You have GOT to be kidding me

Way Uncool. Seriously Lame. Freakin' terrific.

That's what I have to say. I waited 31 days to check the scale...and for what? I've been good. No, I've been awesome. Working out 5 days a week. Only 2 days in the entire month did I exceed my calorie goals. I see my stomach getting flatter. I zip up my jeans a little easier. I met new holes on my belts. But does the scale reflect it? NO. A Big STUPID zero lb weight loss. ZERO. NADA. NILCH.

I know, I know. I can tell myself that it is surely just the addition of extra lbs of muscle that is offsetting my fat loss. But that is just what we say...what we say when we are trying to make someone feel better. You know that and I know that. I don't want to have to say that to myself. I want to say that I worked hard this month and the scale reflected that. But can I say that? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.


So, what did I do today? Come on. You know what I did. I ate.

I ate whatever I felt like eating. I had juice to drink with my meals. I snacked on appetizers. I had swiss steak over mashed potatoes. I had dressing all over my salad. I had birthday cake. I ate with a vengence.

And then I didn't feel very good. Or very good about myself. Sigh.

So tomorrow I will go back to being good. I will ignore the scale (or try my best). I will resume calorie counting. I will resume working out. I will remember my goal of looking great for my vacation in 5 weeks. I WILL NOT feel bad that I haven't lost weight yet and I WILL be encouraged about my healthier body.

Sigh.

To Weigh or Not to Weigh?

To weigh or not to weigh, that is the question.

I thought Scott and I had an iron-clad, till-death-do-us-part, agreement not to weigh ourselves till the end of the month. Apparently Scott didn't feel it was quite that firm and has been weighing himself. So, I have to decide if I'm going to weigh myself or not.

I liked the idea of not weighing myself. It felt exciting to see what my weight loss number would turn out to be. I think I'll be pretty thrilled if I've lost 5 lbs at the end of the month. But what if I'm not on track to lose that 5 lbs? Would I rather know that I'm not going to see that number? I don't think so...I think it will just bum me out and being bummed out makes me want to eat. How would that help?

However, I don't think I have the self-control not to step on the scale if I haven't made a commitment to someone that I won't. That's why I join all these stupid motivating weight loss challenges. Without a commitment to others, my willingness to stop my self from checking the scale (or snacking) goes away quite quickly. I fear that issue has a larger meaning in my life, but I won't digress about that now.

All right, I'm off to the chiropractor. I've been exercising, so hopefully he'll be high-fiving me instead of hurting me. =)

Time for a new challenge

My current personal challenge, the daily ab workout, officially ends tomorrow. How did I do? I did quite well for the first 6 weeks of the 9 week challenge. Of those first 6 weeks, I only missed 1 ab workout...which cost me 10 stupid dollars. But, by week 5 I was having serious back pain all the time. I don't know that the few minutes a day of ab exercises can be said to have caused the issue, but I do know that it was exacerbating the problem. By week 6 I had to take "medical leave" from my challenge. This week (week 9) is the first week that I'm not having constant back pain, so I guess it is time for me to restart my challenge. I'm not willing to restart the same set of exercises in case I start having the same back issues, so I'm going to keep up with the isometric (non-repetitive) exercises and add in other exercises that will be easier on my back.

Hubby and I are about to get serious about a diet and exercise plan. We both want to be hot-hot-hot when we go to Maui in March. We plan to start calorie counting on November 1st, stop feeding our faces when we sit on the sofa at night, and exercise. To that end, we bought a Wii!!! We're having fun playing with the Wii tonight and for sure are expending more energy that we usually do sitting on the sofa watching television. We know that the Wii games don't count as exercise, but hopefully we can score some Wii Fit games for Christmas. Those should be actual exercise. I know that Yoga and strength building exercises come with the Wii Fit and I also want to get the Daisy Fuentes Pilates program that just came out for Wii.

Hopefully working together on our weightloss and exercise goals, with our shared trip incentive, will be successful. Anyone who wants to join us should create a profile on livestrong.com. It is a good time of year to focus on eating moderately!!!