Day 7: A Week Already !

 

This picture will continue to be the header of my blog until I'm able to establish some better habits. I originally wrote "good habits" but I'm trying to stay away from negativity - so things are not "bad" vs "good". How about good vs better for positivity !

Today was another frosty morning. It was 22 when I woke up just before 7 am. I probably look ridiculous, but on mornings like this I wear my big puffy white coat over my nightgown when I go outside to feed the stray cats .. lol ! If anyone happens to see me they probably call me the old crazy cat lady, but I'm warm and that's all that matters !

How is it Day 7 of Nutrisystem 2024 already ? It has gone by quickly and from a food perspective, I am doing very well ! I have not cheated once ! I'm proud of my effort and committed to stay strong and get this weight off ! I haven't weighed myself in the past couple of days because I don't want that to become a daily habit. When you first start trying to lose weight it's natural to see a significant drop in the early days. You're losing the water weight .. the easy stuff ! When it comes time to burn off that body fat it takes longer and the progress will be slower. That being said, I ended up weighing myself this morning. The scale read 263.4 ! That's 5 pounds already ! I will take that all day long, with the understanding that expecting 5 pounds a week is NOT realistic ! When I first started Nutrisystem I weighed in the morning of Day 8 for my official "first week" results, so I will do that tomorrow too.

I still need to put a lot of work into the exercise part of this. I also need to understand that at my current weight, committing to 2 workouts a day is a big stretch. I'm going to be a little gentler with myself and allow my body time to acclimate to this new level of activity. Today's workout almost didn't happen. When noon rolled around I didn't have my shoes on, needed to pee, had to feed the cats, and was trying to get a couple of work questions answered. By the time all that was done it was 12:13 and my brain was saying forget the workout - do it after work. Well, I know myself and doing it after work often fails. So I forced myself to JUST DO IT .. and I did ! I got 29m40s plus 6 minutes WU/CD done. I started at 2.2 mph and increased to 2.3 with 25 minutes to go. At 20 min to go I increased to 2.4 and then 2.5 at the 15 minute mark. At 10 min I decreased to 2.4 and then 2.3 at the 5 min mark. They call these ladder intervals. I wasn't sure I could sustain 2.5 for 5 minutes but I did ! I had time to make my salad before returning to work, so that was perfect.

Breakfast was waffles (160 calories) with sugar free syrup and very late morning I had a yogurt (80 calories). I had my protein shake (120 calories) at noon when I worked out. Lunch was a chef salad and pepperoni pizza melt (220 calories). Afternoon snack was cottage cheese (80 calories) & mandarin oranges (120 calories). Dinner was roasted turkey (260 calories) and green beans. Evening snack was a lemon zest cake (140 calories with whipped cream. I do have extras in my day, but I don't keep track of those calories. A bit of chocolate syrup or caramel in a cup of coffee once a day, olives & feta in my salad, whipped cream on my dessert, peanut butter powder in my protein shake. Maybe 100 calories ? That's ok - we are allowed 3 extras of up to 35 calories each.

Work was busy and I got a lot of complicated stuff out of the way. New work coming in is still slow, so I'm hoping things pick up soon !

In my mind, I wanted to workout again after work. However, when 5 pm rolled around my body told me that just wasn't going to happen. I went back to look at my original blog and my 2-7-20 post indicates I had lost 124 pounds at that time, so I weighed 180. I'm 85 pounds away from that, so I looked back further. I was in the 265 range in March of 2019 and exercising twice a day was not an everyday thing, so I don't feel too bad. At this weight, once a day Monday through Thursday is an accomplishment and twice a day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday is reasonable. I have to keep reminding myself I'm only on Day 7 ! 

This is nothing new, but I am amazed that I'm not starving every day ! It just goes to show you what impact sugars and carbs have on your appetite. I eliminated all the junk, ice cream, candy, chips, Pop Tarts etc and the insatiable appetite is gone. Carbs and sugar have always fed my appetite and I've known that for years. I feel like letting them go this time was just as easy as the first time I started Nutrisystem, so I'm cautiously optimistic that I can do this !

I went back to my original Day 7 (01-10-19) to see how I was doing, and it is clear I was in a dark place. On 1-7 (Day 4 of Nutrisystem !) we'd been told our office was closing and at that time I didn't know if I'd still have a job. In spite of that, I lost 7 pounds the first week. Let's see what the scale says tomorrow, I'd be thrilled to see 261 !

Even though my job is again uncertain, I'm grateful for the past 5 years ! I'm in a much better financial state now, so being forced to retire wouldn't be so devastating. Does that mean I am ready for that ? Absolutely not ! I still want to spend the next 5 years doing what I love, preferably from home !

Since I didn't work out after work I spent a few minutes pulling some clothes out of my office closet. I have a lot of stuff in there that doesn't fit me right now and I'm moving them up to my bedroom closet. I will wear these things again but I need some space downstairs. Speaking of which, the bi-fold doors on the closet in my office are a pain and one of them is broken, so tonight I ordered 2 pretty fabric shower curtains from Walmart. I'll store the doors in the garage and hang the shower curtains, just like I did on the front porch. They make great curtains, they're easy to hang, and they are cheap ! I will have to buy a 72" rod with a center support (or a shower rod !) and 24 shower hooks, but I can get those at Walmart this weekend. I also bought some larger sports bras. Most of the ones I have are too tight, even the 2X's, so I bought four in size 3X.