Accountability

I've been off track this week. Not crazy off track, but enough that I'm starting to feel the pull back to the other side. The side of bad eating choices, no exercise, not taking care of myself properly. 

This post is for my accountability.  

We celebrated a close friend's birthday mid week which threw me off plan. We went out for dinner, which was a set menu and the choices were not great, but I did the best I could. I had planned before I left that I would only have soda water, but I caved. I had the wine. I had the dessert. I'm not proud but I have to be real with myself that this will happen and I need to deal with it and then get back on track. 

The problem is that I didn't. 

I didn't exercise yesterday and I had another unplanned, unhealthy meal last night. So it's Friday, which is usually my "splurge" night, but I'm going to stick to being good and forego the planned glass of wine at the pub tonight. It's soda water and a salad :).   Friday, after all is just another day in the week. My Friday was already had, on Wednesday! 

I'm exercising today too... and tomorrow! Just over a month until Hawaii! 

Springing into Spring

Last month was another success. I managed to lose 2.6 lbs which originally I was not happy about, but when I stopped and thought about it, I realized that the loss was 1/2 a lb a week, which is amazing for me. I also did not have the usual yo-yoing of losing 2, going up 2, losing 2, going up 3 etc. 

Yes, my body did ups and downs but they were more controlled and overall, the number was on the decline. 

This is what my WI app looked liked at the end of the month so yes, ups and downs, but trend was DOWN!  On Feb 29th I was 178.6 so IN the 170s!!  I'm over the wall., now onto the next wall!  

My exercise has continued. I have reduced my strength training to 3 or 4 days a week rather than 5 so I can add in more rides/walks. All seems good so far. 

That is all the good. Here is the bad. I found out on Monday, that our family doctor has had to retire due to medical reasons and now our entire family is orphaned. We have NO family doctor. I had this family doctor for over 40 years.  There is no doctor to buy the practice and there are no doctors available to take us on.  I'm terrified and angry. Our Canadian medical system sucks. Yes, it's free, but there are 700,000 people in my province alone that do not have a doctor. I'm now on a list with 400,000 other residents trying to find a family doctor. On top of that, the 3 walk-in clinics that we had in our town have converted to full practices and they are no longer seeing walk-ins unless you are a registered patient with them. This just sucks. I've been very upset about the entire thing all week but I can't make myself sick about it, because I don't have a doctor to help me with stress/sickness. 

Sigh... so all the more reason to keep on this fight for my health. 

February Progress

It's been a few weeks since I reported but all in all, things are still going well. I was upping my strength training, but that resulted in a decrease in my cardio. 

I'm taking a small step back from strength this week to try to incorporate cardio back in. I know the cardio is good for my heart so it's important to keep in the mix. The small walks I do daily with the dogs do not get my heart beating in the way that it needs to so the bike or walks without dogs is what is needed. 

I went for a walk with an old friend on Saturday. We walked for over an hour and a half and it was fantastic.  We ended up walking over 9 KM and my legs were getting jiggly by the end. We vowed to try to keep that up once a week with each other as it felt so good and was a nice way to get outside, catch up and get some steps in. 

My weight has been bouncing up and down but I'm not going to report any gains/losses until the end of the month, which is just around the corner. I'm truly hoping to see some good numbers next week though as I've been doing the right things. 

It's starting to warm up here in Vancouver and the bulbs are starting to poke out of the ground.  We've had a couple frosty mornings but the afternoons are wonderful. Not quite warm enough for no jacket, but enjoyable and hopefully a sign of warmer weather to come. It's time to start planning the outdoor projects for the spring. 

We spend most of our days in the spring/summer outside and I'm really happy with the improvements that we made to our backyard last summer. There is still lots to be done, but the bulk of the work (ie. new concrete pad, new overhang, new furniture etc) is all done. Now we can focus on foliage and other decorations around the yard to make it even more enjoyable. 

That's it for now. I'm going to do some checking on blood pressure numbers this week to see how they are looking, but I'm hopeful all will look amazing! 

January Recap - what worked, what didn't work

January was a success! 

I managed to get my groove back and have made some serious strides to improving my health. 

I lost 5.8 lbs in January which I'm thrilled about.  Finished off the month at 180.8, so so close to the 170s. I have not seen the 170s in some time, but I can smell it, taste it, feel it! It's there for the grabbing! 

I did well with my eating.  I drastically reduced my snacking and as it was dry January, I did not have any alcohol, except for the one planned night, on January 28th. 

Apart from the food choices, this is what I'm most proud of below.... that is my activity calendar from my Peloton account. Look at all them blue dots!! Yes, the first week was a bit of a bust, but as of the 8th, I would say I killed it. The blue dots represent rides, strength and stretching activities. I told myself at the start of January I wanted to commit to doing 4 physical activities, other than walking the dog 2x daily, a week.  And I did it. 

