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. 

New Year - new goal!

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last updated this blog. Needless to say, nothing has changed. I'm the same old me that I was a few months ago. 

A small recap. 

Things overall have been good. Oldest boy moved out with this girlfriend in early November, so been going through the transition of him not living at home anymore. I think I'm somewhat used to it now. 

He did move home for 3 days over Christmas, which was nice to have him home, but I could tell by day 3, he was itching to head back to his apartment. :)  He's growing up... not needing me anymore. I knew the day would come and at least I have my younger son still at home to keep me feeling needed! 

The month of December was busy but good overall. I have to admit that this is the first holiday season in many many year that I have not gotten sick. I made a point of taking a dosage of Zinc every day and I'm not sure but I think that might have helped build up my immune system. 

People around me were sick and I never got sick, so....maybe? 

At the start of December, my son contacted me asking about helping him to book a flight to Arizona in February. While I was searching for flights for him, I happened to find a flight sale from Vancouver to Maui so I booked the whole family a trip to Maui in April. I'm very excited. We are taking the boys and their girlfriends and neither of the girls have ever been to Hawaii so I'm so excited to give them this gift! Hawaii is just magical to me and I'm excited to return. 

With an upcoming trip in April, I finally feel the drive to get a few lbs off. Last year, I wanted to get them off, but I also wanted cheese. Cheese always seemed to win out. 

So we are now over the holidays, it's time to get serious and get some of these extra lbs off! 

Do I hate New Year's resolutions?? YUP.... but I see this more as a 3.5 month goal that just happens to be starting today! 

BTW - my weight is up from all the loveliness that the holiday season brings. So starting a little bit back but hopefully in a week or two I'll be back to where I started at the beginning of December. 

Today ... 186.6. UGH. 

Accountability Partner found???

I MAY have found an accountability partner. 

It's HUBBY! 

I never asked him, I never told him that he needs to change what he is doing, but this past weekend, he said to me that he's going to make an appointment to see his doctor but he wants to kick start a bit of weight loss before he goes. 

Say what??? 

I've been on him for years and years, but he has not wanted to do it. Ever. 

But I think he finally realizes it's time. SO I will be his support and he will be mine. 

We came across our first challenge this week with a trivia night on Tuesday at the pub, so I took it upon myself to cancel. We don't need to start off the week with a failure. 

I'm so excited for his journey.  I need to reel myself in a bit as I can get a bit controlling etc, but it's exciting to see him taking care of himself. 

Let's go!!! 

My Test Worked and then...

Lol... the 2 weeks that I tracked and drank my water and limited snacking were great! The scale even moved and I felt great! 

YAY!!!! 

But then I stopped. Stopped Tracking, stopped drinking water and started shoveling food into my mouth whenever I seemed to walk by the kitchen! 

I need an accountability partner. Someone to remind and push me... hubby is useless when it comes to that and I my two very close friends won't be of much help. One is on Ozempic so never eats and the other doesn't have any kind of issue with food so she doesn't feel my pain. 

Maybe I'll put some reminders on my phone to "remind me to drink and track" and to "put that cookie down!". 

Round 500 let's go. 

Update of the update

 So I wanted to do three things to reign in the bad habits and see if the scale would start moving - how did I do? 

1) drink more water  - I think all in all I did better with this. Still not great, but at least I was filling up my water bottle a few times during the day, rather than filling it up in the morning and then not taking a sip until I was going to bed.. True story! 

2) No snacking after dinner - I did really really good with this one. I want to add in trying to remove that mid afternoon snack now... 

3) tracking my food - started off really good and then stopped tracking on the weekend. I did notice when I started tracking HOW MUCH food I was actually eating. When I would have to stop to add the food into my little app, I realized how quickly those calories add up. Seeing the numbers add up made me want to stop shoveling food into my face, but when I stopped tracking, the accountability went out the door and I found that I was eating more and more. So baby steps. 

I am going to keep up with the 3 this week and see how I do. My weight was starting to drop by end of the week but then it started creeping up for no real reason. 

At least no real reason I thought until yesterday morning when my period arrived. It's been about 4 months since I've had one and so it came out of the blue but at least the weight gain made sense at that point. 

I am still weighing daily - I watched a youtube a few weeks back and the creator had gone to the doctor and the doctor had told her to weigh herself each day, same time, wearing the same thing if possible. She asked him why and said she had always heard it was not good to weigh every day. He said, if he had a patient that had high blood pressure he would tell them to monitor it by taking a blood pressure reading daily so it really is no different asking someone with a weight problem to monitor their weight daily with a scale.  That made so much sense to me so I don't feel guilty about weighing everyday and I do think it keeps me on track. 

So continuing with the plan... will report a loss/gain after I get through this TOM or time of year in my case!