Weekly weigh-in: -47!

Down 4 pounds this week; yippee!!! I'm down into the next decade (2teens vs. 220s!) I didn't change much on the food front, but I did more exercise and made sure I got the proper amount of fluids. (I also did my arm strength training an extra day.)

Fasting blood glucose has been running a little higher, though; boo! I've had a few days where it was over 120. I suspect it's from eating dinner later in the evening. I really need to plan better around late work nights.

I also did my official "monthly measure" today. Actually, I did it late last week when the scale hadn't budged much. Both times it was really encouraging. Since beginning back in May, I've lost 5 inches from bust, waist and hips!

All that said, I still have a long way to go: 14 pounds until I'm at my halfway point; 28 pounds until my BMI is merely in the "overweight" (instead of the "obese") range. And who knows when until the fasting blood glucose levels get where I need them to be. But it was nice to enjoy seeing some progress this week.

Wishing success to everyone else in the process of getting healthy!

Quotable Friday!

Or, "Great Quote! (Whoever said it.)"

Attributing quotes correctly is a tricky thing, especially when proliferated via the Internet. Just take a look at snopes.com, there are whole articles that circulate the Internet that were never written by the person they are attributed to, and often that person is angry that such pieces (often complete "glurge") are attributed to him or her.

For example, here are my two faves from my Weight Watchers days:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
~ Attributed to Goethe, most likely because William Hutchinson Murray quoted him as saying such, based an embellished translation of Faust.
Like many, I though this was a Goethe quote.

"Success is getting up one more time than you fall down."
~ Attributed to Oliver Goldsmith, but derived from a Japanese proverb
Although on my Good Earth tea bag on Tuesday morning, it's written "Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up" and described as a Chinese proverb. Which is really weird, because I had always thought this was an Eleanor Roosevelt quote. She has a great many interesting things attributed to her, but this was not one!

I like this one from the home page of "A Woman's Right to Lose" blog:

"Although no one can go back and make a brand new start,
anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending."
~ Several people (mostly WW folks) cite Roberta Brenick, although I've seen university web sites (mostly continuing education pages! :-) attribute Carl Bard with this one. So maybe it's not too late to become a librarian....

P.S. Yep, I walked at lunch yesterday and felt much better. I made some less optimal choices at dinner, but then Thing 1 and I rocked out to a cardio kickboxing workout and Thing 2 laid at my feet wailing because she wasn't the center of attention...kinda hard to do those kickboxing kicks with a 40-pound preschooler adhered to your ankles...Eventually she got it into the spirit of things and she and her brother ran laps around the living room and punched a balloon on each pass. "Let's make our living room into an exercise gym!" cried Thing 1 as he charged around the table. Every so often he'd drop and do a pretty decent push-up. I was duly impressed. I've got to get them some hand weights that are less than 5 pounds, though, they're going to hurt someone. "Children! Mommy's hand weights are NOT a shotput." I think next time, I'll just put on some music and let them take turns being the instructor, that way they won't feel like I'm paying more attention to the buff Aussie woman on TV.

Backtracking

Backtracking seems to be a common thread lately among the weight loss and maintenance bloggers. Not all, of course, but some. Everyone seems determined to get back on track, so it will be good to see how it's done by other folks. I wonder if we have some weird primal thing going on in the fall--especially us calorie-efficient types--where our bodies instinctively want to fatten up for winter? Except we don't get to sleep the whole time like bears do. Darn.

I've felt this challenge lately, with a slight gain this week. I dropped back down to where I was the previous Tuesday, but no lower. I feel like I've hit a sort of plateau. I was hoping I could surge a bit further down the scale before this happened, but oh well. Here I am.

For me, the fat items--almonds, pistachios, marinated roasted veggies, bacon, charred fats on meat--have replaced the carbs as my food challenge. No, they won't spike my blood sugar, and some of them do have the good fats, but they still pack a lot of calories. We had some pizza show on the TV this morning, and there was this place in Chicago that made a dessert with chocolate chip cookie dough as the crust and then put ice cream on top...and my eyes teared up. Bleep! I just wanted to feel like I could eat like a normal person again without losing a limb or something. But do I really? Maybe not...because I just might, like every time I've seen weight loss as the goal unto itself, and then I'd be tired and out-of-shape again.

