (kicker for the Raven's) came in! How exciting! My first Raven sighting. I could hardly contain myself. 

Yesterday I received my Christmas Gift. I know it's early... but I've been planning on this gift to myself for almost a year. A brand new digital SLR. I'll be posting pictures more frequently. I can't wait to get back in to shooting. 

Tomorrow it's back to the scales. Again, for the second week in a row, I'm really praying I just break even. Although I am expecting to see a gain. I haven't been on my own scale all week - which is for the better. Tomorrow morning, I'll go weigh in, get back on track with the meeting, not beat myself up over what I see and move on. I still have 9 weeks to continue to work hard to get those last 10 lbs off. I've done it before, I can definitely do it again! 

Creating new habits

The focus this month is to move more. Not necessarily adding 30 minutes of exercise, but working to achieve more time "moving".

Every Thursday is our office day. Every other day of the week we are on the road, out and about. Office days are full of meetings and paperwork, which often means we are sitting in front of computers until we go downstairs for lunch, then coming right back up to them. It's awful.

So, today I decided I was going to move 5 minutes every hour. I would walk down the steps to the first floor and come back up (we are on the third). I did it at 10:30 and come back and told me co-workers. We went downstairs for lunch at 11:45 and after lunch, a few announced they wanted to walk with me. So, four of us walked down to the basement, up to the 5th floor and back to the third. I was really surprised that friends wanted to do it with me! What a pleasant surprise.

What was hard for you this week?

While I weighed in on Monday, I didn't have time to stay for the meeting. I think that's what keeps you honest with Weight Watchers. Sitting through the meeting with other people, talking about successes and failures, how well you did and what you did to get through the hard times. I also can remember second guessing eating something that was bad because I didn't want to admit it during next weeks meeting.

I returned today to listen to the meeting for the week. It started off with the question - what was the hardest thing for you over the past week? For me, admitting it was time to come back. For others - exercising, a 60th wedding anniversary party and other general life things. Then we went on to talk about others forms of motivation. Self talk is a big one for me and I shared that I often have to remind myself that sometimes what I'm about to eat really isn't a special treat. Like, tomorrow for halloween, I don't need to eat 5 mini Snickers, because honestly, I can eat them any time of year. Or on Thanksgiving, I can make stuffing every Friday if I want. No need to gorge myself with it on one day.

Lately, Kara (Neale's cousin) and I have been motivating each other by finding motivational sayings on Pinterest and either Instagraming them or texting them to each other. Every day is it's own challenge and each day it should get easier. It's so important to remember the WHYS. Why am I doing this? Why do I need a little extra help? Why do I struggle with food? Each question has it's own answer.

I'm in day 2 of the Assessment phase for my Active Link and took Body Combat tonight. Usually I take the 30 minute version which is tough enough - so tonight I tried the hour. I love Jacob, the teacher. He's got a sense of humor and is super motivating. I survived the hour long session of Combat and look forward to taking it again next week. It feels so good to be back in my routine - and succeeding at making good choices!

Fresh Starts

The best thing about Monday's is they often mean a fresh start for anything and everything. It's the beginning of the work week - you may have gone nuts over the weekend resulting in the beginning of getting back on track - or just decided to start something new.

For me, this past Monday was kind of admitting defeat. To step back a few, I bought my wedding dress in June where I was a slim 141 pounds. After I had gotten engaged, I immediately started watching what I was eating, stuck to 3 meals a day, got in good amounts of cardio and was in a great place mentally and even with my health! This past weekend, I had to endure a Patient First visit and after glancing over at the scale, I have apparently gained 12 pounds in the last 6 weeks (148-160). Weighing in at 160. I couldn't believe it! I know I had some fun over the last few months, but I honestly didn't think it was 19 pounds of fun from when I bought my dress!

So, Monday I immediately marched myself back into Weight Watchers and signed back up. I had made LifeTime in 2006 and have always had a little weight fluctuation, but never that high. I was mad at myself, I felt defeated and knew I could do better, but didn't know why. But, when I stepped on their scale, I only weighted 156. Hey! That's a 4 pound difference from the day before. Not ideal, but definitely made me feel a little bit better. This time around, I also bought the Active Link which is Weight Watchers new tool to calculate Activity Points. I. CAN. DO THIS. I've done it before, I can do it again.

It always seems like the first week is the hardest, and this week I can't calculate any activity points since the Active Link is in it's Assessment phase. So, I'm trying my hardest to stay on point each day.

So, here we are, back at it again - I've got the working out thing down... now it's time to lock in the eating so that 102 days from now, I can rock that dress with pride!

80% of your body, is made in the kitchen.

This statistic is no joke people and I've learned that the hard way...

