Day 117: Hold Your Head Up High

“Don’t let anyone break your soul. You have to stand on your own two feet and fight. There are those who would do anything to see you fall. Never give them the satisfaction. Hold your head up high. Put a smile on your face, and stand your ground.”

I don’t know who said this or came up with the saying, but it is so true. I think we all have toxic people in our lives or on the outskirts, just hoping and praying we’ll stumble. I never give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me fall and believe me, I’ve fallen a lot over the years. I suppose that was the perfectionist in me. In my mind, admitting everything wasn’t perfect was a failure on my part – even when circumstances were out of my hands. I’ve let up on myself a bit but I can’t say the perfectionist doesn’t linger, because it does. I think there’s a fine line between being a perfectionist and being competitive and I am both at times ! I’ll give you an example … weekly weigh ins. The past couple of days the scale has been saying I gained 5 pounds. I knew that was not the case – there was no way I gained that much weight in less than a week, especially considering I have stuck to the Nutrisystem program and exercised every day. So I knew this was water weight, probably because I’ve been slacking on my water intake and perhaps being too free with the salt shaker. My digestion has also been a bit sluggish, probably because I’m not eating enough veggies. Last night I had a hard time getting to sleep because all this was swirling around in my brain. That number on the scale really bothered me and there was an inner dialogue going on saying this is water weight but what if it isn’t. When I started this journey I promised to share the good, the bad and the ugly .. so I guess this is the bad. I’ve very carefully avoided talking about this week’s weigh in and now you know why. It was the perfectionist being unwilling to admit she may have failed. The good news is today the scale says I lost 2.6 pounds this week, for a total loss of 51 pounds ! Maybe the scale felt sorry for me or was just tired of me stepping on it … lol ! Truth is, if that hadn’t happened another day would have gone by with no mention of a weigh in. So I’m working harder now to get at least 64 ounces of water in per day. Had the first 32 in by 1:15 today and nearly the whole 64 by the time I left work ! I’m also going to work harder to get the veggie servings in. I do have the raw carrots at lunch all week but I slack off some on weekends and I haven’t been good about the veggies in the evening. The problem there is some of the Nutrisystem entrees are pretty filling, so if I have veggies on top of it I feel like I’m stuffing myself. I need to take a look at the dinner selections in my next order anyways because I’m tired of some of them. I really like the stuffed chicken breasts because they’re lower calorie and it’s easy to pair them with veggies, so I will order more of those. I’ve been skipping my Power Fuel at breakfast many days because I need those calories to clear out the entrees in my freezer and make a dent in the gigantic pile of evening snacks I’ve accumulated ! It makes more sense to have that Power Fuel in the morning and go with a lower calorie entrée at dinner, so that’s what I’m going to do. The nice thing about Nutrisystem is you can switch things up very easily to make the program work better for your own needs. Nutrisystem advertises you just need to eat the food and you’ll lose weight, which is true, but you also have to put in some time and effort to really understand their guidelines and tweak what works and what doesn’t work for you.

Breakfast was a 2.1 ounce 180 calorie cinnamon roll with Green Mountain Breakfast Blend coffee. Some days the unflavored coffee is a good balance to the sweet pastry. 2nd and much needed cup was caramel vanilla cream. Morning snack was a 155 calorie chocolate shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 4 ounce 230 calorie steak and cheese melt with raw carrots. Afternoon snack was a 180 calorie Sargento Balanced Breaks. This left me with 453 calories for dinner and an evening snack. Dinner was a 9.5 ounce 260 calorie roasted turkey medallions with mashed potatoes. I guess I was hungry because I ate an entire bag of green beans with it ! My evening snack is going to be a 1.8 ounce 150 calorie chocolate cupcake. This puts my calories at 1157 for the day.

While the late night debate was going on in my head last night I decided I’m going to go ahead and purchase the weight bench I mentioned a while back. It’ll take me some time to put it together and figure out how I’m going to incorporate that into my days so I may as well do it now. It’s going to be upstairs so my current thought is I’ll spend a few minutes on that each night before my shower. Since the upstairs can be very warm in the summer I’ll also need a fan. The windows in the spare bedroom are too small for an air conditioner. I’m also anxiously awaiting the arrival of some more new jeans, which should be here Friday. Last time I checked baggy jeans are not in fashion so the sooner the new ones get here, the better ! I haven’t had to buy new tops because I purchased a few before Christmas in smaller sizes that “just” fit at the time and today they fit perfect. I can deal with loose tops but the baggy jeans have definitely got to go.

So today is a better day. Gaining would not have been the end of the world, it happens, but gaining when you’ve followed the program faithfully would be soul crushing. I was tempted to weigh myself again before I left this morning, just to be sure I hadn’t read the scale wrong, but I didn’t. I do check my weight periodically between “official” weigh in’s but I don’t record it or mention it here. It’s just another check to keep me moving in the right direction. My soul has been close to being broken over the years but apparently it’s pretty darn resilient because I’m still here. I spent enough time wringing my hands over the losing hand I felt life had dealt me. These days I deal my own cards and it’s always a winning hand ! I’m in charge of my destiny and as far as I’m concerned my future is bright. I’ve ejected the toxic people from my life and it feels like a blast of fresh air !

Our weather continues the wild swings .. today we’re back to gray and gloomy but a bit warmer. It was 42 when I left for work this morning, which is a big improvement over yesterday’s 28 ! It warmed up a bit and the sun peeked out late in the afternoon, so the day wasn’t all bad. Although it’s supposed to be warmer, the long range forecast isn’t showing much sun over the next few weeks .. which really stinks. I can only hope that changes !

2nd workout of the week is in the books and I feel pretty darn good. After this cupcake and the rest of my water disappears I’m heading up for a hot shower and a comfy bed. With any luck I’ll sleep better tonight !