The little comment that could

I was visiting Cranky Fitness today, as per my normal daily routine, and I found myself wanting to comment on today's post. Only the problem is that I found I had a lot I wanted to share about my thoughts on this topic, and rather than try to stifle myself, I decided to just say it here instead of leaving a long rambly comment over there.

The post was called, "Segregate fat people: a good idea?", and the topic was the merits of offering yoga classes geared toward people who are overweight.

What a great post! I find it fascinating how word choice can affect the nature of some people's reactions. There were some passionate responses and I was interested in all of them. I find I got rather passionate myself about my views, thank you Merry for getting us all thinking, what fun! :)

Providing a class that accommodates different wants and needs is simply providing more options for people to choose from.

I definitely feel that the use of the word "segregation" has emotionally charged a topic that I believe normally wouldn't bat many people's eyelashes. Segregation, technically, is when something is NOT presented as an option, and you do NOT have a choice as to which you'd prefer.

If when you went to the gym, you were told that since you weigh over X amount of lbs, you would be put in the "Big Yoga" class, this would indeed be segregation, and not a positive thing at all. Anything that takes away your power to choose for yourself is obviously negative and undesirable.

But the post didn't mention other people doing the choosing for you, it talked about classes being made available that account for specific needs/wants. The key point is that they are made available, not mandatory. True segregation is based on some form of discrimination, but how can providing more options to choose from be considered discrimination? If you eat at a restaurant and notice the menu has a section titled "Healthy Choices" or some such, do you believe this some form of discrimination or segregation? Only if the server informs you that since you are overweight your meal MUST be taken from that section or you will not be served.

We all have different preferences and priorities, and we make our choices based on them. Having a wide range of options simply means that there is a higher chance that everyone can choose something that works best for them.

I really don't get why it is a big deal to some people. It's not like efforts aren't already made at gyms to accommodate various wants/needs. On the most basic level, a wide, wide range of exercise equipment can be found in any decent-sized gym. Why? It would be crazy to expect a person workout out to include every different type of equipment in the gym, they'd be there all day (and probably all night as well, because they'd be too exhausted to move afterward to get themselves home). The why is simple, lots of equipment merely provides lots of options, allowing people to choose for themselves what is best for them.

And again, you see this happening at all levels. There are classes offered at different times of the day. There are classes on many different activities/exercises. There are classes offered on the same thing, but the only difference is the instructor teaching it. There are gyms that provide daycare services. There are gyms that are geared toward a specific gender, or age group.

No one thinks this is a big deal, so why would it be a big deal to offer one more option? We all make choices based on our priorities, and all these options simply try to account for them, eg., whether your priority is to find a gym closest to you, or classes in the morning because you prefer to workout in the am, or classes at night because you work all day, or gyms with daycare because you have kids and no babysitter at home, or even to find the one with the cheapest rates, etc etc.

I found it interesting that some people seem to have a negative attitude toward people who choose classes or gyms based on the desire to exercise around people who are similar in shape and/or ability, or even gender. For some, their priority is to find options that allow them to be comfortable when they exercise. How is that less worthy than someone choosing a gym simply because it is the one closest to their children's school, and it makes it easier for them to pick the kids up when they're done working out?

I find the attitude that some express of "Choosing gyms because you feel self-conscious workout out around guys or fit people is silly! I don't care what people think of me and my body, I exercise where I like! Suck it up and get some self-esteem!" to be rather insensitive, close-minded, and downright distasteful. How lovely for you that you are confident and self-assured, it is a wonderful thing to have a healthy self-esteem. But the reality is that not everyone has your situation. Would you look at a parent who wants a gym with daycare services and say, "I don't have kids and I workout when I please! Suck it up and work out at night so your partner can watch the kids instead!"

It really bothers me when people dismiss other people's concerns/priorities just because they're not important to them personally. I wouldn't choose a gym based on its daycare simply because I don't have kids and that is not a priority. I also wouldn't choose a gym based on the attractiveness/availability of people of the opposite gender or whether the treadmills have tv screens attached either. These things aren't important to me, but why would I look down my nose at people for whom these are a priority? I will never understand such people, and thankfully they seem to be in the minority.