This past week was Christmas which meant 11 days off of work, family in town, gatherings around big meals and lots and LOTS of baked goods. I entered the week being 45 days into my TurboFire Challenge - about half way through so I felt like I had done SO well that to let go a little bit would be okay.

Nope. Not the case one bit.

Even though I stayed within my calorie limit most days, what I ate was not quality. Not one bit. White bread, yeast rolls. Chocolate chip cookies. Yellow cake with milk chocolate frosting. Cookie dough batter. Ice cream. Wine. Chocolates.....

And yes... the chocolates....my family gets chocolates from a local company, and around Christmas they come in a 2lb box. We've gotten so good at learning the designs on top of the chocolates that 90% of the box we can figure out and pick through. On the last night of my binge, I went as far to take the chocolates we didn't know and eat half to discover what was inside. Seriously? Disgusting.

I am so, so upset with myself. I have had a major set back... my pants are tight again. I feel bloated... and gross. But this has been a good reminder that I am only human - and it was a real learning process to how quality food impacts our bodies and how we feel. I'm sleeping poorly, I feel pale and over all just swollen. I'm disappointed in myself.

Except now it's time to move on from my pity party and make better choices. I've prepped a few good meals to have in the house, along with healthy snacks. I've made a list and will be headed to the store tomorrow. All junk has been eliminated and it's time to move on. I can not fall into the habit of "tomorrow I'll restart". No. Today is the day to restart. It's time to take charge and do something about it!

Holiday Woes

I don't do well with the holidays. Period.

I don't know when it started, why it started or how it started, but Christmas is a time of year where I end up being really..... sad. Take today for instance. I go into the Giant to purchase food for dinner tonight. Neale is coming over and we are going to check out the lights on 34th Street. While I'm in the Giant, Christmas music is playing in the background and its slow - just instrumental - but slow. As I walk down the bread isle, I come upon an older gentleman. Hunched over, without a wedding band, trying to decide what kind of bread to buy. He just looks so... alone.

Then my brain starts working over time - how do people celebrate the holidays alone? Will I look like that some day? Will Neale? It then moves to my grandmother, how she is now in a home, for the holidays. She won't come to our house for dinner like the last 30 years, instead she'll sit in a home with other people that have Alzheimer's  I smile as I think that maybe she doesn't even know it's a Holiday. But, it's Nanny. She will always know it's a holiday in her heart.

In a small way it bothers me when I mention this to people and they look at me with that face of "You're just being silly..." and say "Whyyyyyy?!?!" I want to look at them and say - because it's my feelings. It's how the holiday makes me feel, and you can't do anything about it, so don't judge me like I only feel this way for attention. Most times I don't even say anything.

So here we are upon another holiday... trying to smile and make it through. If anything, at least I have 11 days of break to look forward to. Right?

Marathon training - and your relationship

Yesterday while completing my last long run in this phase of marathon training I came to a realization. I mean, I run on a trail in the middle of nowhere so I have a lot to think about while I'm out there chugging away.

This time around, Neale is training for his first marathon and I am training for my 7th. Lucky #7 so I call it. Simply because this is my last ever, full marathon. People will tell me - oh, you say that all the time! - but really, this is it. My body just can't take much more of it anymore, not to mention the time commitment. I'm really tired of giving up one day of my weekend to run long distances, nap and be groggy for the rest of the day. I'm also secretly hoping I can plan a wedding and a family in the somewhat near future - and by that I mean within the next 10 years before my child rearing days are over :)

But, Neale and I don't run together. I'm fully confident if we did, we'd kill each other. Well, more like I'd kill him. He runs at a different pace, he's very motivating, however, running has always been a very solitary event for me. So really, I don't want his advice. He doesn't want mine. We won't listen to each other and what it really comes down to, we have different goals. He wants to race his 26.2 miles without seeing anything or even stopping to take a cup of water, while I don't mind doing a run/walk, saving my legs and simply.... finishing.

So yesterday I came to the conclusion that really, just like traveling  marathon training will make or break your relationship with your significant other. You will learn lots of things about each other - such as one person may complain ALL the time, the other person may experience pain you've never experienced so you really don't know how to help them, one of you may be more stubborn then rocks and you need to invest in getting your friends to talk to them about things like - nutrition or needing new shoes because we all know - if it comes from you - they won't listen - but it if comes from someone else - it's got to be true!

At the end of these 4 months, Neale and I have certainly learned that we do many things very well together all the time! However one thing we don't do well together is... exercise. Which is funny considering we met at the gym - but really, we have come to agree that we both have different goals in driving our exercise.

And at the end of the day, this is OK. We still maintain that common understand that health and fitness is essential to our lives and we will still support each other in our goals.

It's a good thing this is my last marathon, because I honestly think Neale will never run again when this is over!