Project 42:2

26 April, 2010 Off By Pinky @lowfatpie

The Update (written Sunday 25th April, before my 6K race in Amsterdam)

 It’s actually been a great week all things considering.

 Since I decided how I am going to go about my Plan, I really have focused on it, on my health, my choices and my commitment to myself, without the pressure of having to be perfect or *having* to face the scale.

It has not been perfect.  Not far from it but not close either.  In tracking my intake on my WW program I found out two things:

My daily points are 29.  I seem to always go over 29 (that’s ok, I have 49 “free points” a week or even 7 extra a day if you split it up that way).  Striving for 29 and then failing each time was causing me stress, therefore, it’s a given I will go over and will use from my free points and completely ok (no guilt).  The second thing – I exercise enough, nearly daily,  to justify those 2 – 3 extra points a day.  In theory I should be able to have my 49 points left for the weekend to use, if I have a week without any extracurricular activities.

I wanted to hit 50 in exercise points.  That also did not happen.  I did stay active up until Friday, though Monday was officially my rest day.  Tuesday was running, pushups and sit-ups, Wednesday was cycling and Thursday I did my pushups and sit-ups.  I wanted to go to the gym two times last week and I didn’t make it.

This leads me to questioning whether I should still go to the gym.  At 48 per month it seems a bit of a waste if I only make it 4 times in that month.  This is so annoying to me and I don’t know how to make it work.  I’m actually really enjoying the gym and the Zumba classes when I go now, so I don’t want to quit, but I wish I could really make it work even though I work so far away from home and my commute is 4 hours a day.  I’m going to have to think about this.  I have an elliptical at home, it’s about 10 years old now and I’m not really using it much anymore (though it came in handy this winter when it was freezing out) and I’m thinking about getting rid of it.  There are other things going on that need to be dealt with in my apartment, namely a certain 12-year old who will be needing her own room soon, and I really won’t have room for the elliptical anymore if we have to make space for that.

I had a LOT of victories last week.  There was quite a lot of stress at work again and I didn’t give in to any of the stress through emotional eating.  Another victory was leaving food on my plate when I had enough.  Being that I am from the generation of the Clean Plate Club, this is big for me.  I tracked every single day from Monday to yesterday (though I did not fill everything in for yesterday because I was afraid the whole program would blow up – too many points over).  So even though I went over from Thursday onwards, I tracked.  This is major.  Another major victory – I actually looked at myself in the mirror and didn’t make disgusting faces at what I saw.  I felt good.  I even felt like I looked pretty hot one day.  It’s a great feeling to like yourself!

Tracking helps a lot.  It actually gives me an idea of what works and what doesn’t.  I think knowing this I can kind of stick to the same items during the week (when it’s a normal work week) and feel good that I am on track without hardly even thinking about it.  I went off plan a bit Thursday because I was invited to a special posh lunch with media from all over Europe, which was three course and included wine and coffee tastings.  I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation; it’s not every day this happens.

So I tracked, I moved, I didn’t give in to emotional / stress eating.  No matter what the numbers, this was a successful week.

Improvement areas are:  gym, and my 100 pushups and 200 sit-ups programs.  I did not get to Day 3 of Week 1/ Week 3 yet and I’m not sure when I will.  So I think I will restart that this week.  Better to restart than give up.

Plans for the new week:

This week will be tricky for several reasons.

 1)      Concert tonight in Amsterdam, means eating out for dinner

2)      Queens’ Night/ Queens’ Day Thursday and Friday – this is a major national holiday for us.  There will be booze and food involved.  One good thing though – we have the kids this weekend which means I won’t be totally wankered on Friday, since I kind of need to be sober to be a decent parent, right? But Thursday night we will most definitely go out

3)      That certain 12-year old I mentioned earlier?  I promised to make cupcakes with her this weekend. 

What I’m going to do

1)      Running – Tuesday

2)      Gym – Wednesday

3)      Running – Friday midday or Saturday morning

4)      Gym – Sunday

 And of course get my pushups and sit-ups in this week.

Tomorrow I’ll post about my 6K run in Amsterdam!