Daily Wahnsinn

Since re-starting Weight Watchers, I’ve moved my weigh in day to Sundays so yesterday I weighed in for the first time. I was really happy with my weight dropping down to 149.5 lbs, which meant a 7.5 lbs “loss” from where I first re-started. As I mentioned in a previous post, a few factors (my period, a late dinner the night before) contributed to higher-than-expected starting weigh, so the majority of the 7.5 lbs is most likely just water. Either way, it feels good to be less bloated and just feel thinner again. I did stick to my daily and earned activity points, so there should be some fat loss in there too.

Things that worked for me this week:

• Reduce processed carbs. I think I had one or two slices of pumpernickel bread and a clif/luna bar. That was the worst carbs I got. Otherwise it was whole grains, mostly whole cooked barley and fruits and vegetables for carbs.
• Drink water, drink water, drink even more water. And then some more water.
• Cut out diet soda.
• Get back into an exercise habit after my break.

 Speaking of exercise, I’ve done a lot of upper body training in the last two days. Especially this morning, Bishop seemed to be on a mission during bootcamp. It was a small class with only 8 people and he had us grab those stackable step up benches and then went on to torturing us for 60 minutes. Each us of had to go 5 boxes high and then he had us do elevated pushups (feet on the box, hands on the ground), some sort of burpee variation where you start in a plank, then jump your feet up, do a pushup and jump back down to plank. Another exercise he had us do was starting on the right side of the box in plank, do a push-up, walk your hands (still in plank) up the box and over to the left, pushup and back over to the right. I nearly died during this one. Of course in between he chased us up 6 flights of stairs twice, having us do super-jumps (2 steps at a time). We finished off by stacking more boxes, putting a bar on top and then doing pull-ups. I hate pull-ups. So much.

I can feel myself getting sore already. I can barely lift my arms. Yoga’s going to be interesting tonight. The only good thing is that a sore back/arms/shoulders makes me forget that yesterday my legs were sore. Maybe I can even head out for a job tomorrow.

The first few days back on Weight Watchers have been pretty good. I was curious so I did a scale check-in this morning and it told me I’m down 7 (!!) lbs since Sunday. There are a two caveats to go with this: when I weighed in on Sunday morning, it was after a late dinner on Saturday and it was my period hump day (aka the day with ALL the bloating and water retention). Ever since starting again, I’ve reduced the amount of carbs I eat, especially bread, gone cold turkey on diet sodas and I’ve increased my fruit and vegetable intake again. I’ve also been really, really good about my water intake. I know that the majority of the 7 lbs is mostly water, but I did stick to my 26 daily points (plus what I’ve gained through workouts) and I haven’t been going crazy overboard with fruits. So some of the 7 lbs should definitely be fat too.

That number in itself is awesome, but I guess just the security and positivity I feel through being on track again is what’s lifting me up right now. And the fact that I’m just a lot less bloated is awesome. I’m obviously fully aware that the high and motivation you feel in the first few weeks will eventually lessen and that I’ll be faced with challenges again, but right now, it just feels good to feel the way I do.

Other awesome things: I cooked this Vegan Protein Power Salad last night. I’d made it before and it’s one of my favorites. It’s delicious – just the dressing alone, my, my, my! I even don’t mind the kale in it. It keeps really well in the fridge too, so lunch is figured out for the next few days. Yay!

After sleeping through my alarm yesterday and missing my workout date with Sherry, I decided to double up today by adding another one this morning. I couldn’t find the motivation to work out last night, even though I had brought my gym bag to work. So yesterday was a rest day. I usually go to bootcamp on Thursday nights and this morning I threw in a spin class because I felt like some good cardio. Bishop teaches spin at Reebok on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I took his class. I almost forgot how everything he does is HARD. (Or super-hard, but nothing lighter than hard.) I felt so, so good after the workout. Can’t wait for tonight!! I haven’t really started training for the Brooklyn half (which is in May) and my last longish run was the Mudder in Miami back in early March. Not sure it counts as your typical long run since we stopped in between to wait at obstacles and weren’t continuously running the entire 12 miles. Time to get some quality running time again.

So, life.

Things are hopefully about to calm down again soon. I’ve been part of my new account for about 4 weeks now and I’m feeling like I’m getting the hang of it finally. My new team is really nice and my supervisor and assistant are both great. I’ve been extremely busy and planned and presented 8 campaigns to the client within the last 2 weeks. I only have 4 to go. I’ve been given my performance review last Friday and while I’m happy that I got a good review, I’m disappointed that I won’t find out for another 2 weeks whether I’ll get promoted or not. At this point surely, they’ve made up their mind who gets promoted and who not. Two of the girls from my very first account got promoted outside of the promotion cycle and I think the whole issue is being handled poorly by my company. Anyway.

My eating has been really poor last week. I decided to give myself a break and try to eat intuitively. I didn’t count a single calorie. And for whatever reason, I just cannot seem to eat intuitively. I ate whatever I wanted. Whenever I wanted. How much ever I wanted. As a result, I’ve continued gaining weight – up to a point where I feel incredibly uncomfortable in my skin, where my clothes feel funny and I’m generally just not happy at all. I’m trying to tell myself not to beat myself up, but I feel so much anger and rage that I want to punch people in the face who tell me to forgive myself. (So please don’t. *g*)

It doesn’t help that I’ve had to take the week off exercising too. The tattoo’s pretty much healed so I think I’m taking myself out for a jog tomorrow morning and then on Wednesday, I have my first date with Sherry again. I need some good SWEAT!!!

I’ve also thought about this long and hard and I’ve decided to rejoin Weight Watchers. I know that I’ve started developing issues while I was on the program, but I think going back (differently) will be good for me. I need to keep track of my food intake. It’s either points or calories. Eating intuitively does not work for me. The reason why I’m favoring points over calories is because it’ll give me a little bit more wiggle room without being too obsessive. No more “if I’m going to eat a small apple instead of a medium apple, I’ll save 10 calories”. No, an apple is an apple and it’s 0 points, so goddamn have it. Weight Watchers hopefully will be a way for me to monitor carb and alcohol intake and not so much everything else. I’ve also decided not to go back to the meetings and do Weight Watchers online this time. I’m just not looking forward to the whole Hare Krishna approach, the reaction to gaining (belittlement, pity, judging?) I’m also not looking forward to having my “failure” being exposed to my previous meeting leader and other people in the group. Plus, a person I used to be friends with sometimes goes to the only meeting that works for me and I’m quite frankly not putting myself through the awkwardness of sitting in the same room as her once a week.

I think I need to be held accountable for what I do and what I eat. I’ve allowed myself to be very lax with keeping track of my calories, just because there was nobody to say “hey, wait a minute!” Now there’s my wallet. I want to reach a goal weight, so that I can stop paying for something I don’t want to pay for. Maybe seeing that money come out of my bank account each month will keep me focused. Maybe that’s the motivation I need. I want to lose this weight. 20 lbs, that’s it. That’s doable. I did it before. I’ve said goodbye to my initial goal weight and allowed myself to strive for my lowest weight I had under Weight Watchers. Basically, I want to go back to where I once was. 137 lbs – and be done.