It's Sabotage - not really, it's just the Wednesday Weigh-In

1. Do you keep anything in your home that is off program? If so, what is it? If not, how have you kept that up?
Yes. At the moment we have a bag of sour cream & onion ruffles at the back of our pantry as well as a small stash of Chocolate. The chips we bought at Christmas time and never ate them. They're probably on the verge of being stale at this point. I was going to give them away to someone but everyone I know is trying to eat better / healthier. I was going to throw them out when I threw out all of the leftover Christmas goodies and other "crap" we had in the house when we started this but I didn't. I've kept them in the cupboard as a test I guess. I'm planning a good "sort" this weekend so I'll probably pitch them out then. The chocolate is also left over from Christmas. I have a few pieces left from a box of Godivas I got for Christmas and there are two Lindt chocolates also from Christmas. They are my PMS "medication." I've just gone through my first period since starting this and the chocolate was a necessity. I did not overinduge though. I counted the calories and my hormones were grateful for the treat!

2. Do you have people around you that sabotage your efforts? If not, do you have offline encouragement?

Not really. My hubby is also doing this with me so that is a huge help. I can't imagine how difficult this would be without his support. Also, most of the women I work with are doing WW right now so they're a great source of support too. I have told all of my friends and my family about what we are doing and they have all been wonderful and helpful. Most people we know are in the same boat and are wanting to be healthier!

3. Where are you most easily sabotaged? For instance... at work, at home?

So far I haven't been sabotaged. Home on the weekends is hardest. Eating out is also tough at times but it's getting easier. I guess I'm just so happy with myself that I haven't let anything slip me up. This is the first time in my life ever that I have stuck to something like for this long (it's over 5 weeks now). I'm not letting anything slip me up this time. I've worked too hard and come too far to allow that to happen!!

Yikes, what a day. I'm so glad that it's over. This evening has been lovely but I nearly blew a gasket at work today. I had a really busy morning. It was a good busy though, got lots done. I worked straight through, head down and didn't have my mid-morning snack. Ordinarily I have an apple at around 10:30 a.m. or so. I had a meeting booked for the time I usually have my lunch (not my choice!) so I figured I'd eat my lunch when the meeting broke. Because I didn't get my apple, I was like extra hungry....and then a whole bunch of people showed up to the meeting with their lunches. The rest of us just sat there, with low blood sugar and grumbling tummies, smelling their food. It totally sucked. The meeting ended up being a huge waste of my time. I hate going to meetings which don't have agendas. I like to know what I'm getting into. We were supposed to be getting training in a new piece of software. What it ended up being was a demo of the software (which, as it happens, is easier to use than the Amazon.com online ordering form - yeah, it's that simple!). By the time I got out of the meeting, I was really grumpy. Eventually I got to eat my lunch but by the time I finished eating it was around 2:30 p.m. This meant that when I would ordinarily be eating my afternoon snack (a banana), I wasn't hungry. I really like to keep to my schedule as much as possible. I mean, sometimes things come up that are actually important and they knock you off your routine. What pissed me off was that I got all out of whack for no good reason. I still feel a bit fragile with this stuff at times and I worry about going off plan. Fortunately, I didn't go nuts and snack after work / before dinner and at the end of the day I was down a few calories. For dinner we had a really yummy (albeit hot) curry. Mostly veg with tofu and some leftover ham on brown basmati rice. We added some different veggies to it too, some cauliflower and chinese eggplant, just for variety.

My goal for tomorrow is to not get stressed about things I have no control over. Let's see how it goes!!

Another day behind me, one day closer to my goal...I'm really tired tonight. By late afternoon, my back was really bugging me. It's so much better than it was though. I can actually walk completely upright again. For a week I was leaning slightly over to one side when I walked.

Had a good day foodwise. Activity wise, I'm still not doing as much as I should be because of my back. It took everything that I had to get through the day at work without laying down on the floor under my desk. I'm looking for some good, back-strengthing exercises so that this won't happen again, or at least if it does, it won't take so long to get over it. This is the longest I have ever had this last for. I'm not sure if that means anything or not.

I'm very pleased with myself for having stuck with this plan for 5 weeks. That's a big deal for me. The things that I find myself feeling really good about are usually ridiculously small victories. Like the other day for example, someone was offering these beautiful chocolate chip / macadamia nut cookies around the office and I said no. It was right under my nose, so close I could smell it, and I politely smiled and said "no thank you." That's a huge deal for me. Office junk, it's the hardest to resist I find. Today, it happened again...this lovely older fellow who comes in to our office regularly popped in and gave us all these little chocolate valentine hearts. I smiled and said thanks as he put it on my desk. After he left, I gave it to the woman I share my office with. She's a petite little thing and a die-hard chocoholic. She was happy to have it too!

