Day 600: Direction

 

                                                                                             🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤

 " Direction is more important

 than speed. We are so busy looking 

at our speedometers that we forget

 the milestone."

                        

It's Day 600 of Nutrisystem. Today is a little bit of a milestone. If you go by a 30 day month this would be the end of 20 months on Nutrisystem. When I began this journey I gave myself 18-24 months to reach my goal weight. January 4, 2021 will be 2 years and I've got to be honest, I'll be pretty unhappy if I'm not at my goal when that date rolls around. Some days I do focus too much on speed instead of making sure I'm moving in the right direction and that's why I chose this quote today. I spent too many years looking at the speedometer and pretty much wishing my life away instead of working on solving the problems that made it so dreadful. I've reached a point now where I want to slow the progression of time but that isn't going to happen. Those years are gone and they aren't coming back. So it's that much more important for me to make the best of every day now. Having a direction in life makes a big difference. I drifted along for far too long with no purpose. Tackling my weight, fitness and finances gave me reachable goals to work toward and I knew going in that it was not going to be a sprint. You don't undo years of damage overnight but even during a marathon you start wishing the finish line would get here faster. That's about where I am now. I have 18 pounds to my goal weight and only 5 credit card payments (maybe 4 if I can swing it with school taxes and Christmas) left to be clear of all that debt. My sincere hope is that January 2021 will be the start of a great year ! 

Update on Tommy Rivs was very positive today. He is alert, following commands and still trying to get out of bed ! He remains on a ventilator and ECMO so he is unable to speak but he squeezed his wife's hand and she was thrilled. She acknowledged the fact that there is still a long way to go to beat this cancer and bring him home, but every step towards that goal is a huge milestone. Rage on Tommy ! 

Breakfast was a 2.5 ounce 160 calorie package of buttermilk waffles with sugar free syrup and a 5.3 ounce 80 calorie Light & Fit lemon meringue yogurt. Morning snack was a 120 calorie chocolate shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 3.8 ounce 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt with a chef salad. Afternoon snack was a 1.42 ounce 190 calorie Nature Valley peanut butter dark chocolate protein bar. Dinner was a 5 ounce 210 calorie broccoli & cheese stuffed chicken breast with roasted veggies. Evening snack was a 2.2 ounce 140 calorie lemon zest cake. Total calories for the day are 1120 and I got 64 ounces of water in.

Today was a tough workout day. I started off with a 29 minute interval incline hike in St. Lucia with iFit trainer Chris Clark. The pace ranged from 1.3 to 3.2 mph and there was a good bit of max incline. Had I known this I would have scheduled this one for another day because the incline stuff is killing me right now. My lunchtime workout was a 26 minute interval hike with Chris in St. Lucia. The pace ranged from 1.2 to 3.1 mph and although there was max incline most of it was brief. After work I tackled a 45 minute hike up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with iFit trainer Zac Marion. This one about killed me. It was max incline the entire time but at the 32 minute mark I had to drop the incline to zero. The alternative was giving up completely because I felt like I was going to die right there on the treadmill. I was walking at 2.4 mph until about the 22 minute mark when I slowed down to 2 mph. That got me to 32 minutes but I hit the wall there. So I walked for 5 minutes at 2 mph with zero incline to recover and then put the incline back up to 10%, which is max for my treadmill, and finished strong at 2.2 mph. I logged 100 minutes, 3.8 miles and 621 calories today. After dinner I tackled the Total Gym even though I absolutely did not feel like it. Fitbit says I did almost 14,000 steps. I was glad to call it a day after all that was done. While my dinner was cooking I went through my iFit schedule for the remainder of the incline challenge to ensure I don't have multiple incline workouts scheduled on the same day. I have 8 workouts to go and then I am taking a break from anything that involves extended periods of max incline.

Today was a weird weather day. We had thunderstorms around 4 am and much of the day the skies looked threatening and we had gusty winds but it never rained. By afternoon it was mostly sunny but still windy. I spent the entire day working on the front porch despite the wind and threatening skies. Tomorrow is going to be sunny and cool but I'm not working so I won't be spending the day on the porch. I'm off tomorrow for more dental work and like an idiot I scheduled the appointment for 8 am. That means getting up super early and diving into rush hour traffic for the first time in over 5 months ! Oh well - if all goes well I'll be able to spend the rest of the day with my mom. If they have to pull the tooth I'll be coming home to feel sorry for myself on the couch.

On that note it's time for a shower and then it's off to bed !