Progress

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Do It Well

"In many lines of work, it isn't how much you do that counts, but how much you do well and how often you decide right." - William Feather

This quote really hit me yesterday.  This is taken out of my Leadership planner so it's not specific to weight loss or anything like that but it got me thinking.  If we take just the "how much you do well" piece, I feel it encompasses so much of this journey.  Obviously, how long you spend working on something isn't going to make much of a difference if you aren't working hard or well.  You can go to the gym every day but if you don't push yourself each time you go, you won't get faster, stronger or better.  You'll just stay the same.  Obviously, there's a peak physical place you can be but I doubt most of us are there.  There's always room to do it better.  Then there's the "how often you decide right." This right here, is HUGE.  It's all about the choices we make and how often we make the right one.  Do I eat the piece of cake?  Do I opt for a lean protein snack instead of chips?  Do I go to the gym today?  Every single decision we make counts.  We're not always going to pick the right one even when we know we're making the wrong one but what REALLY matters is how often we decide right. How often are we making the right choices day in and day out.  Out of 15 choices in a day, how many are you choosing correctly?  If you chose correctly 13/15, I think you're doing pretty great!  If you chose correctly 2/15, you've got serious work to do.  

So how did I choose yesterday?  Not nearly as badly as I had the week before.  I chose to stay under my calorie limit and I chose to go to the gym.  I pushed myself at the gym after walking 3 miles, opting to ride the bike for awhile as well.  I opted for a healthy dinner and no snacking after that.  Yesterday was a good choice day.

I used to love trashy TV for entertainment during cardio.  This time around, I have been downloading movies and TV shows to watch on my phone.  In some ways, it pushes me to go longer so I can see how they end.  What tricks work for you?

Monday, January 26, 2015

SIGH

Weigh In: 213
Loss From Last Week: GAINED 3.5 lbs
Total Weight Loss: 0

Impressive right?  So I went off the fucking rafters last week while in Atlanta.  Then I got home to a pretty stressed out husband and kiddos.  And similar to what alcoholics or drug addicts will do, we enabled each other to keep right on through our food binge through the weekend.  And somehow gained every last ounce back.  Chances are a lot of it is water as I drank virtually no water and a lot of booze so obviously dehydrated but still.  Just INSANE.

So am I feeling good about myself today?  Of course not.  Am I ready to throw in the towel?  No on that one too.  I'm resetting...got my meals planned again and here we go.  The only reason I'm posting at all is for full accountability and disclosure.  If I disappear, I've given up and blissfully happy in the land of denial.  Instead, I'll stick to misery and reality.

In other news, it is time to buy new cell phones again.  I hate buying new phones because it always begs the question about finding a different carrier.  Honestly, I could've done all this a year ago... there are some people (smarter people) who re-evaluate their carrier/phones every time their contract expires. I don't because I hate doing it.  I find it all very confusing and time consuming.  I currently have an iphone and I like it.  I don't LOVE it anymore but I like it.  I'm considering going with a Samsung or LG BUT all my other stuff is mac...desktop, laptop, ipad, kids' ipod, etc.  I love how easily everything syncs.  A lot to consider.

In other news, we're talking about getting rid of cable.  We've BEEN talking about getting rid of cable for over a year now.  We do this from time to time but instead of going without entertainment as we have in the past, we've been looking into alternatives like apple tv, roku, chrome, amazon's thingie, etc. We finally talked to a guy at radio shack to learn how it all works and it doesn't seem as difficult as I had made it in my head.  We may be ready to pull the trigger on this in a month or so but we want to keep exploring the home phone piece first.  Right now we bundle with the internet company but we want to get to where we ONLY have internet through them.  I have to keep my home phone for work so we're getting there.

If anyone has any opinions/advice about those last two items...please let me know as I'm open to anything.

Hope y'all have a great week!

Monday, January 19, 2015

The Right Track

Weigh In: 209.5
Loss from last week: -2 lbs
Total Loss:  3.5

I'm very happy with this loss.  I missed one day at the gym for no good reason other than not feeling well.  My diet was incredibly on target, even while traveling over the weekend.  So some stuff:

My Feel Good Parent Moment:  My oldest daughter, Maddie, has expressed an interest in cooking.  She either wants to own a restaurant or become an astrophysicist.  She's only 9 so right now, she's thinking both. LOL.  So Santa brought her a cookbook and set of kid knives for Christmas.  She cooked her first dinner for us last week...Honey Soy Pork Chops, greens with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing and vegetable dippers.  It was delicious and healthy.  I'll be honest.  Not all the recipes in the cookbook are the healthy variety and that's OK.  I think the important thing is teaching her the cooking skills that will help her later...measuring, cutting, cook times, properly preparing meat, how to follow a recipe, etc.  We decided our one cheat meal a week would be whatever she decides to make.  She picks a recipe before we go grocery shopping and makes a list of everything she needs.  My husband helps with the oven, stove, etc but otherwise she does it all herself.

Over the weekend, we went to Tallahassee for the girls' first gymnastics meet.  They did really well and I am one proud mama.

Lori placed 4th in all round


Maddie placed 6h in all round


The girls showing off their winnings
After the meet, we drove down to St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge for some exploration.  We spent about 4 hours walking around the preserve, visiting the light house and looking for gators.

