Day 215: Realize Your Vision

"Your purpose explains what you are doing with your life. Your vision explains how you are living your purpose. Your goals enable you to realize your vision." ~Bob Proctor~

Seems like a pretty simple philosophy, doesn't it ? It's really not. For a long time my life had no purpose. I had no vision. I had no real goals. Having goals and wanting something are 2 different things. There were a lot of things I wanted but since I didn't have any goals I wasn't really working towards them. Without a purpose, without some vision and without a goal or two it's unrealistic to expect anything out of life. For most of us, what we want isn't going to just fall in our laps. So goes my quest to lose weight. Wanting to be thin isn't enough, so I've made it my purpose. Making it my purpose didn't automatically give me the vision needed to succeed. Signing up for Nutrisystem did that. Once the purpose was set and the vision was clear I was able to move towards setting goals. Then you have to actually put the work in to achieve those goals ! It may seem like a natural progression but you'd be surprised how many people are frustrated with their life .... and just need to take a little time to put things in the right order and actually work hard at achieving goals ! It helps that all of the things in my life that were holding me back have been resolved. Nonetheless, I've struggled a little in the past few days, trying to accept the fact that I "only" lost a pound last week. It's hard not to feel like that's a failure and this tells me that yet again I'm being too hard on myself. It's not like I haven't had other weeks with disappointing weigh ins, so I don't really know why this one is different. I've been really fortunate to have a spurt of great losses so maybe this is just a necessary reality check. It would be easy to lose sight of the fact that my goal weight is still a long way off. I haven't been tempted to deviate from the Nutrisystem plan, although eating out on weekends is sometimes a challenge. I decided that I wasn't going to worry too much about it during the summer months, because I tend to spend most of my weekends at home during the winter. I have to enjoy the warm months while I can, within reason, so I've tried to make healthy choices when I do eat out. Although I haven't let it change what I'm doing, the way I feel is telling me I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to setting realistic goals and finding self-acceptance. While I was on the treadmill last night I was thinking my goal for this week would be to get 9 workouts in .. meaning every day this week and twice on Saturday and Sunday. Could I get much more unrealistic ? If I did that this week, what goal could I possibly strive for next week ? I could do 9 workouts .. and I might .. but if I don't then I've just handed myself another avoidable failure. It would be just one more reason to beat myself up. One thing Ifit stresses is to set realistic workout goals and 9 workouts in 7 days is not realistic. So I'm going to just take it one day at a time. Today I will eat right. Today I will drink my water. Today I will exercise. I've said this before ... but I think I need to repeat it every day until it sticks.

Breakfast was a 2.1 ounce 180 calorie cinnamon roll with cinnamon roll coffee. Second cup was hazelnut. Morning snack was a 155 calorie chocolate shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 4 ounce 220 calorie chicken fajita melt with raw carrots. Afternoon snack was a yummy 5.3 ounce 80 calorie Dannon Light & Fit Lemon Meringue yogurt and a 0.65 ounce 100 calorie bag of Skinny Pop popcorn. This left 465 calories for dinner and an evening snack. Dinner was a 7.5 ounce 230 calorie chicken marsala. I mixed in some riced cauliflower that I had added minced garlic too. This was a delicious and filling dinner ! Evening snack was a 1.8 ounce 150 calorie chocolate cupcake. Calories for the day are 1115 and I got 80 ounces of water in. 

Although I've tried to stay away from products with artificial sweeteners it's pretty hard to avoid in Nutrisystem foods. I won't be eating their food forever so I'm not worrying about that for the short term, considering the junk I was eating before. That's why I started eating the Light & Fit yogurt this week, despite the sucralose in it. I was having to force myself to eat plain yogurt - even adding some fruit to it didn't help. I'm really enjoying these little cups of deliciousness in the afternoon, balanced out with a bag of popcorn. Once I'm working from home a few days a week I'll be able to add some more variety to my snacks since it'll be easier to prepare things at home. 

Tonight's workout was another success for the day so I feel like I'm getting back on track and back into a routine. The cooler weather definitely helps but I'm sure going to miss the heat ! We had blue skies and sunshine all morning but some storms moved in during the early afternoon. We just had a couple rain showers in downtown and it had stopped by the time I left work. Temps are going to be in the high 70's or low 80's for the rest of the week and the nights will be cooler. Seems like summer just got started and here we are with Fall weather right around the corner ! Oh well. Time to close all the windows, grab a shower and head for bed.