So far, so good

This week has already been much better than last week. I am not sure what the numbers are going to look like on Saturday but I am happy with how I have been doing for the most part. Work is seriously crazy this week and there is a ton of pressure on me. I have actually been doing really well with not stress eating like crazy. I had a little moment last night where I did some late night snacking but I counted the points and I do not think it should set me back too badly. I tried something different this week. On Sunday, I sat down and planned out my meals for the week. I wrote out breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the snacks in between. I tried to leave a couple of extra points for the day so that I could have an extra snack if I needed it. I wrote them out on index cards and clipped them to the cabinet in my kitchen. I take the cards with everything that I pack up to bring into lab with me to remind me what I had planned out. I also make sure that I am eating throughout the day instead of having huge meals three times a day. I think it has been going pretty well.

I am still having the problem of being stuck in lab until about 7 at night. This means I eat dinner around 8 and then I workout around 10-11 so I have been going to bed pretty late lately. I did not get any exercise in the first three days but I did 20 minutes of high intensity workout on the Wii, 40 minutes of moderate intensity on the Wii and 20 minutes of low intensity on the Wii last night. I am going to go to the gym tonight and do around 48 minutes on the elliptical, some ab work, and then come home and do Yoga and strength training on the Wii. I will be going to bed late again. It is a really hard schedule to break. I don't really have the time to reset during the week unless I give up my exercising and I really do not want to do that. I will just keep going as I am and try to reset during spring break.

The reason that I wanted to post today is to actually share a little random fact about me. I have had a very active day because I have been developing films from western blots that we are running in lab. When I am in the dark room (and no one can see me) and I have my iPOD, I like to dance around the room when I am waiting during the exposure and developing times. It is actually a ton of fun and it put me in a really good mood despite my stressful day. I dance like a total goofball so I usually need to make sure there is no audience but I am doing it more and more and I think that it makes work much more enjoyable. I think that is why I like being the only person in lab. So, if you are ever in my lab and I am in the dark room with my iPOD, I am dancing my heart out and having a hell of a time :)

Lose a little, Gain a little

So I thought that I would at least still have lost for the week and according to my home scale I did lose 2 pounds. I went to Weight Watchers (with the same clothes on) and I weighed in and here are the results:

Last week: 279.4
This week: 280.2
+/- : +0.8 lbs
Total: now +6.8 from start of Weight Watchers

So that is really not that bad. I decided to go through my food journal and see what happened with my week and see where I can change things this week. First of all, Friday was not my first cupcake day. I forgot that I had 2 cupcakes last Saturday. So for this week I am committing to NO CAKE! I also ended up eating out a lot last week. I really need to make sure that I do not have to do that. I do sooooooo much better when I make my food. I also end up eating food that is really filling. So, I went to the grocery store today and stocked up on all kinds of goodies for the week. I bought fresh fruit for the first time in probably at least 2 months. I am going to make sure that I keep tracking because I kind of trailed off at the end of last week. I do think that tracking my food is helping a lot so that I can see where I did not succeed in the previous week. I am proud of myself for going to weigh in even though I knew it was a bad week and I did not let that bad week push me further off course. I was back on plan on Saturday and I think that this will be a good week.

The other problem I have been having is that I am not eating enough during the day. The bulk of my points are being consumed at dinnertime and late night snacks. I need to make sure that I am snacking during the day because I notice that if I don't, I kind of go overboard with dinner. Kind of like tonight. I also need to stop eating so late. All of these things though fall under free time during the day and leaving at a reasonable hour. I am working on making my schedule more reasonable so that I do not go insane by spring break. When I finally take time off work for spring break I will have gone 35 days without a day off. There were a few days scattered amongst weekends where I only needed to go in for 2-3 hours but still. I will be going on a road trip with my friend Lindsey who does not work in my lab or next door to my lab so I will have a beautiful 6 days with no work and no work related talk. Yipee!!

So I will not reach my goal by Spring Break and it would be rather unhealthy for me to try to get to 269 lbs by next Saturday. I want to try and get as close as possible though by the time Lindsey and I leave Dallas (next Tuesday). I am going to try and weigh in Tuesday morning before we get on the road and I will not weigh in again until that Saturday after spring break :)
I am going to be skiing and we will probably be pretty active but I am not sure how several days in a car driving are going to treat me.