I will also add that ultimately we are all concerned with exercising in an environment where we are comfortable. Maybe you're slender and fit and don't feel out of place at your gym, maybe you're overweight but unconcerned with whether you stand out. You probably find it hard to understand why someone would be uncomfortable exercising around people who are slender and fit. That's okay, we're all different, and it can be hard to understand the way other people experience the world. Perhaps you can't relate to the reasons behind why it would make someone uncomfortable, because your personality is different, but you must be able accept that people would rather not exercise somewhere that they are uncomfortable. Surely it is not a foreign concept; how happy would you be going to the gym if the people there constantly spit on the floors, there was no air conditioning, and it was common for people to make derogatory sexual comments to members of the opposite gender and follow them around like stalkers? Bet you wouldn't be too comfortable, and no wonder! The only difference between this and feeling self-conscious and depressed when having to work out around fit people is that the one would make any sane person uncomfortable while the other only applies to certain people. Ultimately, we all just want to be comfortable and able to relax and focus on what we're there for. I would just be happy if there were enough options to accommodate us all so that we can be all happy and able to exercise in comfort and contentment.

Back in my most morbidly obese days, I remember seeing a short docu on tv about something that I believe was called "Big Dance". It was started by a dance instructor who was offering dance classes that were open to beginners of any slant. She started noticing that the people in her class who were overweight were having difficulties with some of the moves/exercises. She said that she had never thought before about how people had different physical abilities in terms of simple things like bending, and that she had only conceptualised her instruction in terms of people's familiarity with dance. She started changing her instruction to take into account that some moves might be physically difficult for some people in the room, and eventually she started a class that focussed on dance moves for obese women. She talked about how life-changing it was for her to see the effect it had on these women to be in a class with people like themselves, to be able to dance and celebrate their bodies and feel confident in themselves and their movements. They started performing publicly, and there were clips of their dances, and I will never forget watching these morbidly obese women in tights and leotards, swaying and dancing with joy and confidence while people watched. I was in awe of these women and their confidence. I was probably around 350lbs at the time, and was in the process of eating a meal that would have stuffed two normal people. I watched that docu and cried through most of it.

Personally, I think offering "Big Yoga" would be a wonderful opportunity for people to whom it is important to have a yoga class suited to their size and ability. It would provide an option for some people who are miserable in their present classes, or who simply don't exercise at all.

In many ways, offering "Big Yoga" is no different than offering classes geared toward beginners vs experts. I think there are some slender people don't truly understand this, but exercise can definitely be a different experience depending on one's size and shape. It's not simply about one's stamina, it's about many different things, including flexibility. There are slender people who have difficulty with yoga not because they're not necessarily unfit, but just because they're not very flexible yet. Conversely, when someone is overweight, and/or a certain shape, yoga in particular can be very difficult at times.

I tried yoga once, and found it very taxing, and it was a beginners DVD. I don't have good balance, and I carry the bulk of my weight around my middle. I found some of the poses very difficult and painful in ways that slender people probably wouldn't, just because of the added strain all this weight around my middle puts on me. Certain poses are going to be more difficult to assume and maintain when a person is overweight, or simply a certain shape. A class that is geared toward overweight people would be safer and more efficient. It wouldn't require people to assume positions that place higher amount of strain on the muscles/joints of overweight people for long periods of time, and it would offer more exercises that take into account having to twist and bend with less flexibility or having to accommodate big boobs or a huge tummy getting in the way. It would mean that people would be less likely to hurt themselves unnecessarily, or to have to sit through exercises that they can't do because they can't get into that position. Offering classes that focus on specific needs/abilities helps make workouts more efficient for everyone involved, it's the whole principle behind having classes for beginners vs experts.

The flip side is this: offering classes that people who are normally too self-conscious to exercise will feel comfortable taking will help them gain self-confidence. We often get it through doing, and many people will say that when they are surrounded by people they feel similar to, most people feel a boost in confidence. Getting a chance to try yoga with people one is comfortable with could be the stepping stone for a person to become confident to start trying other exercises. It's one thing to say people should be able to just do a thing, but the reality is that a lot of us really need those stepping stones.

And as I said before, it's all about providing options. It's only a bad thing if people aren't given the option to choose what they want. You would still get overweight people who would choose to do "Small Yoga" instead of "Big Yoga", maybe because exercising around other overweight people isn't a priority to them, or they do their own modifications to the moves, or maybe because they like the instructor, or the time of day is better, or because that's the one their best friend is in.

