Day 75: It's Not a Sprint

“People have to realize that dieting is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. If you celebrate the small victories, you will eventually win the war.” ~Ian K. Smith~

Ironic to come across this quote today as this is exactly what I’m doing. Considering how much weight I need to lose I knew going in this was going to be a long process, so I needed to focus on the small victories. My goal weight is a good distance away and if I spend all my time focusing on that I think I will get very discouraged. At the same time, I use that goal weight to keep myself on track. I don’t even consider “cheating” because in my mind that just puts the goal farther away. This is why I don’t understand people who have “cheat days”. Why not just stay on track and get it done ? As it is I’m already considering lowering my goal weight by another 10 pounds. Statistics say this would bring my weight into a “normal” BMI range. Rather than making that change now and basically erasing 10 pounds of achievement I decided to wait until I’ve reached 199 or less. At that point a 10 pound drop in my goal weight won’t seem so unreachable. For now I’ll just keep that in mind as I inch closer to my goal weight.

Breakfast today was a 1.3 ounce 150 calorie package of biscotti bites cookies. These are really good and have no “weird” ingredients. In fact, the first 4 ingredients are sugar, almonds, butter and whole wheat flour ! So I really enjoyed them with my coffee today. Also had the usual 100 calorie string cheese later in the morning. Morning snack was a 155 calorie chocolate shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 7.5 ounce 110 calorie cup of chicken noodle soup. I had raw carrots and some cottage cheese (80 calories) with it. The cups of soup aren’t really what I would call a hearty meal but you do get a Power Fuel with lunch, so if you choose it wisely you won’t be starving. You can also have all the non-starchy veggies you want so some people extend the soup by adding a bunch of veggies and a little extra chicken broth. If I planned ahead I could do that at home and then pack it for lunch. I will say the Nutrisystem chicken noodle soup is pretty good ! I slacked on my water today – didn’t drink any of it until 1 pm. Part of the problem there is it was chilly in the office so the last thing I wanted was cold water ! By 1 pm the water wasn’t so cold and the office had warmed up so I got 32 ounces in by 2 pm and refilled for the next 32 ! My afternoon snack was 3 wedges of Laughing Cow cheese (90 calories) and 12 reduced fat wheat thins (90 calories). Some varieties of Laughing Cow are 50 calories a wedge so I make sure I buy the garlic & herb and the light original, which are only 30 calories per wedge. Since I had a low calorie lunch I had a high calorie dinner - a 4.7 ounce 290 calorie meatloaf sandwich with a little barbecue sauce. This is the highest calorie entree I’ve seen from Nutrisystem so I only order one per month. My evening snack was a 2.3 ounce 130 calorie stuffed chocolate pie. Despite all that my calories are only at about 1200 for the day. I did manage to get 64 ounces of water in too !

My new shipment of frozen food was delivered today but I still have some non-frozen food to eat, so I won’t be touching it for a little bit. That is going to take some discipline since some of the lunch and dinner items I have left are not my favorites. Several are the Nutrisytem pizza’s, which I really do not like. I don’t really like their frozen pizzas either. I hate to eat things I don’t really like but I also don’t want to throw them in the trash. I will probably sit down this weekend and take inventory to see what I have and how long it will last. The plan I’m on only provides 24 days worth of food each month as they want you to “flex” one day a week and make your own meals. I’ve chosen not to do that so I buy extra here and there to ensure I don’t run out between shipments. You can also move up or delay your shipments so that is an option too. A lot of the non-frozen I have is stuff I got free from Nutrisystem. They run challenges on the NUMI app so I’ve gotten free breakfast bars, free lunch cups, free chocolate snacks and a free shaker. For some reason I have a TON of snack items even though I have a snack every day. I must have bought a lot of frozen snack items during the 50% off sale so I didn’t eat many of the non-frozen snacks. Now I got 24 more snacks with my frozen shipment .. lol ! I will definitely need to spend some time documenting what I have and then update my next order to ensure I don’t have too many of any one item. The fact that I could choose my own foods was a major part of my decision to join Nutrisystem.

Today marks 75 days on Nutrisystem .. two and a half months ! It’s hard to believe it’s been that long already ! I don’t think I’ve ever stuck with anything this long. If I did it would have been many years ago. I feel better and I think I look better. Yesterday I realized I can bend over to tie my shoes without cutting off my breathing ! In fact, I can bend over and touch my toes ! Since I am determined to never need my larger size clothing again I also need to go through my closet and discard a few older things. I have a couple pairs of jeans that basically fall off me so those need to go. The jeans I wore to work today are getting loose so I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to wear them. I actually thought they were straight leg jeans but when I checked the inside they are a pair of my “skinny” jeans ! I also have a couple of tops that drown me so those can go too. Since the fire I’ve become much less of a pack rat and it’s much easier for me to get rid of things. My house doesn’t have a lot of clutter and I like it that way. I still have some residual clutter in the garage but I intend to address that as soon as the snow is gone, since most of it will end up at the curb for trash pickup !

Last night I put a stake in the ground and signed up for a year of iFit. I hovered over the “submit” button for a little bit but ultimately decided I needed to make a strong commitment to fitness. I’ll be interested to see where I am when my subscription expires on 04/12/20 !! I wasn’t really worried that I would leave fitness behind if I didn’t continue with iFit. It’s really more the fact that it makes the experience more enjoyable. It also provides variety and a gradual increase in intensity. iFit gives me structure for working out in the same way Nutrisystem gives me structure in what I eat. So both plans work for me. There is no commitment with Nutrisystem. I can stop the auto shipments at any time but I have no intention of doing so. If you read these notes I will warn you now that you’ll be seeing them for at least another year !

I’m a little tired tonight so it’s going to be an early night. I did get my workout in and that felt great. Temps tomorrow are supposed to be near 50 .. appropriate for the first day of Spring ! I’m looking forward to putting away the scarf and gloves and winter coat, which will probably be way too big by next winter ! I don’t have a spring coat so I guess I need to start shopping for one ! I’ll do that tomorrow ... right now I’m headed for a hot shower, a warm bed and a movie on the DVR !