You know how people say that the month of March "comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb"? Well, that was how the month of October was for me. It came in like a weight-dropping lion, and went out like a fat, lazy lamb. I'll post the chart later, so you can see it in all its glory. It's practically an upside-down bell curve.
I debated with myself over whether to make up a report card. In the end, I decided against it. My data is incomplete because of lazy journalling, and let's face it--the grades I give myself are pretty arbitrary anyway. I will post the goals I set for myself in the last report, though, and cross out the ones I met.
Diet/Exercise: 10 or more leftover flexpoints each week.Fruit/Veggies: 3 per day.
Weight Loss: 3.5 lbs.
Size Loss: 1 inch.
Water: 6 cups/day.
Cooking: eat at home 5 nights/week.Lunches: 4 12-or-less point lunches/week.
Yep, just one. In the 3 weeks since the 4-week report, I met exactly one goal. On weight loss, I gained 2 lbs. Inch-wise, gained about 2 inches. The rest of the stats were equally underwhelming.
When looking to place blame, there's only one real place to go--I ate too much, and the wrong sort of food. This was caused in part by hormonal issues...I held off taking b/c pills for two weeks, which makes me emotional, which makes me eat. This scares me a little, because I don't plan on being on the pill forever. If I gain 3 lbs. for every month I'm off, that just doesn't work for me. However, if I get over that whole emotional eating thing, that won't really be an issue.
Anyway, as I see it, there's not much value in dwelling on what I did wrong last month. The more important question is, what am I going to do about it this month?
The first thing that comes to mind is SIMPLIFY. For the past 3 months, I have been increasing the number of stats that I track. This worked well at first, because it made me mindful of how much I was eating for lunch, how much water I was drinking, etc. Now, however, I've started to get bored and frustrated by all the upkeep. And when I get bored, frustrated or overwhelmed by things, I tend to shut down. I think that's part of what happened here, as well. Since there was so much to track, I gave up tracking any of it.
So, for the next month, I'm going back to basics. There's going to be two goals, both weekly--food points per week and activity points per week. I'm leaving Flexpoints balance out of it, because even though I do use the flexpoints plan, it just complicates matters right now. I'm still going to track water and veggies in the WW points tracker, but I'm not going to list those stats here or set goals based on them.
The second thing I'm going to do is plan my food for the day in the morning, and do my damnedest to stick to that plan. I'd plan weekly, but I know myself well enough to know that won't work. I buy my fresh groceries daily anyway, so it's really just as easy to plan one day at a time as it is to plan a whole week. And this way, there's no risk of not being "in the mood for" a certain food on its assigned day. Eventually, once I get stronger and more into this routine, I may start writing up a weekly meal plan without assigning days to the meals, so that I can pick and choose but still have that structure. Right now, though, it goes one day at a time until I get my groove back.
The other thing I'm going to do, and this is really more for time and financial reasons than dietary, is bring my lunch to work most days. I haven't been doing too badly on lunches, but since I've been working out over my lunch hour now, it's easier to eat at my desk if I don't have to go out and buy the food right then. Lunch-in-a-box, here I come!
I'm also going to start bringing in snacks, and eating more often than I do now. Tentatively, I'm thinking of adopting a somewhat modified hobbit diet...breakfast, second breakfast (fruit), lunch (about 1 pm, before I work out), afternoon tea (pretzels), and dinner. I'm leaving out elevensies, and probably some other meal, but it's still 5 times a day. I'm going to try not eating after 8 pm, too. That's harder, because I normally get home at around 6:30-6:45, and by the time I make dinner it's nearly 8. But I am going to try.
And lastly, I'm going to attempt to eat less processed food. I've been reading a lot about "shopping the perimeter" of the grocery store lately, and I think it's time I give that a go. Other than cat food and cleaning products, there's nothing in the middle I really need on a regular basis.
Now, on to the goals for November:
Diet: less than 210 points eaten per week
Exercise: at least 15 activity points per week
Weight loss: 5 lbs.
Size loss: 3 inches
That's it. Four measly goals.
Oh, and that reminds me...after seeing mention of it at On My Weigh..., I signed up for the President's Challenge for 8 weeks or whatever. If I work out 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week for 6 of the 8 weeks, I get an award or something. Since I always got burned on that "Presidential Physical Fitness Award" as a kid (could never do that effing chin-up thing, or the sit-ups. Or the mile. Aw, hell, I couldn't do any of it. No wonder I was picked last in kickball all the time.), this is my chance to redeem myself. If I make it through the "Active Lifestyle" program successfully, I'll try the "Champions" program. I'm not sure it'll keep me motivated, but it certainly can't hurt. Ooh, prizes!
Posted by Joy at November 5, 2003 05:09 PM