A few improvements

 It's been a few weeks since I posted and I am happy to say that things seem to be improving. Not on track every single day, but better than I was. 

I did really well at tracking my food that first week, but as soon as the weekend came, I forgot to track and haven't really tracked since. I hope to get back to that on a regular basis because it's the tracking that really wakes me up to the reality of what I'm eating during the day.  I tend to forget about the cracker here, piece of cheese there.  Weekends are hard and I'm not going to beat myself up about the fact that I don't track on the weekends right now. If I can be better during the week, that's a plus and maybe the habit will wear into the weekends too. My snacking has been under control for the most part, but when I track I don't tend to track at all so tracking needs to be a goal.  

Exercise has been good. I'm trying to ride the bike a minimum of 3 times as week and I also do my stretching 4-5 times a week. 

We haven't been socializing as much lately which also keeps the social wine here and there at a minimum. 

I started checking my blood pressure again and it's been looking good.  Hopefully sometime in the new year it will start really dropping and I can request a reduction in my medication. 

The sciatica pain that I had a month or so ago is all but gone. I can feel it creep in once and awhile but nothing like it was.  The stretching definitely helped that pain so I need to keep that up. 

One oddity is that after 8 months of no period, I had 2 days of very very light spotting. Nothing that I would have even cared about before but found it odd after so long. I made a note of it. 

Weight was down to 185.5 this morning. It was 189.6 at last post so I'm very happy with that. It has been yoyoing around a bit, but this was the lowest that it's been in a long time. If I can break down into the low 180s then hopefully it won't be long until I see the 170s again. My goal! 

Do the graphics make it more real?

I've been bitchin' and moanin' about my weight pretty much all summer. It's going up, what am I going to do? I'm going to get serious blah blah blah. 

Yet another week/weekend goes by where I start really well, the exercise is improving, but I know that it's the kitchen where the weight loss happens. I am good during the day when nobody is here but when everyone gets home from work, that's when it all blows up. Makes no sense, right?  I'm not the type of person that sits and snacks in a closet away from the judgement eyes. No. I'm the type that eats right in front of you, along with everyone else.  It's when they get home from work and want a snack that I join right in with them. 

Yesterday I tracked my lunch and I was sitting in a good position. Dinner was already planned to be some broccoli/cheese soup and a small salad with chicken. Which we did have.   And if I had only had that, my numbers would have been great and I could have been proud for the day. But instead... 

Here's a snapshot of my food yesterday. I had entered my lunch (first meal for the day) and then stopped. I entered the remaining food that I ate, this morning and above are the results. I overate again.  And what did I overeat on? Carbs... I snacked with my son when he got home from work. I ate pita chips and hummus and after dinner I ate regular sugar yogurt.  So nothing terrible at all, but out of plan and the little nips here and there are what throw me over my numbers and what is in the end, causing my weight gain. 

It's the damn snacking. I have to stop. 

I weighed in this morning and it was so much higher than my last weigh in that the app actually asked me if it was correct? Said that my new weight was considerable different from my last weigh in and did I still want to save the number! 

When I went in to show the graphic of my weight fluctuations?? It's not drastic, I know. It's a change of a little over 10 lbs, but it's the fact that it is just going up, up, up.. Over 12 months, this is what my weight has done.  I had control for a while and it was on it's way down and since the trip to Hawaii, it's been slowly creeping up. If I don't get a handle of it soon, it will keep heading in the wrong direction. 

I know I have to get serious. I know it's habits and I will break out of them. I'm hoping that looking at a few graphics that truly tell the story, will help me move forward in the right direction, because what I'm doing now, is not working.