And you know what? I bet you would also get some slender people who would choose to take "Big Yoga", maybe because exercising around other slender people isn't a priority to them, or they find the modifications helpful to them because they have arthritis, or maybe because they like the instructor, or the time of day is better, or because that's the one their best friend is in.

As long as actual segregation is not happening, and overweight people who try to join "Small Yoga" aren't told "Get out, you're too fat!", and slender people who try to join "Big Yoga" aren't told "Get out, you're ruining it for the fat people!", then why on earth would it be an issue? Look around you, we're a society based on variety, one trip down the toothpaste aisle should bring that fact home to you. An option does not become a less worthy option simply because it is not one that is important to you or one that you or most of the population would choose.

In the end, people will choose what they want, and three cheers for anything that results in more people choosing to be active and leads to people feeling happier, more confident, and more fit! :D

Sweatin' buckets

The temperature was near the mid-30s today, and with the humidity it felt like 40. It's only a few degrees cooler than that in my flat, despite the fact that the sun has set. I have a high-powered fan pointing straight at me and I've been having to sit on a towel. The moment I shift out of the fan's range a sweat immediately breaks out all over my body.

Looks like I can finally say it...Summer is officially here. Joy! (please kill me)

I've had some things going on that have distracted me from writing, personal stuff that has me emotional, and exercising that has me busy and tired. Definitely yay! for one and boo! for the other.

The heat and the humidity kicking in has definitely had an effect on me, I've had a couple more miserable river walks, but in the last week I've been really careful about getting a lot of water into me before I set out, and my walks have become enjoyable again.

I've also had to adjust the times when I go, and on a couple days, whether I would even go at all. Yesterday was a repeat of the Sunday before my last post; did the workout first THEN the river walk. But despite the fact that the temp was probably 7 degrees hotter, I didn't long to throw myself into the river as I had last time (whether to cool off or simply drown myself is uncertain). Instead, I felt excellent when I was making my way into my building afterward. Yes I was tired and I had sweated OBSCENE amounts, but I felt really, really good too. The difference this time is that I loaded up on water all day (not that I drank more than usual per se, just drank it earlier in the day instead of evening like I normally do), and maybe more importantly, I made sure to have a meal with protein in between the workout and the walk.

I'm so glad I waited till evening to walk, I left about an hour before sundown and the view on the river was absolutely gorgeous, the sky was purple and orange and the sun was a firely red and the river was such a pretty pale blue, and it was nice to be able to look around at it all instead of having to keep my head down against the usual bright glare of the sun. There was even a little breeze, and it helped me feel cooler and I didn't mind sweating buckets because I didn't feel like I was melting.

But let me tell you, did I ever sweat. Recently when I come home from walks and get undressed, my clothes feel very close to how heavy they are when I take them from the washer while doing laundry. I get a kick out of it, and I also use the heft as a reminder to me to guzzle the water.

I've been a little concered that I've been sweating out more than I'm taking in, in terms of sodium and electtrolytes, etc. I don't drink anything but water, and I eat pretty clean. But I noticed last week that the exact same things I always eat were suddenly tasting really salty to me. The same tuna I always eat tasted so salty that I had to get the can and examine it to make sure nothing was amiss. The next day my cottage cheese tasted so salty I was looking at it in confusion. Normally I dislike salty food, but I've not been bothered by the inexplicable saltiness of certain foods lately, it tastes quite good actually.

It didn't go away wither, it went on for days! This makes me wonder whether my body isn't getting enough sodium/etc to counteract all the excessive sweating I've been doing lately. Most health-conscious people try so hard to cut the salt way down, they don't stop to think that if you keep your intake constant, your body will be affected during times when you sweat more, as when you exercise and/or go through the summer months. I've been doing some reading to see if sensitivity to salt is a symptom of needing more sodium, but have had no luck at all. I keep getting the same cookie-cutter articles talking about how we have too much salt in our diets and salt is baaaaaaaaaad! I've gotten to a point now where I'm a little skeptical though, I think the hoopla around limiting it to 500-2300mg a day or whatever it is, might be unreasonable without taking into account such things as how much you sweat/exercise. I was reading an interesting study that talked about how most studies looking at the adverse affects of salt are not properly factoring for all contributing variables to the health problems they focus on. I'm not saying too much salt is good, I'm just saying I'm starting to have second thoughts on how little is best.