The little bitty personal victories are big deals to me. I guess, what it boils down to is that each day is nothing more than a series of small challenges that we have to manage our way through. Boy, when you break it down like that it can either seem endlessly huge, or really easy to do...or a little bit of both maybe? What it boils down to this week is that I've lost another 3 inches. That's 13.5 inches in total in 5 weeks! Not bad huh?? Yay me!!

Today's Progress Prompt
People are encouraged to drink at least 8 glasses of water every day for optimum health. For people who are on weight loss programs, especially those who prefer to drink soda or coffee, incorporating water intake can be difficult or painful during the transition to a healthy lifestyle. How do you get all eight glasses into you? Share a favorite tip or trick. Since starting drinking water regularly, have you noticed any significant changes in your body or mood?

I have always been a fan of water. I do drink one cup of coffee (black), in the morning, and will often have a diet soda with my dinner in the evening. All day, every day, I drink water. I probably drink way more than 8 glasses, I don't really keep track. What I do though, and this may work for some folks, is drink my water very cold, practically frozen. I put a bottle of water in the freezer for a couple of hours before I drink it. This way, when I do get around to drinking it, I have to smash in the sides of the bottle to break up the ice. This keeps the water colder longer and it also allows me to have some icy chunks to munch on (I love crunching ice!).

Well I didn't get to post last night. We were doing some upgrades to our PC so it was off line yesterday for a bit. Obviously, it's back up and running tonight.

I'm starting to get into the swing of weekends, finally. The first few weekends on this plan, I found it really tough to stick with the program. This weekend was a breeze though. Keeping busy is the secret I find. We even ate dinner out last night and I stayed on plan. Now that hubby is into Fitday too, he's really paying close attention to his food. He cooks most of our meals and was really into eyeballing portions. In a non-nagging way, I started pointing out the actual caloric content of some of his portions and it was a real eye-opener for him. He's also joined me in my label-reading and that's been a small shock to him I think. I know that it was to me when I first began reading them.

I was totally pooped last night. Yesterday was the first day since I hurt my back that I did any real physical activity. I did a lot of housework and was up and down the stairs more times than I care to count. I also got back on my bike last night for a little bit. Not a long time, just about 10 minutes or so. I could feel my hip and my back twinging a bit so I stopped what I was doing before I started to hurt. It was not a good exercising type of hurt, it was a bad, "hey, you hurt me last week, what the hell do you think you're doing?" type of hurt.

Today I'm taking a break from the bike again but I've been walking a bit more than I have in over a week. It's really slow to mend this time and it was extremely frustrating. Makes me really appreciate how lucky I am to not suffer with any kind of chronic physical pain.

One final note, tonight marks the end of our fifth week. Five weeks, who'd a thunk it?

ooh, my back is definitely on the mend. I'm still slightly (only slightly) twingey today. I spent a little time with the heating pad this afternoon (and likely will again before bed tonight) but I'm so on the right track. Hopefully by the end of the end of the weekend I'll be able to get back into my exercise program again. I can not believe how much I'm missing it right now. It's been a week since I hurt my back, it's been a long week!

I stayed on plan with my food today. I had lunch at home instead of at the office so that was a bit different. I had a "lean cuisine" thing for lunch which was very good. We had baked chicken with zucchini and rice for dinner tonight. I also had a can of diet cream soda. It was very sweet but good. I didn't find an aftertaste with it that I do with some diet pop. I noticed that it had Splenda in it so that must be the difference. When we were at the grocery store the other night I noticed that the box of Splenda was $6.49. That seemed a bit steep to me. Fortunately, I drink black coffee so I don't need to be buying sweetner. I wonder what it's like for baking with. My baking is generally low in sugar and fat so the bit of brown sugar and apple sauce I use isn't disgusting.

Hubby is getting into the fitday thing now. I think it totally makes a huge difference when you sit down at the end of the day and look at everything you ate, in black and white. It really makes me think about what I'm eating. It's changing the way he's looking at his meals too. Speaking of that, I should mosey off and let him have a few minutes with the computer.

Happy Friday everyone!!

I'm starting to feel a little better. I think I must have a cold or something in my back because I've never had this thing last so long before. I felt not too bad at work today, just had a couple of painful twinges, mostly when bending over to tie my boots up and tonight I had a few because I was "over doing" it. You know how that goes...you feel a bit better and start doing dishes and getting the recycling together...and then, whammo...you're feeling bad again.

So basically, I'm still off my exercise plan but the eating was excellent today. Food completely under control and I even got hubby set up on fitday. He's been doing this with me but hasn't been keeping track of his eating. It's so much easier when you have someone to do this with!

Anyway, I'm off to the heating pad again, good night all!!