Day 5 & 6 -- Time to Face the Music

Those were the exact words Kali uttered in her office on Thursday evening before forcing me onto the scale.  And six days into this challenge of mine, I decided it was time to weigh in again.

I am happy to report that I'm down 1.8 pounds!!!  Buh-bye 253, hellllooooo 251 (or 251.2 if you want to be techincal, I guess.  Go ahead and do the bow-legged chicken dance for me now.  I know you want to!

Now before I go into what is sure to be a four-paragraph rant about how great it feels and how proud of myself I am, let me first provide a brief sidenoe: I absolutely HATE scales.  I think they're a product of the Devil (right up there with Peeps) and were put on this Earth to drive otherwise happy, healthy, confident women into an early grave.  Think about it for a second -- I'm willing to bet that those old women, you know, the ones rapidly approaching 90, have managed to live as long as they have because they IGNORE the scale.  And let's be honest here for a second -- scales suck.  They derail the most important message Kali has worked to instill in me -- that the number on the scale doesn't matter.

Truthfully, to an extent, it doesn't.  What matters is how I feel, how my clothes fit, how healthy I am.  So, if I happen to go up slightly, but I've been working out hard and eating right, then I'm supposed to just take it in stride.  Suuuurree..... 'cause that's easy to do!

But scales... Oh man!  They present you with a number, which you the proceed to fixate on for the next week.  So for that reason, I detest them.

And yet I find myself weighing in almost daily just to make sure I'm always headed in the right direction -- which is down, for those of you not following along.  Humph.  Catch-22 much?  I don't weigh myself constantly, and I don't know how I'm doing through the week.  I do weigh myself daily and I find myself focusing on whatever number shows up on that dirty device.  I swear I feel like I'm on an episode of the Biggest Loser with a daily weigh-in instead of a weekly one, and without the $100K.  Man, that incentive would totally make this easier to do.  :-\

**OK, sidenote over. Back to patting myself on the back.**

This week, I'm happy I chose to monitor the instrument of my demise.  I found myself taking strength in the fact that I saw the scale slowly decreasing each day.  And that kept me going.

I'm so psyched that for the first time in a few weeks, that number is going DOWN!  Wahoo!!!  I can't tell you how great it is to see your hard work rewarded.  Maybe this week, turning down the burger and fries I was tempted with at lunch on Friday will be a little easier.   

On a different note, can I briefly bitch about how weekends manage to totally sabotage my eating habits and my motivation to get to the gym?  Literally, five seconds ago, Ted asked if I would join him at the gym tomorrow.  On Valentine's Day.  Really????  OK -- three things that come to mind when you say the words Valentine's Day:

1. Chocolate
2. Roses
3. More chocolate

Notice the complete and utter lack of the following words:

1. Gym
2. Running
3. Sweat
4. Exercise
5. Old dude who smells nasty running on the treadmill next to me

Not only is tomorrow Sunday, one of the few days a week I actually take off from the gym, but it's also a holiday.  A HOLIDAY!!!  I'm pretty sure that's like the non-religious equivalent of the Sabbath in the Bible.  It's a rest day.  A do-nothing, no gym, semi-cheat day.

However, the reality of this entire challenge is that I don't have rest days any more.  Boooooo!!!  To meet my goal of 100 pounds in one year, I'll have to lose just over two pounds a week.  That's an excess of 7,000 calories burned/cut out each week!  Just to give you an idea, I usually burn anywhere from 500-600 calories per run.  You thinking what I'm thinking?  Yup -- time to step up my game.

So as much as I'd love to think of weekends (and holidays) like I have in the past, that's simply not going to work from now on.  Instead, I'm tweaking my outlook.  Going forward, weekends/holidays are days in which I have extra time to spend at the gym.  And as for my eating habits -- well, that's going to take some serious control.  I'm a snacker by nature, so when I'm mulling around the house looking for something to do, visiting the cookie jar, or fridge, is no longer an acceptable passtime on a Saturday afternoon.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be shifting my thinking.  Valentine's Day with my hubby will be spent at Planet Fitness.  And instead of eating out amongst the crowds (where I'm bound to stuff my face and easily eat an excess of 1,000 calories by ordering an appetizer, cocktail, and dessert), we'll order in from Chili's.  Nothing says "I love you" like the Lunk Alarm and take-out!

But hey... this is my life!  At least for the next year.  :-\  Trying to reassure myself that it will all be worth it in the end.  Feel free to second that!

Nicole's Daily Menu
Breakfast
Poptars (yes, I know... uck.  They even tasted crappy going down.)
Snack
None (at the hairdresser and didn't pack a snack!)
Lunch
Ham on 100% whole wheat bread with mayo
Multigrain Tostidos chips
Laughing Cow French Onion Spreadable Cheese
Yoplait yogurt
Dinner
To be determined... (looking like chicken parm with some sort of vegie.  Yummy!)

2 comments:

EBD said...

Keep it up, hit the gym, and roses are 0 calories :) I got out there today for a 5k training run. 3/20 is just around the corner! Watching speed skating for inspiration -- wow!

Kali said...

I'm loving what you are writing but I have one word for you from the dietitian world....COLOR:) keep up the good work

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