Day 45: Focus On The Mirror

“When I look back on my life, I see pain, mistakes and heartache. When I look in the mirror, I see strength, learned lessons and pride in MYSELF.”

No idea who wrote this quote but it fits the day. I had thought about checking my weight again today but I’ve decided not to look back. It’s a new day and a new week and we’ll see what the scale says next week. I’ve lost over 25 pounds and I’m proud of that. Any week that I don’t gain weight will be a good week because it means I’m moving in the right direction.

Woke up to blue skies and sunshine but it was only 11 degrees. Definitely a 2 cup of coffee morning ! Breakfast today was a 1.3 ounce 130 calorie packet of of apple cinnamon oatmeal. It’s prepared with 1/2 cup skim milk so that adds 45 calories. The oatmeal is good but a little too sweet for my taste. My PowerFuel with breakfast was a hard boiled egg. Also had those 2 cups of coffee - one french vanilla and one vanilla caramel creme. Yesterday I received my shipment of shelf stable foods, which included my 10 and 20 pound bears ! I’m looking forward to adding to the collection and the 30 pound bear is just around the corner ! Nutrisystem has a 50% off sale on “a la carte” purchases going on so I ordered another $200 of frozen food (so only spent $100) to go along with my regular monthly order of frozen food, both of which should be shipped this week. With the additional food I will have enough ahead so that I don’t have to worry about running out. I needed the extra food because I’ve opted not to do what they call flex meals each week. The program provides 24 days worth of food each month since their months are based on 28 days (????) and you flex 3 meals once a week. I also picked up $1000 worth of Nutrisystem gift cards at Costco yesterday which only cost me $600 since they’re on sale. The savings there basically gives me a month free ! My morning snack was a vanilla shake with peanut butter powder (155 calories) and a 90 calorie veggie cake. Lunch was a 4 ounce 240 calorie hamburger with some barbecue sauce standing in for ketchup. I never had an afternoon snack and dinner was a 5 ounce 210 calorie broccoli and cheese stuffed chicken breast. I had a large helping of veggies that I roasted today with it. I’m only at 990 calories for the day but I’m planning on having a 1.1 ounce 130 calorie package of chocolate covered pretzels for an evening snack when I go to bed, so that will bring my calories up to 1120 for the day. I didn’t deliberately not eat - I was busy much of the afternoon and not thinking about food for a change !

On my Costco trip yesterday I picked up some more fresh brussel sprouts and baby carrots, along with a bag of fresh broccoli florets and some baby portobello mushrooms, so I made another big pan of roasted veggies for the week ahead. I ate every speck of the last batch I made ! I roasted a bag of brussel sprouts with a bag of carrots, blanched the broccoli for the freezer and roasted the mushrooms. So now I have a variety of choices for the week ahead. The old me would have bought fresh veggies with good intentions, let them rot in the refrigerator and then thrown them away - so I’m pretty proud of myself.

I ejected myself from the couch after dinner and spent some time on the treadmill, doing the same workout I did the other day. I’m getting more confident about walking without holding the handrails, which allows me to swing my arms the way the trainer wants you to. I also figured out I need to move back a bit on the treadmill in order to have a longer stride. When you hold the handrails you tend to be closer to the front of the machine (obviously!) and can’t make those long strides. So all in all I had an amazing weekend and I’m looking forward to the week ahead !