Day 4: Frosty Friday !

 

I've been up and down but I'm not giving up. I might have been close to rock bottom but I held on tight and started the climb out. I can't look back and I can't change the past, but I have full control of the future when it comes to my weight.

It's Friday and it's Day 4 of this last-ditch effort to get the weight back off. It was 14 degrees when I woke up shortly before 7 am. I did not want to get out of my nice warm bed, so it was about 7:20 before I headed downstairs to face the day. First up, as always, was getting Minnie and the stray cats fed. Two strays were waiting at the back door and 2 came from the cat house I installed last summer. I wondered if anyone was using it, so I'm glad to see they are!

Breakfast was 150 calorie pancakes with sugar free syrup. I had an 80 calorie yogurt around 10 am.

My work day had a rocky start as I got disconnected from the network and couldn't reconnect until I restarted my laptop. As a result, I didn't "clock in" until 8:11. It's no big deal because my boss can fix that, but it's just one more stupid task she has to perform on this, her day off! I had a call at 10:30 regarding the large project I have to work on and there is a follow up call on Monday. I can't really get started until I have more information. My boss was kind enough to log in on her off, because she ALWAYS has my back!

When noon rolled around I forced my fat a$$ onto the treadmill! Did I want to? Nope, but I did it anyways. Sadly, the 2 mph "warm up" speed is even too fast for me some days, so I went with 1.8 mph today. My left knee was hurting and I felt some twinging in my right hip but I kept going. I did 19m11s plus the 6 minute warm up and cool down. I worked my way from 2.1 mph to 2.5 mph and as time passed the pain in my knee abated and my hip was complaining less. The lesson for me here is to just take it slow. I have to give my joints time to adjust to exercise and I have to go at whatever pace I can, no matter how slow! In reality, the slow speeds put you in the fat burning zone and that's really where I need to be right now. The cardio zone is not going to help me get the weight off. I'm going to limit myself to 2.5 mph or less until the end of April and then reassess where I am.

Lunch was a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt and a chef salad. While enjoying the last few minutes of my lunch hour I noticed we have a winter storm warning from 5 pm today until 2 pm tomorrow. We could get 5-9 inches of snow. I'm so glad I got my driveway cleared off for 2 reasons. One, overnight temps were in the teens the past 2 nights so the heavy wet snow on my driveway would have frozen solid. Two, it'll be easier to remove any snow that falls today & tomorrow! This is why I need to work at my procrastination tendencies. Had I continued to ignore the snow in the driveway I'd have a whole lot more work to do and it would probably be twice as hard! If I'm lucky maybe the worst of the snow will stay north of me. We'll see!

I found the best YouTube channel for background noise this week. The channel is Really Tall Tree Guy and this guy posts 2, 3 and sometimes 4 hour long video's of him up these massive trees that he is cutting down. It's really amazing to watch and he has a sexy deep voice. You don't see his face but you can see he's in shape - you'd have to be in order to climb a tree using spikes on your feet and a couple of ropes! it's amazing to watch him climb the tree, cutting off all the lower branches as he goes. Then he starts cutting off sections from the top down. In tight spaces he has to rig up ropes on the section he is going to drop so that it falls short of the ground and is then lowered the rest of the way by the ground crew. He calls that not having a drop zone.

As expected, snow is falling! It's 4:19 pm and I'm having my afternoon snack of 80 calorie cottage cheese & 90 calorie Alyssa's cookies with a hot cup of coffee. The snow is the light fluffy stuff that can pile up in a hurry. Right now it's coming down steady but if you were out driving in it visibility would be fine.

It's 5:01 and I'm free for the weekend! Yay! I can't complain, right now I do have the Life of Riley and I'm incredibly grateful for it. I really enjoy my job and I love being able to work from home, however long that lasts. I really hope they decide it's not worth investing a ton of money in an office space that hasn't been used in 30 years for the handful of us located in the Syracuse area, especially considering most of us are approaching retirement age. I'd like to last 5 more years, 3 at the least, since that would bring me to 67 or 65. The thing that prevents most people from retiring is the cost of medical care. At 65 I'd be Medicare eligible but at 67 I can get full Social Security.

My heart dropped a little while ago when I read that the Princess of Wales has cancer. She has been hounded since having surgery in January and now this. I'm sure the conspiracy theorists will have a field day predicting her death and the media will not leave her alone. You have to wonder if that title is cursed. My sincere hope is that her cancer was completely removed and the preventive chemotherapy she is having will erase any stray cells. She deserves to live a long and healthy life, especially considering she has 3 young children. Though I don't wish an early death for King Charles, I do want to see Catherine crowned Queen of England. She deserves that and so much more. Prince Harry & his evil wife should be ashamed of their actions in light of this horrible news. God bless Catherine and her family.

It's 5:35 and the snow has nearly stopped. I checked the radar and it appears to have moved North of me. That can change if the winds over Lake Ontario change, so I'm not out of the woods yet. Dinner was a 220 calorie chicken fettuccine alfredo over riced cauliflower. I also added some romano cheese.

Minnie are I are continuing to settle into life as a twosome. She spends a lot of time snoozing on the couch near me but she also spends time on her corner chair. She lets me know if she is hungry, because I'm not putting out food every 2 hours anymore. I do try to feed her canned food 3-4 times a day but she doesn't always eat on my schedule. She just had some nibbles of the food I put out at 5. At least I think it was at 5 .. I don't remember. I'm thinking I should jot it down when I put food out, to make sure I'm not neglecting her. It's hard to believe it's been 3 weeks since Abby passed. I think Minnie realizes Abby is not coming back, as she no longer looks around before or after hopping up on the couch. She's also not sitting in my lap as much, so I think we're both moving through our grief and settling into this new normal. She doesn't seem to have an issue with only having 2 litter boxes, so that is a good thing! She still kicks like a mule when she's in there, so I need to figure out a better way to catch the litter. It ends up on the rug and in front of the door to the garage, so I'd like to put up a little partition. I might try just using some cardboard. Another option is to move them to a different part of the laundry room. I'll have to think on it!

It's 10:30 and I'm thinking about heading to bed soon. I'm watching a YouTube video (tree guy) that still has 40 minutes to go, so it'll be after 11 by the time I head upstairs for skincare and to brush my teeth. I had my 140 calorie lemon zest cake with whipped cream earlier and then took a shower.

Day 4 has been a good day! I ate according to plan, I exercised during lunch and I took a shower. I didn't make my bed but I'm not going to obsess over that. I didn't weigh myself today because I don't want to become a slave to the scale. It can be motivating when the numbers are going down but when they don't change it really drags me down. I will weigh myself tomorrow and see what Day 5 brings!