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ERIN1128's Recent Blog Entries
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Friday, January 29, 2010
Feeling proud of myself...did not one, but two 20-minute yoga dvd's this morning. I was sooo tired when I got up, the alarm woke me out of a dead sleep. But I knew I needed to do it, I hadn't done yoga for a while. I got through one dvd, and then thought whew, I'm done, no way do I have enough umph today to do a second one. But then I thought, oh come on, 20 minutes is nothing, I need to burn more calores than that - and hey, how good will I feel if I DO do it? So I decided, okay, I'll try it, but I gave myself permission to quit halfway through if I was really dying. But I did the whole thing - I rarely quit in the middle of a workout, the hard part is getting started.
So I'm feeling somewhat jello-like, but I'm happy I did it! And I rewarded myself with a strawberry & blueberry yogurt parfait from Starbucks (290 cals, but it's breakfast). Yum.
  
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Why do I love Spark? Because you're all amazing! I posted a sulky blog yesterday about gaining three pounds, and the next time I checked, three people had posted encouraging messages telling me to shake it off. You gotta love a support system like that. And I really enjoy reading other people's blogs, I so often see something that really resonates with me. After posting my sulky blog, I saw one that recommended "Noticing all our progress, not just the scale." SO true...it's so easy to get caught up in why-aren't-I-losing-weight instead of looking at the big picture of how much progress I've made in terms of eating healthier and becoming more active.
Thanks everybody!
Monday, January 25, 2010
So, after my triumphant post the other day about how things were finally clicking and I was finally starting to lose weight, I got on Wii Fit yesterday and....weighed in 3 pounds heavier. ARGH! I am a little bit stunned, and a lot bit po'ed, that although things were feeling so great, it was a big lie. Sigh. I shouldn't have gotten on yesterday morning either, because we had friends over for football and of course there was much eating and drinking to be done. Not that I completely went crazy, but I wasn't as careful as I would have been if I'd had that motivation of losing another pound, or even maintaining.
So, what silver lining, you ask? Well, I got on Wii Fit again this morning to weigh myself, just to convince myself I guess. And I was actually down half a pound from yesterday. So I guess I didn't binge too badly. Gonna try to focus on that, rather than the up-three-pounds part. And keep plugging.
 
Friday, January 22, 2010
After a very long time, I am finally starting to lose! I am afraid I'll jinx it by recognizing the fact that the scale is beginning to go down for a change.
Why now? I joined Spark well over a year ago, so it's not like it "sparked" an instant change in my weight. I have been making gradual changes...recognizing my eating patterns, understanding my calorie intake, making exercise a regular part of my life, and incorporating more healthy foods into my diet.
But for the past few weeks, I have been drinking water like crazy, thinking twice before I eat anything, and using the "do I want to spend my limited calorie budget on this?" rule. I've also been making an effort to do some kind of exercise every single day, rather than planning which 5 days I'll work out. But I've been careful to not beat myself up if I do fall off the exercise or food wagon a bit, just find a way to make it up and move on. All of which really seems to be working for me.
So again, why now? Why does it feel like it's finally coming together? I think there are several reasons.
One, it is a lot of work to make exercise a part of your daily life. The Spark book points out that taking on everything at once ("I will eat healthier and exercise more") is just too overwhelming. Maybe I needed to get that exercise piece down first.
Two, I felt virtuous for working out almost every day and thought that should be enough. But of course, it's not, and I finally really was forced to recognize that when I started gaining weight despite working out 5 days a week.
Three, it's taken me a long time to accept that now that I'm in my 40s, I just can't keep off or shed the weight like I used. When I was young and skinny, I could cut out dessert for a week and lose 5 lbs...those days are long gone and I have to either accept that or accept being overweight. I choose the former, however bitterly!
Four, I'm learning to look at it positively. I used to feel sorry for women who passed up a piece of cake at the office birthday party - "Oh, I can't eat that." Now, I'm getting better at just quietly saying "no thanks" or taking a small piece and having a few bites and skipping some calories later. And not feeling sorry for myself about it. I think that's really key - consciously deciding that I'm not deprived, my diet just needs to change a bit so that I can be healthier. I'm really trying to think in terms of "healthy" rather than "losing weight."
Five, I'm changing habits. No mindlessly snacking in front of the tv after dinner (even if hubby does!), not cleaning every bite off my plate every night, eating more slowly to give myself a chance to feel full, and as I said before, thinking twice before I eat (like drinking water to make sure I'm not thirsty rather than hungry).
Having said all this, I sure hope the scale goes down again at this weekend's weigh-in! But if it doesn't, I'm not going to freak out...I'm just going to keep working at it.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
One of the things that resonated with me when I read the Spark book was the notion that when you work to improve things like diet and exercise, it can radiate out to other parts of your life. I am finding this myself in one small way. For a long time, my husband worked 8:30-4:30, so I dropped our daughter off in the morning and he picked her up, got her home, and got dinner started. Well, in November he started a new job and now I'm lucky if he gets home by 6, so I've really had to step up. I was pretty nervous because he's been in charge of the cooking for years, so I'm pretty rusty. But it's really starting to work well - Kate and I are settling into the new routine, I'm getting dinner mostly or entirely done by the time he gets home, and I'm getting more and more comfortable with it all. I think it's really true that doing something like taking control of healthy living, can help build your confidence to do other things, like maybe take on something you're not great at.
That said, I fell off the wagon last night and ordered pizza, but I have a good excuse - when I got home I found out our power had been out since 9am, and it was unclear when it would come back! But I've pared way back today to help make up for it, and I went for a long walk this morning since it was not raining for a change (yay!). Part of my New Year's resolution - if I fall off the wagon, work on finding a way to help make up for it rather than beating myself up about it.
Anyhow, I am going to try to continue to find ways to build on this notion of spreading the positive "Spark" effect to other areas of my life.
p.s. YAY! they finally came up with a "walker" icon! (see below)
  
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Member Comments About This Blog Post:
on all your achievements. Some people go a life time and still not learn what you have in the past year!