Either way, I've gotten rather obsessive recently about how much of what nutrients I've been getting, in light of the salt-sensitivity and periods of fatigue I was having. I've started journalling my meals very specifically, trying to find out exactly what my intake is. The food scale I bought with a Christmas gift card is prooving invaluable, as I always knew it would be if I ever managed to get one. I've been measuring and weighing everything, even the veggies, because I want to know what I might be lacking or getting too much of, and what I can possibly tweak so that I feel good physically, not to mention lose weight while feeling satisfied.

I will say that I have been tracking my sodium intake for the past week and it seems I do not go over the 2300mg a day of sodium it is widely recommended I should never exceed. Tracking for a week gives me a good picture because my meals have little variation, and if I haven't eaten it somewhere in the week then it's something I don't have very often. I'd been concerned that I should start trying to cut even more sodium out, but after the past couple weeks I'm thinking that I will not worry about that, not over the summer anyway. I'm still trying to decide if perhaps I might need a little more (seriously, you have no idea how much I sweat), I'm going to play it by ear and try to listen closely to my body.

Okay I've rambled on forever, there was more I wanted to say but I'll save it for the next post. Mental Note: you wouldn't need to ramble on forever if you posted more often. Gotcha.

A seventh of your life...

..is spent getting through Mondays.

Normally Monday isn't a big deal for me anymore, but I both ate out last night and had adventures with tequila, so today did feel like Monday. As usual with the day after a drunk I was hungry all day; normally I have a very late supper but today I was hours ahead of schedule, I just wanted to eat and eat.

I stayed OP and I'm feeling better now, I'm just hoping I don't feel hungry again before bed because I have no points left. I don't get hangovers, I just get ravenous the next day. And I will often feel lethargic, as I have today.

I've felt tired and lazy and didn't do any exercise, but that was partially because of the heat and because I was absolutely wiped yesterday during my river walk. I did my workout first then did the walk right afterward and at first I was fine but halfway through I was wishing some bicyclist would run me over and put me out of my misery.

The worst was that my body suddenly became intensely demanding in terms of wanting to be fed. I could almost hear it yelling at me "Feed me, Bitch!" I tried silently reasoning with it that food would come later, when I got home and cleaned up, but it refused to listen. I then silently willed it to chow down on some fat stores while I finished my walk, but instead I think it started eating my lung tissue, because I started getting very achy. I think it also helped itself to some grey matter, as my brain ceased working properly and I lost my ability to think clearly. I no longer felt like I was walking, felt a lot more like trudging. And as I trudged I told myself that I need to be more careful about the timing of my meals when I'm exercising. I also decided I might take the day off today and recuperate, a decision that was solidified after the night's eventual activities. Right now I'm just looking forward to sleep!

Oh well

So all right, that sucked mightily! The game started well, but then the Wings just lost their spark, I was disappointed the game wasn't more competitive. And of course I was also disappointed that they didn't win, if for no other reason than I hate seeing the home crowd let down like that. I always feel bad for the losing players, but when it's in front of the home crowd I end up feeling bad for them too, all 20-odd thousand of them. I found it interesting that for all the hype around Crosby, they basically won the game with him doing much of anything. The same goes for the the whole series actually, and yet every second word out of their mouth is 'Crosby'. Seems to me they did just fine without him. But whatever, lol, it's over and done with, I won't have any sports to talk about till NFL starts up again.

I'm still on track, in some ways I feel I'm getting even more on track with each day. I think it's because I've gotten the physical cravings mostly out of my system at this point. I'm finding myself to be much more satisfied with the food I'm eating. The mental cravings aren't gone yet, but they're getting less too, and they're easier to ignore when not paired with the physical kind at the same time. There are times my emotions trigger cravings for dirty carbs, but I've been able to resist.

I truly think that the key for me is to get into a groove. With each day I'm OP, the more reluctant I am to go off plan and ruin my 'streak'. And I suppose the key to getting back on plan truly is to just take it one day at a time, because each day truly makes a difference in the critical time early on when you're trying to get re-established.

