It must have been the beer

I've pretty much fallen off the wagon, too.  But I keep coming back here in the hopes that just checking in once in a while will remind me that I don't have a license to go to town on all the junk food that I want.  Except for Tuesday, I haven't exercised all week, and that was only 30 minutes and didn't even hit 10,000 steps for the day.  Yesterday I DID try to go to town on junk -- mostly, and not consciously -- and had a beer after dinner in addition to the snacky stuff I'd been into during the day.  And I drank very little water yesterday -- just a couple of cups of tea, and enough water to down my vitamins and brush my teeth.  But this morning my weight was down to my lowest since we got back on the blog (141.2).  Go figure.

I'm going to keep popping in from time to time, as I said, to keep myself from being a total glutton and maybe remember to drink fluids.  I had had hopes of getting back into the 130s before Christmas, but I would have to make a real effort for that to happen, and how likely is that?

Completely fell off the wagon

What were we thinking, trying to lose weight at this time of year?  I don't know what I weigh.  The last time I stepped on a scale was a few days ago and I was up to 149.8.  No exercise and overeating again.  The snow days resulting in a four-day weekend and Connor in one of his I-don't-need-to-sleep moods make staying away from food really difficult.  It's so much easier when I'm at work!  And my schedule is so messed up this time of year.  No lunch breaks, activities every evening, and now appointments for Connor nearly every day of the week.  All I can promise is to try to stay on track as much as possible and not overindulge (at least not on normal days; on party days, no  promises).

Back on track? Maybe?

This weekend my eating habits became increasingly erratic, though I don't think calorie-wise I went too far out of bounds.  And on Friday I had no trouble hitting 10,000 steps (for the first time in a while) thanks to the Christmas parade.  Either yesterday or Sunday my weight was up a bit again (to 144), but today I saw 141.6, a new low (since we started in on the blog again).  Inspired by this, I finally hauled my rear end (and the rest of me) the the gym.  I only squeezed in 30 minutes on the elliptical, because Mary was at her piano lesson and I had to be back to pick her up.  But that's 30 minutes more than I've done at the gym in half a year.  I still may not hit 10,000 steps today, but at least I burned a bunch of calories!

Eking downwards

"Eking" is a funny word because it doesn't look like "eke".  And "eke" is also a funny word to begin with.  It's one of those things I say but seldom type.

I really did not get in any exercise yesterday, but today I put in 20 minutes on the Wii, and I actually got my heart rate up and got sweaty.  Daniel has re-started our gym membership; that would be more vigorous exercise, and I'd use it as an option more if it didn't take 20 minutes just in transit in the first place.  I'll have to figure out how to take advantage of it without having everything fall apart at home.

This evening we had our Girl Scout meeting at the fire station so we could work on our float, which we set up in their garage (they are very nice people.  Also the chief at this station is a parent for our troop, which helps considerably).  This meant a lot of running back and forth between the activity room and the garage -- not a long distance, but it adds a lot of steps when you do it enough times.  So I'm up to 6000+ steps today.

I'm not having trouble keeping my eating in check, still.  There just haven't been a lot of special opportunities for unfettered snacking.  When I'm in my routine I don't get into the junk food, and I have a set diet for breakfast and lunch and our dinners are usually healthy -- the real ways I can cut calories over my usual intake are by avoiding extra desserts or sweet snacks mid-afternoon, and by avoiding overindulging at night.  Since Daniel is dieting, too, the high-calorie foods aren't coming out in the evenings, and even when they were, I could usually remind myself that these are really his vices, not mine -- I'd eat a huge slice of cheesecake or a double dish of ice cream or a pile of cookies, not a bag of chips and half a pound of cheese, if I were choosing the junk.