I'm very very proud of myself. 

So what worked? EVERY THING ABOVE!!! 

What didn't work? Actually nothing, didn't work. I didn't have any point in the month where I thought, "man I screwed up". I did have the one evening on the 28th where my food choices were not ideal, but who cares? It was one day, I planned it, I survived it, I moved on. 

I'm so excited for February.... let's do this! 

Feeling Almost Amazing

I promised myself last week that even though I did not see a lot of success on the scale, I knew that I was doing the right thing and to keep at it. 

I did keep at it and even upped my effort and I am starting to see the scale numbers fall. This morning I weighed in at 181.7. That number is GREAT, but even better is that it was lower on Saturday and Sunday!  So I know it's going in the right direction. 

What have I been doing? Really controlling my eating/snacks and no alcohol. The no alcohol thing is really just my vow to clean out the system from Christmas and the holidays. 

This last week I had a birthday party and was so good with my choices.  I had one blip with my eating and that was yesterday but it was a planned blip.  We had a planned night with friends to go to see Nate Bargatze perform.  We bought the tix back in October. I decided at the start of January that because the show as the 28th, I would allow myself a glass or two of wine as we had also planned to go to dinner with friends, but I was going to make sure I ate something light and healthy (ie salad) 

Here is the crappy thing.... the restaurant that we planned to go to, we could not get into. Or rather we could BUT... we would likely not make show. So that was not an option. We walked around vancouver in the rain for about 20 minutes before we settled on another restaurant. It was not busy but were told that the kitchen staff was backed up and meals could take awhile. We only had an hour!  So we decided to just order a bunch of appetizers rather than actual meals and then head to the show.  We ordered nachos, hot wings and some thai chicken bite things. It was all good BUT not on plan at all. I also had two glasses of wine. UGH... last night the heart burn kicked in and I felt like poop. 

So bad to the grind today. Although January is almost over and thus dry January comes to an end, I also think I'll carry it over to February. Yes, I had a blip yesterday but I much prefer how I feel when I don't drink. My sleep is better, my skin is amazing right now as well so I know what my body likes and doesn't like. 

I'm really proud of myself for my efforts in my exercise and my food choices so why stop now? 

Oh and my period finally arrived... 91 days since last one. Hopefully it doesn't stay for too long. 

Onto February! :) only 2.5 months till Hawaii!!!! 

Mini Fluctuations and Frustrations

 I've been doing all the right things. ALL of the right things. I'm eating well, no alcohol or sugary drinks and exercising. 

Weight is creeping up again. 

Not going to totally stress it cause maybe it's just my body doing annoying body things. I know I'm enterig peri-menopause cause I've only  had 2 periods in the last 8 months. I'm currently sitting at 81 days since my last one. I could have one coming on or it could just be my body pretending to have a period and doing all the PMS prep like gain weight etc ?? 

I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and keep weighing every morning to see what happens. I like to weigh daily cause it keeps me on track and accountable 

Last thursday the scale got down to 181.9 and this week I'm back up to 183.4. Not terrible, but I really expected the weight to at least stay the same or drop this week.  

I'm not being obsessive... yet. :)

Last weekend was busy so I'm happy for no plans this weekend. We got a dumping of snow this week so I will spend the weekend in the house, watching the snow melt with the puppies, oh and hubby too! 

Goals and Future Plans

Last week went well. It seems, at least for now, I have a focus with this upcoming trip to get healthier. 

Last week I ate more vegetables, which caused me a lot of gas (LOL). I did not partake in any alcohol and tried my best to stay away from treats. I believe we are almost done with all the chocolate gifties from friends & family which will be good! I need those out of my house but I have such a hard time just throwing them in the garbage. Someone spent good money to gift us chocolates so we should enjoy them, but not gorge on them!  Balance. 

I started moving my body again this week. A couple small rides and getting back into strength training and it all feels good. 

My weight has been going down consistently, today I saw a little blip up, but I have been on track so I know it's just normal fluctuations or maybe a bit of muscle strain. It's all good. This morning I was 183.4. 

So the holiday bloat seems to be gone, so now the work begins to move that number down. 

We had friends over for dinner on the weekend and got on the topic of retirement as my friend is scheduled to retire in July. Amazing! I don't feel like retirement is anywhere in my immediate horizon, however hubby figured out that he would like to retire in January of 2026.  

The whole topic of retirement got me thinking about myself and when I would like to complete work and more importantly, what do we do after we retire? I want to have a plan. Maybe a hobby or maybe some volunteer work. Maybe I'll be a grandma by then!? Who knows. 

But it makes me realize that I need to get in shape now and get my  health in order, so that when I'm ready to be done work, my retirement days/years will be enjoyable and allow me to do whatever I physically want to do.