I had planned a river walk today, but I didn't go. I wanted to walk to the grocery as well today, as I won't be lifting today as I lifted yesterday, and I did do that. But I could hear all this racket this afternoon and remembered that the Red Bull Air Races were today, and I knew it would be chaos down by the river. It's so hard to walk when there are people meandering everywhere on the path. I did a river walk last year the morning of the races and found the people very annoying, there were so many of them it was frustrating to try and keep my pace up while having to weave about them as they walked down the middle of the path.

So today I figured I'd give the river walk a miss. I did however walk to the grocery and back, 2 miles each way, and carried my groceries back, which I figure is easily the equivalent of a river walk at least. I got a big bag of green peppers, and a big bag of yellow and orange peppers, and I got whole wheat pitas and frozen veggies and some spices and parmasan, I'm quite pleased. Oh, and mushrooms, I can't get decent mushrooms up the street, makes me crazy!

Still, I would have liked to do both a grocery run AND a river walk in, though; it's strange how guilty I feel, as though I didn't exercise today, just because I got my activity from running errands instead of just for the sake of exercise. As if activity isn't activity, as long as the intensity is the same. I suppose it would be much more preferable to be able to get your activity just from practical things like running errands, that would leave the rest of your time free for leisure, but there it is. I still would have liked to walk by the river today, it is a nice day for it, cloudy and grey and I wouldn't have been fried by the sun for once. Incidentally I'm just glad that activity is becoming a part of my routine again to the extent that I feel weird if I don't get planned exercise in!

Go Wings Go!

The first period just ended of the Stanley Cup Final, and me nerves are gone! I did a workout and was rushed just before the game to make a meal, a very, very late lunch. I'll have supper after the game, but I was hungry and made scrambled eggs with tons of peppers and onions (it was sooo delicious!). I was in the kitchen finishing making it when the game started, I was frantic that I might miss something exciting. Apparently I didn't need to worry though, it's a scoreless first period. Competitive though, fast-paced.

The playoffs have been good motivation for me to do my workouts, because I've been wanting to be finished and cleaned up to be waiting for the start of the game. I've been converted into a real Red Wings fan this year, it's hard not to get caught up with the excitement, but I cheer for the Wings because they have Dan Cleary, homegrown, fellow Newfoundlander, how could I be here and NOT cheer for the Wings?? lol Don Cherry is praising him right now on Coach's Corner, the part at the beginning of the game where he was standing in the river and hefting an octopus, you can see the Windsor side of the river over his shoulder, right where I go for my walk. A friend of mine works for the Red Wings during playoffs and he got me in with him to watch one of the games in round 1, and when I saw Dan come out I was screaming my head off, I was so excited to see him there!

If they win it I'll go out on my balcony and listen to them partying in Detroit, I bet I see fireworks, they love setting them off when they win championships. When I went for my river walk this afternoon, I was looking over at the Joe and I could see crowds of people there already. I was wishing so badly that I could be there, but I don't know if I could handle the stress, it's bad enough sitting here by myself. Nothing like a good competitive playoff game to keep your heart rate up!!

I won!

I won I won I won I WON!!! *happy dances n wiggles!* :D

About a week ago I was making my daily visit to one of my all-time fav blogs, Cranky Fitness, and I saw they were doing a giveaway for these things called Sleep Phones. The blogs I frequent often have cool giveaways, the kind where basically all you have to do to qualify is make a comment on the post (oh, and have had parents who birthed and raised you in the United States..hee), but I've never entered any before. This is mostly because the contests are usually for US citizens only, plus I never feel very lucky. But as soon as I saw this post I knew I was going to enter, something was telling me I had to do it, especially since it was open to anyone no matter which country you happen to call home.

It still almost didn't happen, because I had just installed a new browser, and when I first read the post I wasn't able to see the verification code to add a post, so I decided to go back and do it later. My memory is not always the greatest, but those Sleep Phones were in my mind, I knew I wanted them badly, and I remembered to go back on the last day to qualify and make my comment. I was the third last person to enter, and thought it might hurt my chances somehow; surely the random number generator would pick randomly from the middle of the pile! Yes I know, humans can have some very illogical ideas about the meaning of 'random' and estimating chance, all my many stats professors over the years are probably all somewhere shaking their heads at me. Well, as long as they're not all somewhere doing it together in some sort of conference on Delle Stupidity or some such.

