Wednesday, January 23, 2013

First fail came on 28th day

I've been doing really well with my health-and-fitness plans. In case you're new here (welcome!), I weighed myself on Christmas Day, saw a shocking number, decided that was IT and pretended December 26 was January 1.

I'm using the LoseIt! app on my phone and computer to track all my food and exercise. In setting up my goals, the program suggests I need to eat approximately 1600 calories daily to lose a pound a week.

I'm using Daily Mile to keep track of my mileage, beginning January 1 (not December 26).

I'm weighing myself on the 25th of every month.

The larger goal is to stay within the calorie limits and follow my exercise plan (six days of cardio, two days of yoga, two days of weight training each week). The incidental and hoped-for goal is to lose 50 pounds by December of this year.

Mondays are "free" days – a day I can indulge a little with food, rest from workouts and am not required to keep track of either (although I do).

Yesterday – just three days before the first weigh-in – I skipped the workout completely and exceeded my calories by about a hundred. No biggie, but I woke up this morning wondering if I'm trying to sabotage myself. Monday was a no-workout day and there were those amazing fudgy chocolate cookies for our inauguration lunch (and I didn't exceed the calorie limit).

I'm the kind of person who, if 99 people like me and one doesn't, will spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the one instead of enjoying the company of the 99. (I used to be much worse about this. Sometimes now I can say "their loss." Heh.)

Similarly, I can let one "off" day set the tone for this week, instead of looking back and noting the previous 27 good, healthy, active days.

Can you already see the value of journaling? I can! It's especially great to check the reports tab in LoseIt! and see the over/under numbers and the number of exercise hours logged.

Backing up a bit to my incidental goal … I'm very nervous about weighing myself Friday. My history has been that nothing I do results in weight loss. The only real, tangible sign that I maybe, might have lost a little is that my wedding ring is loose. (I can't tell from clothes, since yoga pants are my wardrobe staple.)

It's been good to not be concerned about the number on the scale, and instead pat myself on the back for completing my daily goals. Yesterday was just a screwed-up day, in more ways than I'm comfortable sharing here. The only sensible thing to do is get back on the horse.

Or, probably, the elliptical.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

All I can say is "Go Girl"...I completely understand the mind set. But next walk (I hope soon but we'll see what the snow has in mind!) I'm going to tell you about something I've been using for several years to "retrain" myself. But until then, as we said in the 60's "Keep the Faith!"

Unknown said...

Being over by 100 calories is not a fail. It's less than one banana worth of calories. Just keep going. What you are doing is very good for you no matter what the scale says, and I still predict a loss if you don't use this as an excuse to give up. I have had losses without being perfect, and my body loves to hang on to fat.

Diandra said...

This is why I have stopped setting specific goals with time frames. I guess I know where I want to be eventually, but right now I am only trying to be as good as possible every day. ("Perfect" includes healthy eating with reasonable portions, enough sleep, meditation, exercise and some me-time after the kitchen is clean. "Good" is doing as much of that as possible in my day-to-day condition. Some days I am pretty perfect.)

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