I'm also disappointed that I scrapped today's run. I was running behind, and I had the choice: 20 minute run or scrap it. I scrapped it, and was feeling upset with myself, and my husband asked, "Why? Are you afraid that taking a break one day will make you quit?" *Ding! Ding! Ding!* He got that one exactly right. I've decided to take a longer walk at lunch to make up for it, but I've felt depressed all morning...except for the bright spot: I got to take my son to school this morning. That was great! His school is on these bluffs above the ocean, a wonderful location. I got to breathe some fresh, ocean-and-eucalyptus air. I'd like to say that snapped me out of it completely, but not quite. Maybe the walk at lunch will do it.

This would so work for me

Wake n' Bacon. 'Nuff said.

Momentum

The morning run:

(00:00:00) "Oh bleep. I've only got 20 minutes to run. I really ought to have moved it a little more quickly this morning."

(00:09:58) "Law of momentum is a fallacy. Oh, I believe the 'body at rest tends to stay at rest part,' but this body in motion wants to stop. Right bleepin' now."

(00:12:02) "Ugh...jogging up the street..."

(00:12:43) "...Da-da-DA-da, da-da-DA-da, dum-dum-DUM-dum, dum-DA-dum-DA..." (Pirates of the Caribbean sound track looping in my head on the way back down the street...)

(00:18:00) "Ugh, I hate this part. But I don't have to run it again, do I? I've only got a couple of minutes left."

(00:18:30) "Yeay, just down this street and back home!"

(00:19:07) "No, I'm going to run that hateful part again, just because I don't want to. It'll only take a minute."

(00:20:00) "Ya know, I could do another 5 minutes...I should, because I really don't want to. Just to that stubby little part of the street and back."

(00:23:24) "I could run around this loop instead, I'd get a little more uphill but the last bit is downhill. That might take a little more time, but not a whole lot..."

(00:24:00) puff...pant..."Power up on the uphill..."

(00:24:55) "Wheee..."

(00:25:00) "Whew! That wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

Weekly weigh-in: -43

Yep, if we compare this number with last week's number, it's true: I'm up one pound this week. First gain in quite some time. It sucks, but on the other hand, it certainly brings me back to being mindful of what I need to do and to keep the motivation sharper.

I was happy, then, that MizFit's post today was about gratitude, and the Bumbling Band had lots of great comments about the things for which they're grateful. Very timely. Reminded me of the quote from X-Files: "If coincidences are coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?" (Agent Mulder in the episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose") And there was also Pasta Queen's confession, which left me feeling less alone in the struggle.

So...now for the analysis. It's boring and for me, so if anyone's reading, feel free to stop reading here and go check out last Friday's pirate post instead. While I do think it has a lot to do with a certain time of the month approaching, I'd rather not blame it all on that. I'll be taking a look at my log and see which areas need better focus:

- Water: I tend to do better when I stay hydrated. I didn't keep up with that last week.
To do: 8x8x7!

- Exercise: Due to morning schedule constraints, I ran less in the morning (20-30 minutes instead of 30-45 minutes). I did go for walks on days when I couldn't run at least 30 minutes, but walking does burn less calories than running. I also did strength training only twice last week, so this weekend I'll make sure to do some. (Weekends are typically my days off from working out, but not from being active, and we were a bit less so, especially on Sunday.)
To do: Stay consistent (keep cardio 60x5), add an extra day of strength training.

- Food: I didn't go terribly off plan, but I have been eating more than planned in the evenings, and this week that bit me. I tend to pick at the yummy grilled meat waiting to be put away! Also, I need to take the almonds home and leave them there. I manage to make them last pretty well, and they are healthy, but they tend to end up being extra instead of planned-for parts of my day.
To do: No picking! Brush teeth before putting away the food or have a sugar-free mint in my mouth while doing so. Take the almonds home!

Ah, technology...

Never mind invisibility cloaks. The technology based on the world of Harry Potter that *I* want most to be developed are Toothflossing Stringmints! Guess scientists chose the easy route. ;-)

What's your choice?