But I won! I truly did! How terribly exciting! I am sooo full of squee and glee, I've been bouncing around ever since I found out. I would have found out yesterday but I was super bummed out yesterday and generally unimpressed with the world, and felt that laying in bed doing nothing was much preferable to going online and following my normal routine. I even had the thought that the winner would be announced, but in the end decided to wait to check; too bad I hadn't been on the comp, it sure would have cheered me up some! But better late than never, I'll take cheeriness whenever it comes!

I can't wait to try these earphones, you would not believe the troubles I've had with trying to wear regular over-the-head earphones to bed. I can't sleep on my back, so it made for very painful ears/neck/head while sleeping on my side. To try and get around this in the past I've actually resorted to taking the computer speakers to bed with me (not on the first date though, of course!), and positioning them so there was sitting on either side of me as I slept. That worked better than trying to sleep with headphones on, but then the speaker wire got damaged from getting caught in the frame of my bed and the speakers I have no don't have wires long enough to stretch. I've been having renewed trouble with insomnia again this year and I've taken to falling asleep while listening to my favorite audio book, I just play it on my laptop. The problem becomes when I have company over or when I sleep elsewhere I don't have that option. Plus I've recently acquired some noisy neighbours and I've been having to put up with a lot of noise when I try to sleep. I'm going to be haunting the mailbox till these babies make it here, I'm indecently thrilled to have 1. actually won something, and 2. won something I wanted that will actually be incredibly useful and practical for me! :D *squiggles and wiggles!*

A sunny Tuesday

I've been awful about keeping up my journal, but to be honest there wasn't much to say. I've been having a lot of issues and things going on in my life, and I've been having a lot of trouble pulling things together. I gained some more weight, the exact amount shall not be spoken, since I am struggling with a lot of guilt and shame and am trying to let it go as much as possible. I've been hiding because I don't want to admit it, so I figure if I don't admit it I can find the courage to come out of hiding at least. Suffice to say that the clothes I was wearing last summer are way too snug and uncomfortable now, and that is probably one of my biggest motivators right now to get back in shape. It's not easy, but one day at a time is all you can do.

I've been attempting to get things under control for a while, but it's been a lot of start and stop. I've found myself really vulnerable to emotional eating over the fall and winter months, and it's been really difficult to stop the binging. I ate so well the year before, but I also wasn't dealing with a lot of the personal issues I've been faced with lately.

This time around however, I didn't talk about getting back on track, I just did it. I didn't want to talk about it and not do it again so I just kept quiet and put my energy into the behaviours. I'm doing really well, I've been tracking and OP for a month, after so many months without tracking at all. I've noticed the past few days that I'm finally starting to settle back into the healthy diet; for a long time there I was having fierce cravings for dirty carbs, and it was killing me some days to avoid a binge. I'm eating almost exactly the way I did when I lost most of the weight, and I'm getting to a point where I'm looking forward to my meals again and finding satisfaction from them, instead of wishing constantly that I was eating something else.

What I think I'm most proud of is that I'm back into an exercise routine! After the injury I had late last summer I just fell off track and never seemed to get back on. It took a long time to heal, but by then I was distracted by life and got just plain lazy. I tried during the winter to get things in hand, and started to get a routine with my elliptical, but then it broke and I was up the creek. But the weather is fin (getting too fine actually, I sweat buckets when I exercise now), and I'm back to walking and lifting. Last week I had absolutely NO motivation to workout, but I did anyway, and I am super proud of that. I was PMSing like crazy, much worse than usual, but I was determined to stick to my new routine and I did. I have been revelling in the feeling I get from exercising, and I'm focussing hard on making it a positive force in my life right now.

In terms of losing the excess, it is achingly slow going, to the point that I'm not really showing much if any of a loss from week to week. This can be incredibly disheartening, as I am miserable with my body as it is and I want to get back to where I had been as fast as possible. Of course after losing so much weight I know better than most that it takes time, but the thing is that it's MUCH MUCH MUCH slower than it had been before, even though I feel I am doing everything almost exactly the same. Perhaps it's because I'm so impatient to see results, but I was always impatient. I just keep telling myself to concentrate on the behaviours, and that the rest will follow in time. I'm hoping that the fact that I jumped back into doing a lot of exercise instead of gradually building from a small bit is one of the reasons the scale is being stubborn. I've been lifting for about a month, I can see more muscle tone, and that affects the scale, particularly in terms of fluid retention. I've also had a period and have been eating out (counted for in points) but I only very rarely ate out before, so while I think my routine is exactly the same, of course it isn't.