So, finally, goals for this week: Try and get that total change from start of weight watchers to be a negative number (or 0) by the time I leave next Tuesday. I am committing to not having any cake this week unless it is one of those 100 calorie packs which do actually satisfy my craving for cake most of the time. Lastly, I want to try and get 28 activity points again this week. I do not think it should be too difficult considering I reached that goal with only doing activity 4 days of the week. So, here's to a good week!

Ice Cream, Fries, Cupcakes and Pizza

Well today was the trifecta of bad for food. We had pizza for our brown bag lecture series and I was only going to have 2 slices which is not that bad but then I had 1 more. Some evil forces were at work today and someone brought in red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Then I had fries with dinner because they looked so good. I also just polished off some ice cream. The ice cream at least was low fat but still. I am not sure what tomorrow will look like but this was a very bad food day and no gym. I am going to try and get some Wii Fit in for tonight but still. I will probably not have a great number like last week and I should be ok with that. I am pretty sure that I will still lose overall for the week though. I think a lot of this was in response to a pretty stressful day so I need to make sure that I start finding better ways to deal with my stress or how to at least just say no. I will see what tomorrow brings.

Activity points earned!!

Well, my week did not start off very well in terms of exercise. I did 40 minutes of Wii Fit aerobics on Sunday but did not do much in the way of exercise for the next 3 days. Lat night and tonight I went to the gym at school and did the elliptical for 48 minutes. I usually have a hard time staying on the elliptical machine for longer than 30 minutes because I get bored easily. This time I watched an episode of a TV show that I had put on my iPOD and time just flew by. The time spent on the elliptical seemed much easier that way. Tonight I went back and did the elliptical again for 49 minutes. I am feeling pretty good. However . . . . .

I was going to do some strength training tonight at the gym. To start with, I do not really know the layout of the machines in that gym yet and I usually have to look over the machines first to figure out how to use them. I was in the gym late tonight and for some reason that is when all the really fit 20 year olds are in there. Seriously, like everyone there late at night was doing serious training. Sadly, I was really insecure and sort of intimidated by them. I did one machine but I was so uncomfortable that I left. I just felt REALLY out of place. I really do not like going to school gyms. I am always afraid that the students from my classes are going to be there and see me all gross and sweaty and with no upper body strength to speak of doing an overhead press with the weight set to 10 whole pounds. It is something that I have to work on and get over my gym insecurity but I have not gotten over it yet. I did make a big step this week because I went by myself and that usually does not happen.

I did come home and do some more core work and some upper body strength training with my free weights for about 25 minutes. I figure that is not a total fail for tonight. I am going to try again with the machines tomorrow and this weekend. Maybe I will feel better if there are more people. It is like the difference between being on a crowded or empty dance floor. Ususally it takes a lot of alchohol to get me on an empty dance floor but I am not sure that would be good right before a workout. I have hit my goal for this week of earning 28 activity points! Yay! Hopefully the results on Saturday will be satisfying.

Anything I'm Not

So, lately I have been feeling overwhelmed and there is a song by Lenka called "Anything I'm Not" that I can kind of relate to right now:

I will never be, I will never be tall, no
And I will never be, never ever be sure of it all
Oh, why is the world so cruel to me
When all, all I ever want to be is anything I'm not

Gimme a break, a little escape
I am so tired of being me
I wanna be free, I wanna be new and different
Anything I'm not
I'm not

I will never be, I will never be you, no
I will always be, I will always be me, that I know
But oh, even though I'm happy being me
I want to get away from all this harsh reality, oh

Gimme a break, a little escape
I am so tired of being me
I wanna be free, I wanna be new and different
Anything I'm not

Yeah, gimme a break, a little escape
I am so tired of being me
I wanna be free, I wanna be new and different
Anything I'm not
Anything I'm not
Oh, anything I'm not

Gimme a break, a little escape
I am so tired of being me
I wanna be free, I wanna be new and different
Anything I'm not

Yeah, gimme a break, a little escape
I am so tired of being me
I wanna be free, I wanna be new and different
Anything I'm not
Anything I'm not
Anything I'm not
Anything I'm not
Anything I'm not

So that is my almost mid-week post. *Sigh*