Intentional

I have been focused on intentional tracking this week.

 

I and am excited to report I’ve earned a blue dot each day since Tuesday.  My tracking game is strong this week.

 

Here is what has contributed to my success, especially when it comes to social situations.

I have taken a liking to non-alcoholic beer.  At first, it felt like an alternative to my beloved craft brew, and I just couldn’t get behind it.  Now, I chose to view it as a way to enjoy a beer or two mid-week while also reducing the points value.  It also is a great way to get your “fix” of that beer taste without the intoxication.  So far, my favorite is Athletic Brewing.  I recently picked up the hazy IPA but found this more IPA and less hazy, so I won’t be buying it again.  My favorite is the golden.  I am hoping I can find the dark beer somewhere in my area.  I also see they have a Weissbier that I’d like to try.

 

I was able to navigate my social outings with that new-WW-member mentality!  On Tuesday, a group of coworkers went to see the Barbie movie.  It was at a 21+ venue that served food and alcoholic beverages.  I had a late lunch after running errands but was also prepared with an abundance of daily points plus all my weeklies if needed.  When we arrived at the theater, I wasn’t hungry, so I skipped the popcorn, food, and alcohol (who am I??) and had a Coke Zero instead.  I went home afterwards and made a healthy dinner that easily earned me a blue dot.  Oh, and I had a non-alcoholic beer too.

 

Thursday I was out and about with errands from noon until it was time to meet friends at The 112 in Nampa for music bingo.  I made myself a zero-point lunch and packed low point snacks to keep me satisfied and ward off hunger.  I didn’t 100% know the plan as we had never been to this venue.  I enjoyed two beers during bingo and since the others had eaten, I decided to continue towards home.  I called The Hubs and while I wanted to talk myself into all sort of eating out ideas, he suggested Panda.  That made it super easy to plan, track, and gave me extra accountability towards my WW plan.  The bonus is even with the beers, I still earned a blue dot!

 

Lastly, I am patting myself on the back for yesterday.  We had a retirement party for our beloved DeLisa, who is retiring from dispatch with a 25+ year career.  We planned pepperoni pizza, Crumbl cookies and Caesar salad.  I pre-tracked one slice of pizza, salad, and ¼ of a cookie.  It was hard to stay the course when in the thick of the event, but I followed my plan.  I also did not partake in cake and ice cream when some troopers popped in late in the day to say their goodbyes.  The biggest challenge was my drive home.

I was tired, hopped up on sugary cookie and pizza goodness and not wanting to think about what to make for dinner.  I had maybe planned a head a little and already had chicken thawing in the fridge for shake-n-bake.  Before I knew it, I had a healthy meal on the table in no time.  We also had corn on the cob.

 

I made my return to the gym this week after nursing an injured knee.  It felt good to be back and I took it easy as to not reinjure myself.  I made intentional activity choices this week including a walk outdoors on Tuesday before my WW workshop and on Friday after I got home from work.  Today I plan to use the bike pedal/elliptical at work.  I think I’ll split it up into a couple sessions so I can get double the activity and closer to completing my Apple Watch Activity Goal for July.

Weekly WI: Uh Oh

Good Morning!  My weigh-in yesterday did not go well.  I 100% know it was NOT because of my commitment to my WW program.  I had been feeling bloated Sunday and Monday so I wasn’t surprised to see a 1.2 pound gain on my home scale.

I am hoping this is just a temporary blip and with persistence the scale will come back down next week.  I feel less bloated today (naturally, the day AFTER weigh-in) so I plan to continue business as usual.  I will also be returning to the gym this week after a two-week hiatus rehabbing a bum knee.  My self diagnosis was bursitis and while I still get the occasional pain spike, it is tons better.  As luck would have it, my plantar fasciitis in my left heel is giving my some pains as well.  Middle Age is not for the faint at heart!

To add insult to injury (not so much of a pun intended) I had to get my employee weight on record and I was up three pounds!!!  OMG what a nightmare.  I am now officially up 11 pounds from when I started as an employee in October 2021.  Y’all, what the heck is going on?  This is insane.  I refuse to get all depressed about it and make it worse but sometimes I find myself going down the rabbit hole of hormones and wondering is there is a miracle combination I have not yet stumbled upon after turning 43.  I know diet and exercise are key so I will continue to focus on both.  I also felt a little better when I entered my weight into my monthly tracker.  Down from June feels good.

My usually weigh-in day is Tuesday and so I check in on the scale at my morning workshop.  I try to be mindful of the amount of fluid I drink and I usually have an omelet so I am not starving while trying to coach.  I wish I had more weigh-in days/times available to me but working weekends make it tough to get to another studio.  I am still hopeful this is a temporary bump and I will be doing my August employee weigh-in on the Tuesday to come.

I also see the thyroid doctor in a couple of weeks I fear I will not be under 200.  It is always a personal goal that I strive so hard for.

Well, with that, I’ll wrap this up and get on about my day.  I hope your week is off to a great start too.

Weekly WI: The Downward Trend Continues

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday!

I completed my Weekly Weigh-In a day early as I had plans last night to meet up with after my WW Workshop and didn’t want that to overshadow the week prior on the scale.  I am down 0.4 this week which bring my total this month to 2.0 pounds.  I will do my official employee weigh-in next week.

Last week balanced well with meals at home, some meals out, and two days of alcohol.  I have not been tracking but I also think that has helped a little mentally in feeling so stuck.  Instead, I am working on balance and being mindful of lower point meals to go about my week when I can and off-set the higher point meals.  While I had only planned one day of eating out, it spanned two days with the leftovers sounding so good.  I don’t usually partake in leftovers.  My rule of thumb is you can enjoy anything one day.  It is the days that follow that can make or break the scale.  None the less, it was still just as delicious.

