Weekly WI: Downward Trend In Full Swing

It was a super busy day yesterday so I didn’t get the chance to pop in about my WI.  The downward trend is on a good roll and I’m super stoked.

I had an excellent week and was fearful that I’d have a gain.  You know those weeks.  You work super hard at all aspects of health and then BOOM…3 pound gain.  No reason what so ever and now you are left picking up the positive pieces, which is so hard to do.  I was mentally prepping myself if that was to happen so when I saw the results were -0.6, I let out a sigh of relief.  This make my total loss for August 3 pounds thus far.

Tracking has been the biggest reason for the downward movement.  I have been working hard on focusing on my blue dots, as well as, pre-planning and pre-tracking my meals.  Meal planning has also been helping a lot.  It is still exhausting but it is working and so I’m going to keep forcing myself to do it.  

I’ve also been pre-tracking other types of stuff such as my Cense Wine when I watch Bachelor In Paradise.  I pre-tracked two glasses (6 SPV) for Monday and Tuesday.  Monday, I only drank one glass.  Tuesday I felt more like having dessert so I shuffled some of the points I had left over plus the wine points for a Chilly Cow ice cream treat.  After that and some flavored water, I didn’t feel like other 3 points of wine I had tracked.  

Pre-tracking has been helping me because it allows me to focus ahead on something that is going to cost a lot of points and then work around that for the rest of my day.  In the case of my wine points, if something else comes up within my day, I know I still have those points I can shuffle around.  I always have the ability to skip over food that doesn’t fit into my DSPA for another day.  So, I’m not giving up the wine per se, I’m just making choices along the way to try and earn as many blue dots as possible.

I’m also making sure I utilize my WSPA as I can still eat 5 a day and earn my blue dot.  This has been helpful too, although I didn’t use as many this last week.  

Yesterday was busy.  After my WW meeting, I made a quick dash to my thyroid doctor appointment and then spent the afternoon with my niece Hailey.  We are practice driving her standard transmission VW Beetle.  We had dinner with my sister Jenny who was in town and also my parents.  Hailey spent the night and I’m going to see if she wants to attend a gym class with me this morning.  I dragged her to the gym yesterday afternoon so I could get in a second workout and earn my 200% Movement goal for August.  Two of four days are complete.

Learning About Emotional Intelligence

I’m attending a training today to learn more about Emotional Intelligence.

This is a topic I’m not familiar with but had hoped to learn more and wanted this training to assist in communication skills.  So far, I’m not impressed by the trainer though.  Hopefully the afternoon picks up.

It’s my Friday but a short weekend.  I have a doctor appointment with the thyroid doc and then will do some driver’s training with my niece Hailey.  We have been learning to drive stick shift as the car she bought is a VW Beetle with a standard transmission.  I’l so excited that she has passed her skills/driving test and her written test and now she is a full fledged driver.  It is super exciting.

Wednesday may include a social happy hour with friend.  And, my Mom sprung on me a dinner invitation Tuesday evening since my sister Jenny is in town.  I’m stoked for the invite so now I’ll need to plan around both days off to balance my week.  I return to work Thursday for OT, so that makes getting back on track easy.  I will also need to meal plan this week.

I’m meeting Kenyon for lunch and then I’ll be back at it with the Emotional Intelligence topic.

Happy Monday.

New Travel Luggage

Despite all my hard work to perfect my carry-on only packing system for travel, I went out and bought a new suitcase!

When I see women in the airport rolling with ease their four-wheel suitcase with their laptop bag or tote sitting on top, I’m super jealous.  I feel like I am always schlepping my stuff through the airport like a homeless Bag Lady.  And, once I decided to make the jump to a mini sized Macbook for travel, I really didn’t want to be lugging it around all day. 

I went in search of a new laptop bag and found the Sheripani Sojourn Tote at REI on a discount coupon.  It is the perfect size for travel, has an over the shoulder strap as well as backpack straps, and is the perfect color…purple! 

 

Once I purchased the new laptop bag, my next step was getting a four-wheel carry-on size suitcase.  I wasn’t necessarily actively looking but stumbled on this Ricardo Camden Drive 22” Expandable Softside Carry-On Spinner Luggage at Costco.  What I loved about this suitcase is that it was square, included two packing cubes, had lots of zipper areas, was expandable, and lastly, had a hard plastic 5-1-1 toiletry bag.  Since Costco has such a generous return policy, I picked up a blue one for Kenyon and a gray one for me.  I was packing pretty light for Wisconsin and had tons of extra room.  So, I decided to keep the suitcase and give it a go.

 

I really like it although I do worry the wheels might not be as sturdy as other roller bags but hey, it’s Costco so just safe the receipt.  I felt it rolled better on non-carpet surfaces too and while I am used to rolling a bag behind you, when you are on a slope, ramp, or having any type of incline, it can feel hard to push/pull.  Overall, I really enjoy this suitcase and I plan to continue to use it for domestic travel.  International sized suitcases are best for international travel as they are smaller sized for the smaller airplanes.

 

Now I’ll have to continue to perfect my packing system in this new suitcase. Good thing I’ve got upcoming travel this year and we found out we will have a lot of travel early 2020.  Yeeeehaaawwww!