Day 40: Baby Steps

“Baby steps count, as long as you are going forward. You add them all up, and one day you look back and you’ll be surprised where you might get to.”
~ Chris Gardner ~

This quote spoke to me today for several reasons. I took a vacation day today rather than deal with the impending snow storm. I just felt like I needed to not be on the roads today. Since I’m home I decided to let my 2 cats have access to the rest of the house. I’ve been keeping them in the laundry room since I moved back in because they were so destructive. That might sound mean but the laundry room is large and has everything they need, so they haven’t been suffering. I waited a long time to have a home I could be proud of and with everything being new I just couldn’t let them have free run. I had 5 cats when I moved back in and 2 of them were old and didn’t always use the litter box, so that played a big part in my decision. Since I only have Minnie and Abby now I let them come in to explore today. My plan is to put them in the laundry room when I go to bed and keep them there when I’m not home to supervise. They are both good about using the litter box so I just need to keep them from shredding my new furniture ! We had manicures the other day so their nails are short right now. I also had a talk with them about NOT jumping on the counter, stove or tables. They both walked around the house sniffing things and both came to sit with me for a minute or two and then they both went back to the laundry room. I guess that is home to them and I’m ok with that. I let them out several times today for short periods and they would always go back to the laundry room on their own.

The other reason this quote spoke to me is I feel like I’m making baby steps toward a healthier lifestyle. I’ve embraced Nutrisystem. I’m drinking more water. I’m getting back into exercise. I’m thinking about and looking forward to making healthier choices once I reach my goal weight. To me these are all baby steps but I am going forward and that is what matters. I officially started Nutrisystem on 01-04-19 so when 01-04-20 rolls around I hope to have a whole bunch of baby steps to add up and look back on ! I don’t believe I will be at my goal weight in a year but my hope is that I will be 199 or lower. That’s actually a reasonable goal. I haven’t been in that range since about 1998. It took me a long time to grocery shop last night because I spent a lot of time reading labels. I was actually looking for canned peaches packed in fruit juice and couldn’t find such a thing. They were either in heavy syrup or in a “light” syrup that included artificial sweeteners, which I’m trying to avoid. I never thought to look for frozen peaches, so that is on the list for my next shopping trip. I did pick up some pineapple packed in juice and that will be a good SC to pair with cottage cheese, which is a PF.

Breakfast today was a 1.3 ounce 150 calorie package of biscotti bites. Basically small pieces of biscotti. They were really good and went well with 2 cups of coffee. My PF with breakfast was a hard boiled egg. Morning snack was a 120 calorie chocolate shake with a tablespoon of peanut butter powder, which adds 35 calories. My SC was 2 slices of 45 calorie whole wheat toast with a little bit of Brummel & Brown. Lunch today was a 1.9 ounce 210 calorie cup of black beans and rice. You add water to this and I also added a couple teaspoons of plain lowfat yogurt to make the seasoning less powerful, so the cooked weight was probably 7 or 8 ounces. The yogurt helped make it more palatable but I won’t be ordering it again. My PF with lunch was the rest of my yogurt serving with a couple of strawberry slices. My afternoon snack was three 30 calorie wedges of Laughing Cow Garlic & Herb cheese spread (PF) and about 20 Good Thins Veggie Crackers. The crackers were about 85 calories, since a serving of 28 crackers is 120 calories according to the package. Nutrisystem allows you 80 to 120 calories for a PowerFuel (PF - has to have 5 or more grams of protein) and the same for a Smart Carb (SC - has to have 1 or more grams of fiber) so mine were on the low side calorie wise but still met the requirements for protein and fiber. I could have had 4 cheese wedges and the whole 28 crackers but I’m trying to keep my calories down. Dinner tonight was a 7.5 ounce 150 calorie tub of beef stew served over green beans. It was ok but we’re basically talking a healthier version of Dinty Moore, for those of you familiar with canned beef stew. I’ve eliminated this item from future orders as well. My calories are at about 1120 for today, which is well within the range I want to maintain. I will take a snack to bed with me but I may or may not eat it. I didn’t eat it last night but I like to have something available in case I’m hungry. I don’t know about you, but I can’t sleep if I have the hungries !

A very fine light snow started falling around 9 am today. Although the morning commute to work would have been fine I suspected the 5 pm commute would be difficult, so that’s really why I took the day off. I never used to be afraid of driving in the snow until that night in January 2015 when my brand new car went off the road and I had to sit there alone in a pretty deep ditch for 2 hours waiting for a tow truck. It was the first (and only) time I ever experienced a whiteout and it terrified me. I will say several people stopped to see if I was ok and if they could help but I sent them on their way because I knew help was coming and I was fine. Fortunately there was no damage to the car. News reports indicate the weather in Syracuse was worse than it was here in Mexico. We got a couple inches of snow and it sleeted some as well, which is not good. Temps are supposed to increase to the low 30’s by morning so I’m hoping the roads will be good when I leave for work. If not I’ll just go slow.

As much as I wanted to sit on the couch for the rest of the evening, I promised myself I would get on the treadmill today ... and I did ! I found a much more manageable studio program of power walking. This was 3 minute bursts of speed with gradual incline. In between each burst there were 2 minute periods of slower speed. After a couple minutes of intro the incline went to 3 for the first 3 minutes at a speed of 2.8 mph then went up to 6 for the second 3 minute period. I think the speed was 2.8 here too. I only lasted a minute when we got to an incline of 9 but I put in 14 minutes plus 3 to warmup and 3 to cool down - so that is 20 minutes ! The speed was only 2.1 mph with the 9 incline but it was not easy, even at a lower speed ! The max incline is 10 so even a minute at 9 is an accomplishment for me ! I am happy with this program and it seems like more of a beginner workout. I guess I’ll hike the Alps some other time ! I suppose I could have pushed myself a little harder and maybe went a little longer but I don’t want to overdo it. I am not 20 years old and I’m carrying a lot of excess weight, so I need to give my heart and lungs some time to adjust. Baby Steps !!!

I will say that I feel GREAT ... so there is something to be said for the “feel good” endorphins they say exercise releases !