Unchanged

My weight wasn't down today, but it also wasn't up, which I consider a victory.  But it was the 4-week anniversary of my first day back on the Wii, so it scolded me for failing to meet my 4-pound weight loss goal.  This time I set a 2-pound, 2-week goal, figuring that I might be able to lose weight before Christmas, but after that I'll have to set a much (MUCH) longer-range goal.  Yesterday I went to an event where they had lots of junk food, but I only ate one bite of Alexander's brownie bite (store-made, and I realized that it wasn't all that good, so I wasn't missing anything) and a couple of slivers of cheese (which are vaguely nutritious).  I'm missing the Girl Scout leaders' meeting this year (every month -- it conflicts with our troop meeting and my co-leader is their communications coordinator, so she has to go, and therefore I can't) so that's at least one bullet dodged.  But I think there's a dessert party coming up in a week or two, and I'm counting that day as hopeless; I just like desserts too much.  (I'm going to make my amazing chocolate brownies, which always get eaten up before any other lesser brownies at these events.  I might have to place a King Arthur order in advance to get the right cocoas.)  Nevertheless, I think I can keep the binge-eating at a minimum until Christmas, when the candy enters the scene; for some reason, having that around the house is a bigger downfall for me than all the fancy dinners and amazing desserts.

I got no exercise today.  This was my Radford Library day (only two weeks left!  Hooray) followed by two and a half hour of utterly useless choir practice.  My step count hasn't even hit 2500.  And I came home desperate for a glass of wine, which means two.  And then polishing off the last ounce in the bottle.  I just shouldn't start.  This is not the way to lose weight.  Tomorrow is again busy from 2 pm on. Friday is packed after 4 pm.  These would be fine, in the sense that this gets me out of the house during my munchies time, but I get so wiped out having to be "on" all day that I just want to veg, with alcohol and junk food.  At least on Friday I'm guaranteed a tiny bit of exercise; Cecilia and I have to walk from her concert at the tree-lighting to the start of the parade, and then I get to walk the parade length (which isn't that far, I think).  It's not much, but it's something.  Tomorrow my best hope is to get up on time and do something almost useless on the Wii.

Ack! Forgot to post yesterday

So, weigh-in day after Thanksgiving: no fun.  I gained .4 pounds from the week before, so I was up to 149.2.  Today I was at 149 even.  I'm such an idiot.  I need to lock myself in a cell (or my office seems to work) to stay away from food.  At home I have no will power.

Really nothing else to report.  I've been having spells of lightheadedness, which isn't from lack of food or low blood pressure, unfortunately.  I'm thinking brain tumor.  Or inner ear problem.  Or stress.  But it's getting annoying.  I'm pretty sure it's stress--the spells started Monday evening, right after getting the news of Dad's ARDS diagnosis and on the same day I spoke with the transplant coordinator about details of Connor's BMT.  And walking seems to help the lightheadedness, which also points to it being stress induced.  So obviously I need to exercise more, and not just for weight loss.  I'll try to move my bike inside to the trainer tonight so I have no whiny excuses about the weather.

I don't believe the scale anymore

It's Tuesday, so I'm supposed to declare this as "official," right?  I was 142.8 today, which isn't that far off from where I was after the first week.  It's also in the ballpark of October and early November, so it's not really a miracle.  It's just strange that I'd hit the low end when I only drank half my water yesterday and only did a walk to Kroger as exercise.

Today I did even worse on exercise -- just 15 minutes on the Wii early in the day.  And laundry, which involves a lot of up-and-down-stairs carrying heavy loads, but my pedometer suggests that it's not as much exercise as it seemed like.  I'm just that out of shape.  But I've stuck to my calorie goals (if not my actual nutrition goals) for two days now, and I drank 6 cups of water (and a beer, within my calorie allotment, which always seems to act like water in terms of my weight fluctuations), so maybe I won't fluctuate back up right away.

I'm also trying to stay reasonable on calories and exercise for the next few weeks, so I can go into New Year's not already bloated.  Ugh.

Trying again

With Monday morning comes the return of routine, at least for two weeks.  My weight was better today than yesterday (which was tied with where I started two weeks ago), so at least I'm beginning on an up note.  So far I'm just eating carefully -- my usual breakfast, and leftover chicken-sweet potato stew for lunch, with almonds.  I have to figure out some exercise, especially since I'm having a car-schooling kind of day:  dentist for Xander in the morning; older kids' art class in the afternoon; scouts for Xander in the evening.  Daniel is in on this round of fitness; he decided he's going to use Advent to get back on track, so he is exercising and eating well, which can only help.