My knee is feeling so much better.  It is not back to normal just yet as kneeling is still a no-go.  I plan to resume activity this week and keep it light as to to re-injure my knee and put me out even longer.  I also have upcoming travel to think about and really need to get this knee back to 100%.  Boy, aging is no fun.

There is nothing major on the agenda this week and staying on track should be good to go!  We all know that it is 100% up to me though so that is where my focus this week needs to be.  With the end of July next week and the start of August a week later, I am considering back-to-back employee weigh-ins so I can get both months out of the way and continue ahead with a green light to bringing this scale back down to a more comfortable level.

Weekly WI: A Nice Surprise

Despite having a bum knee all week, I managed to pull a 0.8 pound loss for the second week in a row.  I tell ya, I almost didn’t step on the scale today and was just holding my breath the gain wasn’t more than a pound.  What a 180!  Two weeks ago I was a little deflated as such a small loss after all the effort I put in towards my WW program.  This week, after the same size loss was achieved, I feel amazing.  It is so funny how that happens and perspective plays such a huge part.

I never updated my end of the month weight tracker for June.  As you can see, this year I’ve been climbing up the continually each month.

That is NOT the patch I want to take and the time to take action is NOW.  We are taking this month about how to protect your progress as we are now half way through the year.  I’m pretty sure last year June was my turning point and it will be again this year.  Next year, I better get a handle on this sooner.  But, no need to dwell in the past or focus on the future.  The time is now to make the changes needed to bring the scale back down to a more comfortable number and also so my clothes fit and look better.  I am starting to feel my mid-section again.

Oh yeah, my knee.  Last Wednesday, my right knee was hurting me before I went to bootcamp class.  I figured it was from the up/down and movement on the ladder and such when hanging our outdoor patio blinds.  Well, bootcamp class made it worse and I’ve been down with a swollen and painful knee all week.  A few days ago I was really worried but as the swelling continues to come down and with as much rest as possible, I know it is improving.  The plan is to take this week off exercise.  Maybe not the whole week but at least these next few days where I am off work to rest, elevate, and apply ice to hopefully not prolong any further problems.  I’ve had problems from time to time with my knee but this was the worst and I do not want it to get really bad.

I have two social events on the calendar this week.  I am working now to make a plan on how to balance it all.  I will be continually reminding myself that it is just two meals out, not two full days.  I can do this and after two weeks of losses, I am determined to have a third week.  I will continue to piggy back this success as I watch the scale come back down before our Ireland trip.  

10 weeks to go…

Cruising Ahead: Ireland

After toying with the idea of going back to Europe, an amazing cruise vacation deal fell into my lap that fit exactly into the time off I had already requested for a possible New England cruise in September.  Since the New England cruises are so expensive, a 20% off coupon came in the mail and after poking around on the NCL website and talking to my cruise consultant, a future vacation was born.  We are going to Ireland!

I would not have considered a vacation with just Ireland.  Originally we had thought we would go on a sailing that included Iceland, Norway, and Ireland (two ports).  As I said earlier, the dates fit perfectly, the price was great, and we will be seeing all of Ireland with stops at seven different cruise ports.  We set sail from Southampton, UK arriving in Cobh and then make our way clockwise around Ireland ending in Dublin.  It is a 10-day cruise with two sea days.

Here is the day-by-day plan:

Embark in Southampton, UK

Day 1 - Sea Day

Day 2 - Cork Cobh

Day 3 - Dingle 

Day 4 - Foynes Limerick

Day 5 - Galway 

Day 6 - Killybegs

Day 7 - Belfast N. Ireland

Day 8 - Dublin, which docks in Dun Laoghaire

Day 9 - Sea day 

Day 10 - Disembark in Southampton, UK 

We will spend the day before and the day after London visiting the Royal Air Force Museum, the London Film Museum, and using the underground to see the outer suburbs such as Kensington, Knotting Hill, and Covent Gardens.  We also plan to stop through Kings Cross Station to see the 9 3/4 platform.

When we arrive in Southampton pre-cruise we will pop into the Solent Sky Air Museum and on our stop in Foynes, Ireland we will visit the Flying Boat Museum.  I am looking at excursions from some of our ports to see the beautiful countryside as I don’t want to miss this opportunity.  We are lucky to be in port a full 12 hours most days.  I especially can’t wait to walk around these cute ports to pop into a pub and grab a pint.  I’ve made it my goal to try one local beer at each port stop and you better believe the Guinness Factory is on the list for Dublin!  In Dublin we will book the hop-on/hop-off bus.  Oh man, so much planning and research to do.

I’ll pop in at a later time and share more on our beautiful ship, NCL Star, which will take us around all of Ireland.

Weekly WI: The Downhill Slope

I weighed in a day early this week with a loss of 0.8 pounds.

A new month is up0n us and it is full of great possibilities.

I have eleven weeks until we leave for vacation (blog post coming…at some point…) and I am on the right track for seeing the downhill slope.  The WW technique is all about protecting your progress from the first half of the year, reflecting on what has been working and what has not, and setting an action plan to finish the second half of the year strong.  The scale didn’t go up this week so I am choosing to view this as the start of my downhill slope.  I can do this!

Last week was a very successful week.  I balanced my pre-planned social events and made decisions that were helpful to my WW program.  I also sent my intention on Tuesday to focus on increasing my activity.  

I have been attending the gym classes twice a week regularly for a few weeks now but the other days have fallen to the wayside.  This week I really focused on being active and planning accordingly on how to get it done.  My Apple Watch Activity Goal for the month is to double my exercise ring at least nine times.  I have been using that as my drive to walk farther or move more and sometimes that may mean breaking it up into a couple different activity sessions.  

I will roll all this positive energy into the week again and keep that downward trend going strong.