Day 5: Snowy Saturday !

 

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 Saturday and it's Day 5 of this last-ditch effort to get the weight back off. It was 27 degrees when I got up this morning shortly after 9 am. It felt rather luxurious to sleep that late. That was tinged with a bit of sadness, because if Abby were still here I'd have been up much earlier to feed her. I fed the strays and Minnie seemed hungry but she turned her nose up at the canned food I gave her. Sometimes she will eat it later, so I'll keep an eye out.

I weighed myself before coming downstairs this morning and I was pleasantly surprised to see 263 on the scale! This is a loss of 6 pounds and I'm glad to be off to an encouraging start.

Breakfast was a 180 calorie cinnamon roll with a steaming hot cup of caramel macchiato coffee. No sugar or cream in that, just flavored coffee and sugar free salted caramel syrup.

Last night I was giving some thought to my eating patterns and I'm thinking part of my issue in the past couple of years is trying to go too many hours without eating. Nutrisystem's plan has you eating 6 times a day and I wasn't doing that. The end result is I'd suddenly be "starving" and would eat anything in sight that was quick and easy. I'll use last nights dinner as an example. I didn't think I was "hungry" but I went ahead and made my dinner, then promptly devoured it in minutes. Clearly, I was hungry! Had I waited until I thought I was hungry, the 10 minutes it took to prepare that would have seemed like an eternity and I'd have been looking around for something quick to eat. I think weekends can sometimes be a problem because I don't keep to my weekday schedule. I might not think about lunch until long after noon and when I do I often don't bother with a salad. That just means I will be hungrier sooner and often leads to evening munchies! I think awareness of things like this will help me be more successful this time around!

It was snowing lightly when I got up and the winter storm warning was in effect until 2. Looking at the radar, it seemed like 99% of the snow had passed by 10 am. I decided to wait until tomorrow to grocery shop as it's supposed to be a nice sunny day and the road's should be clean and dry.

It's 12:08 pm now and I'm enjoying my 3rd cup of coffee and some YouTube with my Really Tall Tree Guy. The snow has stopped and, as much as I dislike the cold, I have to admit that it's really pretty. Green grass and sunshine is prettier, but I do like the change of seasons. I had an 80 calorie yogurt around 11. This was part of my breakfast and I always try to have the yogurt late morning, to hold me over until lunch. As soon as I finish this cup of coffee (and the end of the video) I'm going to get dressed and head outside to shovel the driveway. That is going to be my afternoon workout today!

I ended up having my pepperoni pizza melt before I went out to shovel, so it was about 1:12 pm when the shovel hit the snow! It took me 56 minutes but the driveway looks amazing. It took a lot out of me, but I did not feel like I was going to die when I got done. There was probably more snow than I shoveled the other day and it was really heavy stuff, but I recovered pretty fast. My toes were numb when I came inside and I have a blanket over them right now (2:24 pm) to help them warm up. It's only 27 degrees outside so going out there without socks was probably not the smartest idea. Still, the job is done and there is no snow in the forecast for the next week.

I had my chef salad around 4 pm and my afternoon snack of 80 calorie cottage cheese and 90 calorie Alyssa's cookies around 5:30. I'm doing good today stretching out what I eat in order to avoid the evening munchies!

I was chilled after spending an hour outside in 27 degree weather and I didn't get warm until I had a cup of coffee with my afternoon snack. This in spite of being on the couch in my nightgown with a blanket! I could tell I was going to be sore again so I went ahead and took Tylenol to get ahead of that,

My plow guy resurfaced today looking for his money, which I've had sitting on the dining room table since February 3rd. He finally came about 7:24 pm to pick it up, so I'm glad to have that out of the way. He's on my Ring camera so he can't claim I didn't pay him .. lol! He commented via text that he guesses I don't need plowing anymore since I have a cone in the driveway. I told him that was to keep people from using it. It's fine that he didn't plow as I need the exercise, don't mind shoveling, and I saved $40! He tore up my yard some so I'll to fix that once the snow is gone for good. I'll may look for someone else next year that might be a bit more careful, but it doesn't seem like there are that many guys out there looking for plowing clients.

I roasted some veggies around 7 and by 8:30 I was starving, so I threw a 260 calorie sausage & turkey pepperoni pizza in the air fryer and dished up a big bowl of broccoli & brussel sprouts.

It's 10:40 pm and I was just about to go to bed when I remembered I hadn't finished my blog! I just had my evening snack: a 140 calorie chocolate cupcake with whipped cream. I also had an 80 calorie yogurt with whipped cream as I didn't have my morning snack (protein shake), so I was low on calories. 

Minnie spent most of the day either in my lap or snoozing on the couch next to me. She did spend a little time on her favorite chair, but most of the day she was close to me. I think she is enjoying being an only child. Abby was jealous and didn't like it if she came near me, which is why Minnie would come see me at night when I went to bed. That was our time. I always gave her treats and she'd make biscuits on my abdomen and then lie next to me for a while. She doesn't come upstairs every night now, probably because she has access to me all day. Life is less frantic now and I have mixed feelings about that. The same thing happened when Alex died. I was suddenly released of worrying about his medications or his next hospital stay and the associated costs. Overnight I only had to worry about me and my pets but my life was still in a bit of chaos because of the state of the house. By early 2017 all of the dogs had passed and it was just me and the 6 cats. The fire released me from worrying about the state of the house and by 2018 I was down to 2 cats. Now it's just me and Minnie. So much less to worry about. Is this how life is supposed to go? I guess maybe this is my destiny. I'm out of excuses for not taking care of myself, so maybe I'll be successful getting the weight back off and becoming more fit. Perhaps this is how MY life is supposed to go.

Today was a great way to start the weekend. A nice weigh in, the driveway shoveled and the plow guy paid. Tomorrow I'm going to Wegman's and Walmart and the plan is to go first thing in the morning, instead of procrastinating half the day! Day 5 turned out well because I ate right and exercised. I'm not going to take a shower as it's too late in the evening and I need to wash my hair. I will take care of that tomorrow evening. I'd like to soak my feet tomorrow too, we'll see how that goes! 

For now, I'm calling Day 5 complete and I'm heading to bed. It's nearly 11 pm and I'm kind of tired. Shoveling snow is definitely more of a workout than 20 minutes on the treadmill!