Day 262: What If

"What if I told you that the only person holding you back was you ? What if I told you nobody great ever said, "I can't"? What if I told you that nobody ever succeeded, that didn't try?"

Today was about getting motivated to exercise. I could have spent the entire day sitting on the couch doing nothing ... and then hating myself for doing that. So there I sat at 11 am, listening to the internal debate. I didn't want to exercise, I wanted to sit on the couch and drink more coffee. At the same time, I wanted to keep my weight loss moving forward. I know that without exercise progress will be slow and without exercise I won't get the health benefits I'm looking for. Still, zero motivation. I just don't enjoy working out. I don't think it would matter what type of exercise I tried. Yet I'm not content being in a size 16 bottom or size Large top. I want to be out of the "teens" and I want to be in a medium or small top. Exercise is key to this goal and I know it. Still, how do you get motivated to do something you hate ? I decided to try on the cute leggings I bought a little while back, planning to lose enough weight to "fit into" them. The leggings are a Junior XL ... and it turns out that is the equivalent of a Misses 16/18. If I had let them sit in the drawer I'd have been working towards fitting into something I could already wear and if I waited much longer they'd have been too big ! From what I've read the difference between Junior and Misses sizing is Juniors are cut slimmer in the hips and bust because they're designed for teens. I was thinking that choosing women's plus sizes was a whole heck of a lot easier but there are 2 ranges there too. You have the 1X, 2X etc. then you have the numeric sizes 14/16, 18/20, etc. At some point my weight will stabilize and I'll figure out what size I'm comfortable in. I think I'd be happy in a 10 or 12 bottom and a medium top but we'll see.

So I ended up on the treadmill before noon in my new leggings. I tried another new workout this morning and I'm going to go with this one for a while. It's not quite as challenging as the one I did Friday (or the one before that) and maybe not quite so much bang for your buck with only 24 more calories burned than my old 36 minute workout. The new one is longer (45 minutes) and has less incline, but the pace is a bit faster (max 3 mph), so it's designed to build endurance. Once I'm comfortable with the pace I think it'll be a smoother transition to the next step. Quite honestly, the workout I did Friday left me with some discomfort in my troublesome left hip so I decided to heed the warning sign and dial it back a little. That workout was just a little too fast for me. I actually really enjoyed today's workout because there were lots of animal sightings and the terrain was a lush green Tanzanian landscape. I'll give the new workout a couple of weeks to build some endurance and then try the more difficult one again. I may do the long workout on days I work at home or on weekends, then do a shorter one on days I'm commuting to the office. I think I was getting a little bored with the old one since I've been doing it a while. Another thing I'm going to try is if I'm tired and really struggling to get to the treadmill I'm going to try some of the shorter and less intense Ifit workouts. They have plenty that are only 20 minutes. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew and it ends up discouraging me.

Breakfast was a 2.1 ounce 160 calorie cherry cheese roll with cinnamon roll coffee. Post workout morning snack was a 155 calorie vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. I was a little hungry so I had some raw carrots as well. Lunch was a 4 ounce 220 calorie chicken fajita melt with roasted garlic salsa and a big chef salad with fat free Kraft Zesty Italian dressing, which adds 30 calories. Afternoon snack was 1/2 cup cottage cheese (80 calories) and some pretzels (110 calories). Dinner was a 7.5 ounce 220 calorie chicken fettuccine alfredo with a big bowl of steamed broccoli. Evening snack was a 3.5 ounce 130 calorie ice cream sandwich. Total calories for the day are 1105 and I got 64 ounces of water in.

Today was warm and humid, which is pretty surprising this late in September. Hopefully we're going to have a long and warm Indian summer ! Tomorrow is a work at home day and it's amazing how much more relaxed I am on Sunday now. I've been watching "My 600 Pound Life" and tonight's subject is yet another example of someone who wasted a chance to turn their life around. Makes me want to work harder at this !

Next up is a shower and my bed.