Written in the stars

In keeping with last week's horoscope theme, my horoscope yesterday was:

This is a good time for you to embrace positive thoughts -- broadcast your hopes.

So I went to yesterday's meeting and after finding out that I lost .5 lbs (not bad), I sat for the meeting for the first time in over a month.

The discussion was based on Positive thinking. How negative thoughts come about & how they affect your weight-loss efforts and then how to turn them around into positive thoughts.

It was interesting. Although negative thoughts aren't really my downfall - I'm usually a pretty optimistic person in terms of keeping myself motivated - it was good to listen & discuss, and recognize some of the subconscious negative actions that might be affecting me.

Like holding on to my old clothes...just in case. Even giving myself that option is toying with the thought that I will gain the weight back at some point, that I can't keep to it. My reasoning for keeping my old clothes is more that at some point I will get them altered to save on shopping for new clothes. But I'm still allowing for that possibility. (I just can't bring myself to get rid of clothes...ever. But boy am I glad I didn't get rid of clothes that were too small!)

Another negative thought that I've had creep into my head is the "all or nothing" mentality. I'm doing good, I slip up & have those fries...and then it's all downhill for the rest of the day...or week. Or I plan for exercise, and then something happens and I can't do a full hour, so I do nothing. That's something that I do find myself doing. Even 10 minutes gets me doing something. Even if I have those fries, that doesn't mean I have to have the chocolate too.

Anyway--I'm still working on my own re-framing. It occurred to me yesterday that since April I had been working with my brother's wedding and looking good in that dress in mind. And now the wedding's done with. So I technically have no winning outcome left to work for--which of course isn't true...I am still motivated to lose the weight, but I have to come up with another specific winning outcome to work towards and the motivation behind it.

I'll ponder that and get back to you :)

Until next time

Sigh...a gain again.

So last night I was pretty bummed to find out that I had gained 1.4 lbs at my weigh-in.

I knew I wasn't having a great week, and I knew I had a long food-filled weekend, but I thought I did a decent job counteracting that with exercise.

When I write about my nervous weigh-ins, they tend to be the woe-is-me entries, but then when I go and see I lost weight I bounce back. And then I'm like an award nominee who claims she never expected this honor but in the back of her head is thinking "oh I totally deserve this."

But the fact that this is the second time I've gained since I started in April isn't all that bad. And I'm sure part of it is because I'm nearing the end of the month and that time of the month, and my body is starting to gear up for that. Plus with Mondays it is often hard to know if your body is still adjusting to the weekend festivities or it is a true gain.

Not that I'm giving up!! I just have to work extra hard to lose this weight, and hopefully that extra 1.5 to get to my 10%. I've come this far, and even got a compliment from my boss who was away on a business trip for a week & said today "Gettin skinny there..." and said I look good. So continuing on my journey...

Tonight I can't do a long walk, but I should be able to do my lunchtime walk, and then hopefully tomorrow I can put in a long walk after my Italian class. I have to figure out some exercises I can do in my apartment too. I want to focus on slimming my thighs particularly, but even overall aerobics (like Tae Bo or something) that way I have no excuse for rainy or cold weather.

Oh my downstairs neighbor is going to love me. :)

Until next time

Uninspired week leads to Tool for Living #4

It's Friday and although I haven't had a bad week point wise, I feel like I'm slacking in the healthy lifestyle department. One reason is I haven't gone food shopping in a while so my fridge is no longer stocked with healthy items, fruits, veggies, etc, so I'm resorting to my unhealthy stash of snacks when I'm home. And I haven't been going on my daily walks for a variety of reasons--none of them really good reasons. And after all the excitement about getting my bike...have I actually ridden it? Nope. I don't think I'm completely off track this week, but I feel like I'm losing my way & I want to get back to that.

In this week's Tool for Living I'm going to skip to Reframing (#7 down the list) because I think it will help me get my priorities back in order.

Reframing discusses the fact that bad habits tend to get in the way of good intentions of moving towards a goal or my winning outcome.
WW recommends using this strategy for the following reasons:

• When you want to stop a negative or unwanted behavior.
• If you let your emotions govern your food choices.
• If you eat under stress.

While the last two aren't really my issue, the first one is what I will focus on.

So what behavior do I want to change?
Lazy eating habits during the week

What does that behavior get for me?
Convenience of not having to think about what I'm eating

How else can I get that benefit?
Keeping my kitchen stocked with good food choices
Making meal lists for the week with different options
Having quick meals/snacks that are healthy & quick to grab
Leave enough time for dinner
Keeping my kitchen clean and organized for easy cooking

Which of these new behaviors would I be willing to try?
Maybe I should start with keeping my kitchen clean and organized as well as keeping it stocked with good food choices. That will lead to the rest.

I think if it were this easy, I would have been doing this from the start. But I will try to put things in order this weekend and get back on track. Plus the weekends are always good for exercise--walking...biking :)

I just have to keep thinking, the more I keep this up, the easier it will be to move towards my winning outcomes!

Until next time