We drove home Saturday night and while exhausted, we were happy.  Sunday we took the girls to a newfound playground and park that includes a nature walk.  We spent several hours there and played extra hard with the dog to make up for her being at the boarding place Friday and Saturday night.

Tonight, I leave for Atlanta for a business trip.  I'm going to try to make the best decisions I can.  It's always difficult when meals are being catered in and you cannot always order individually.  I'll do my best but not beat myself up.  I'm bringing a long some healthy snacks for the plane and hotel room just in case I get munchy.

Hope y'all have a fabulous week and are enjoyed your weekend and family as much as I enjoyed mine. :)

Monday, January 12, 2015

Expectations

Weigh In: 211.5, -1.5 overall



Let's talk about expectations.  I lost 1.5 lbs after my first week of being "on plan".  I worked out 2 days at the gym and walked an additional 3 days at home.  My eating was probably 95% paleo this week.  I was really, really proud of how I'd done.  And yet...1.5.  Seems low for the first week.  But again...this is focusing negatively on a good thing.  I lost 1.5 lbs my first week!  If I can keep up with that trend, that's 78 lbs after 52 weeks.  That's my GOAL.  So I'm track to obtain my goal this year with just 1.5 lb  per week.  That's a good thing!!  I'm on target.  And it was relatively EASY.  I didn't feel deprived.  I didn't feel it was monstrously difficult to stick to plan or start getting the shakes.  Even the sugar withdrawal wasn't that bad.  So really it all comes down to expectations.  I'm not doing some fab diet or protein shakes or anything like that.  I'm doing what I know I can stick to, what I know I won't give up on immediately.  And I lost 1.5.  And I'm happy with that.

While we're on the subject of expectations... At the height of my fitness level, the very best I had gotten... I was working out at least 5 days a week, sometimes doing 2x/day.  I was lifting weights, cycling, zumbaing (just for fun!), running and kickboxing.  When I wasn't at the gym, I was hiking or rock climbing or swimming.  I was strong and had stamina.  This first week back at the gym, not so much.  I had tried going back to the gym back before Christmas and promptly hyperextended my elbow.  I decided to start back slow and so thought back to how I started before.  And honestly, I started with walking.  No more, no less.  So that's what I'm starting with again.  My first day looked something like this:
Yes, it took me over an hour to do a 5k.  It's hard to believe at one time, I had gotten to the point where I could knock out a 5k in less than 40 minutes.  That was Monday.  I went back to the gym on Wednesday and was STILL SORE FROM MONDAY.  So I did what I could...slower pace, longer run.  I did 30 minutes on a bike, and 1.5 hours on the treadmill.  And you know what?  It doesn't matter.  The point is I'm doing SOMETHING.  Instead of sitting on my butt or hitting a happy hour or grabbing a Starbucks coffee, I'm moving.  I may be moving slowly but I'm moving and EVENTUALLY, I can get back to my old level.  I'm just going to have to work a lot harder to get there.

Monday, January 5, 2015

And So It Begins....

Oh yeah...Here I am.  It's New Year's and true to the triteness of it all, I'm back at making my resolutions that I'm going to get healthy and fit this year.  Well, ya know what?  This time I really mean it.  Yes...that was said with some sarcasm but it is what it is.  So here we go...Introducing Panda's Goals for 2015!


  1. Get on with it!  My band has to be removed. I talked with the band doc and the endoscopy guy and we're gettin' 'er done in January or February, depending on when the stars align for both of these procedures to happen same day by both docs (one procedure removes the band part, the other removes the port and tube) and for me not to be traveling for work or the girls' gymnastics meets.  Either way, that bad boy is coming out EARLY this year and we're moving on.  No more moping, wondering, thinking, lingering or anything else on this.  It's done...band is broken...nothing I could've done, nothing I can do about it other than get it OUT.  So there you have it.
  2. Get healthy and fit again!  Of course this was going to be on the list...you know me too well.  I will weigh every Monday morning.  I want to lose 70 lbs. Will that happen this year, most likely not but Goddamnit I will make progress!  No more climbing or staying stagnant.  Paleo eating and hitting the gym at least twice a week and walking every day...no exceptions!
  3. Think positive!  I have gotten into a rut where I'm focusing on the negative in life.  It's always about what's going wrong or how busy I am or how busy I'm not or blah, blah, blah.  Even I'm sick of talking to me.  I made a goal one year to be more CONTENT.  Well, let's do this.  To help, I'm going to think of one good thing that happened every day and share it at the dinner table.  That's everyone's challenge in the family is to share one good thing that happened to them or the world that day.  
  4. Stop and breathe!  All too often, we go day to day in the a rushed stupor, doing what needs to be done and not taking the time to stop, breathe and enjoy what's around us.  We are living to work, instead of working to live.  Not this year.  I work 40 hours a week and travel occasionally...this shouldn't consume my life.  My kids are involved in activities but they are not overscheduled.  We can all take an afternoon in the middle of the week to just BE and so we will.  At least one weekday a week, I'm going to get off work and go do something fun.  We'll go to the dog park, or the human park, or go see a movie or go to the mall or feed the ducks or SOMETHING to get out of the house and doing something enjoyable in the middle of the workweek.  Life's too short to spend it all on a schedule.
So there you have it.  Happy New Year and good luck to us all in our new goals!


To start it off right...

Weigh In Week #1:  213

Let's do this.