The one thing I've found I've been missing the past week is journalling here, and I think that is yet another sign that I'm getting back on track. I'm finding that I'm motivated to talk about my successes and even my struggles from day to day, it helped me so much while I was losing before. Journalling isn't something I want to force myself to do, I want it to be natural, just like I want my healthy lifestyle to be natural again. Of course, nothing is ever easy, but I'm starting to feel good, and I'm looking forward to feeling even better!

The Monday after

I had expected to be back here before now, but I've had some things distracting me the past couple of weeks, and I'm still trying to ease back into things gradually instead of setting tonns of goals and determining to be perfect. I noticed that I had comments on my last post, I was so surprised, as I'm not used to that! I was touched that people took the time out to read my words and to go out of their way to comment.

I've not been on the scale since about last Wednesday or so, but I've been weighing pretty regularly, every day or so, overall. The scale was showing up again, even though I had been strict with my diet for over a week. It will take time for me to get a feel for things and how the scale is going to react. I had such a strict routine last year that I knew what the scale was going to do from week to week, but now that I am making different decisions I have no way or predicting. I'm not too worried about what it is doing week to week, I'm going to be looking more at what it is doing month to month, since that will be the true tell as to whether things are working. I'm being reminded at how weight loss takes so much time, but you can gain so much weight in just a few days of binging.

I haven't been tracking since last Wednesday either, I've not been home most of that time, and usually didn't have access to a computer. I knew that I was going to be unable to track for at least two days, and that I would be eating out. I also took that into account in my food choices early in the week. I know I could have done better over the weekend, but overall I'm not displeased. I wasn't perfect, but I still kept a measure of control. It was tempting to go all out, but I weighed each decision before I made it, and ultimately I denied myself permission to binge. Again I worked on cutting back instead of cutting out; I had cheese with a few meals, when last year I would have had none, but for the meals where it was a condiment (what is the proper term?? it is escaping me at the moment), I kept the amounts very small. I also had a little bit of dessert with one meal, but I shared with another person instead of having my own.

So it wasn't a blow-out weekend, but the days of un-tracked/unplanned meals lasted longer than I had expected, as I'd thought I'd be home by Friday night but didn't get back until Sunday afternoon. I did choose to eat what I liked last night without tracking, when I could have, but I decided that it was what I wanted and that I would pay the price. The price of course is that I'm having some cravings today, but I can handle it. I'm wishing I had some junk food (craving chips and chocolate, in no particular order), but all I have to do is endure it, since I have no junk in the house to eat no matter how tempted. I do however have lots of wonderful veggies, since the friend I spent the weekend with (JB) took me shopping yesterday before dropping me off, and I stocked up on good things. I bought a big bag of red peppers, green onion, carrots, romaine, apples (I never never eat enough fruit, something else I keep trying to improve on), mushrooms, green beans, celery, my fav frozen veggies, and a big bag of zuccini. I also got other essentials like whole wheat pita, yogurt for baking, tuna, and diced tomatoes/sauce for cooking. I am actually pretty excited when I look in my fridge and see the zuccini, it's been months since I've bought any, I've not seen any at my regular store that have looked fit to buy. These ones are firm and big and oh so pretty! I bought a bagful, and now I need to decide my next two meals for the day and see if I can incorporate the green lovelies, using my WW tracker of course. Definitely got my veggie mojo going!

Hello February!

I'm not going to make any grand pronouncements. I'm still where I left off last time, trying to get a routine back into my life. I have been putting a lot of effort into getting my eating back under control over the last month, and I'm finally having success with it. At first I started cutting out the junk, and eating more of the foods I ate consistently when I was OP, then I started working on portions sizes. This is my second week I believe of counting points every day, and I'm feeling pretty good. When I was last posting here I was having a lot of dicculties with cravings, but I'm not having near the same struggles now. I'm starting to see the extra weight begin to come off and it's doing me a world of good.

Earned 1 AP today: 20 min brisk walking.