A New Focus

Well, yesterday I found out some news (great news!) that has changed my health focus. I will no longer be working on losing weight, but building muscle and maintaining my weight. 

I will continue to see my trainer for the next month, but I'm not sure if I will continue past that. He's expensive (as are all trainers) and my family and I are working on creating and sticking to a budget (thanks Dave Ramsey podcasts!). I've learned a lot from my trainer, and I feel confident enough to fly solo after this next month. 

In an effort to be more consistent with my workouts, I've decided to commit to going to the gym directly after work on Monday, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I've found that if I make it home, I won't workout because I'm too tired. I've put this schedule on both my AND my husband's calendar so he knows that he has to pick the kids up on those days. Fingers crosses that this will get me back on track!

Slow going

Yesterday after my workout with my trainer, I decided to take a picture of myself to compare it to one that I took in the fall. I haven't lost much weight since then (I was 197.2), and yesterday I weighed 193.6. I think the weight lifting is helping though. Or maybe I'm just wanting to see a difference. Tell me what you think.

Ba-hum-bug

Today was awful. The baby was up half the night. He sounds like he's coming down with something. The lack of sleep left me in a horrible mood. I didn't have any coffee, and found myself starving before I walked out the door, so I grabbed a Girl Scouts Thin Mint. I then proceeded to stop at McDonald's fora small hazelnut coffee, which was not in my meal plan either. 

When I got to work, I saw that everyone had brought in treats for Valentine's Day. I was still starving, so I grabbed a handful of Bugles. 

At this point, I knew I needed to go get my veggie omlette before I ate too many treats. I managed to do well until lunch time. Today, the finance team was invited to lunch in the canteen downstairs by the CFO. We were supposed to eat at noon. By noon I was starving...but noon came and went and the CFO didn't show up. Around 12:15 I had to eat something. I was feeling shaky, so I grabbed another handful (or 2) of Bugles and a cookie. When I went back to my desk to eat it, my boss informed me that the CFO wanted to go at 12:30. 12:30 came..12:31...12:32...12:33...12:34...12:35.....finally, at 12:36 he stepped out of his office and was ready to go. Despite snacking, I was still starving. 

Lunch wasn't too bad; a small piece of beef loin, asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes. 

By dinnertime, I was starving again. The hubs went all out on a Valentine's meal, but it took forever to cook. In the meantime, I partook in the wine that he bought to go with the veal, some cheese, and a lot of French bread. I was awful. 

I feel like I'm on this never ending battle of great intentions, but I just can't pull it together and resist temptation as the day grows long. And...I'm disappointed that despite going to bed earlier, I'm still tired AND the scale is not budging. :(

On a happier(?) note, Wednesday's strength training is still kicking my butt and every muscle in my body is sore, so I know I worked hard. I need to do another side by side picture comparison since the scale hasn't budged, to see if I'm making any Non Scale progress 

Stuffed

My Polar Loop says I got 7 hours and 40 minutes of sleep last night, but I woke up this morning even more tired than normal. How can that be??!!

My activity was low today, I only reached 4,600 steps, which is only 38% of goal. The one thing this activity tracker has taught me is that I move even less than I thought I did. :(

For dinner tonight we had modge lodge pasta...basically, we used the left over vegetables (spinach, tomatoes, and Brussels), pan seared them with garlic and olive oil and then added pasta. It was delicious, but I feel like it out me into a food coma. The past two nights I've gone into dinner feeling like I had a good amount of energy, and then after getting up from the table I'm so tired I feel like I could pass out. I need to research why this is happening. I'm suspecting high carbohydrate meals are zapping my energy. I may need to experiment with cutting carbs down at night, and I want to research the biochemistry that is making me feel like this. 

Tonight will be another early night for both me and the kids. The girl child came home whiny today, which is always a sign that she hasn't gotten enough sleep this week. 

Lastly, I'm still going strong on the Samoa resistance!  It's been 4 days since I opened the box and I've only had 2 TOTAL!  Yay!

Plateaus and Cookies

The past few months have been hard. I've found it difficult to find the energy to workout when I get home and therefore have only been working out about 3 times a week. For some this may seem like a good amount to exercise, but for me it's not. I have a very sedentary job and an hour and a half of commuting time each day. To give an idea of how little I move during the day, on days that I don't workout, I only manage around 3,000 steps on my activity tracker. The goal is 10,000, so I'm getting less than 30% of my goal activity in. 

This has made it very hard to lose weight. I've been relatively stable weight wise...too stable. I've been plateau'd since before the holidays!  It's so discouraging. :(  My only bright spot is that I haven't gained!

I've got to do something to get more exercise in. I've been doing little things like taking the stairs at work, and staying on my feet when I get home. This has had a very positive impact on my family. I'm helping out a lot more with the housework and cooking and relieving some of the duties from my husband. He's one of those people that never sits down, so he's been picking up a lot of my slack...and I've let him. 

For the past two days, I've been really helping out around the house, doing my fair share. We even cooked together last night. By me being an equal partner, it's changed my quality of life (I'm proud to be helping and therefore happier), and his quality of life (he doesn't hold resentment when I'm sitting down and he's doing all of the cooking and cleaning). When I was off work, I did most of the cooking and cleaning, but since I've been back to work, I've found it hard to muster the energy for a full days work and housework when I get home. Going to bed a little earlier has helped, but the bottom line is that I just needed to Just Do It. 

In other news....my daughter sells Girl Scouts cookies and they came in this week...and I managed to open one of our boxes and only eat ONE!  As someone who thinks Samoas main ingredient is crack, I'm very proud of myself!  We bought 5 boxes and I'm going to try and be very good with them. Fingers crossed. 

Weight lifting

So far I've completed 4 of the 5 training sessions I paid for at my gym. I got off to a rocky start. I had originally scheduled them for Saturday mornings, but he had training for a triathlon he's completing this spring scheduled at the same time. I tried to work around the schedule and suggested a Sunday, but he can't work Sundays. We finally settled on Wednesdays after work. 

The first training session went well, I was able to complete every move he gave me. He's not much of a talker, and we have nothing in common except running, so conversation is a little forced. I figure I'm not paying him for conversation though, and the workout kicked my butt! I was sore enough to definitely feel it for a few days, but not too sore that I couldn't take care of the kids. 

The second session was canceled due to him being sick and we decided to just make it up the following week. 

Makeup session 2 and session 3 and 4 went well. I got a very good workout each time and am adding some new exercises to my toolkit. My favorite part so far is that he gives me exercises that work my abs without having to lie down on the floor. Score!  I always hate working out on my back. I feel like a stuck whale. 

I has to cancel on session 5 and we'll make it up this week. I had a very bad case of viral gastroentisis that made me feel like, er...wish, that I would just die. It was awful. Luckily, I shared the joy with my husband and we were both immobile in bed. We couldn't move or think. Thank goodness there is 8 years between the kids because we were able to out the girl child in charge of the boy. Here's her in charge of the boy: