Day 661: Stay Focused
🖤 Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤It's day 661 of Nutrisystem. Sunday mornings are always a challenge ! I could easily sit on the couch all day drinking coffee, eating and watching old movies on TCM. Since yesterday was a day off from exercise there was no way I was going to let myself off the hook today. I knew I was going to have to give myself some "tough love" instead of falling back on excuses like "I'm tired" or "I'll get back on track tomorrow". I'm ok with one day off but 2 days off is always going to be a rare exception. I made that exception to enjoy my brother's wedding but between now and January 4 that will never be an option. January 4 will be 2 years on Nutrisystem and I really, really, really want to be at my goal weight by then. That means losing 11 more pounds. I don't know if it will happen but I have to try. I knew today was going to be a day of challenges but I pushed myself through it. I'm proud of the effort I put in because it shows me that I can be disciplined. That's been a bit lacking in my life and it's something that comes with time. Reaching 150 or less pounds is a goal that will follow me into 2021. Becoming more fit will also tag along. My credit card debt will not follow me into 2021 - last payment on my remaining card will be made in December. New goals for 2021 will be to work on consistency and self-discipline so today's quote was perfect ! I have never been one to keep New Year's resolutions. Over the years I occasionally made a resolution but I never kept it .. not once. All that changed on 12-29-18 when I decided to give Nutrisystem a try. My resolutions on 01-01-19 were to lose the weight, get fit and pay off my credit cards. Those resolutions followed me into 2020 and that was not unexpected. Losing 154 pounds in one year wouldn't have been a realistic goal so from the very beginning I expected it to take 18-24 months. I also knew my fitness wasn't going to change overnight. The credit card debt wasn't going to go away in a year either. So I basically set 2 year goals and I'm happy to be closing in on achieving them all. I've learned a lot about myself in the past 661 days and the journey continues. I suspect I will always set a new goal or two in the New Year but I don't expect any of them to ever be quite as life changing as my current goals.
Update on Tommy Rivs today indicates he is working on core strength in order to help with his breathing. All that time on a ventilator allowed his lungs to rest but they also atrophied. Every other muscle in the body atrophied as well, since he was sedated for so long. When we're healthy we don't think about breathing .. we just do it. In 2011 my immune system was not 100% recovered from my leukemia battle and after a cold I ended up with pericarditis. Every breath caused excruciating pain so I found myself taking the shortest breaths possible. When breathing became too much of an effort I ended up in the ER and was hospitalized for 2 days. Because of my weight I think they first suspected a heart attack or something more along those lines because they gave me nitroglycerin, which did nothing but crash my blood pressure. I remember the nurse saying "well, we won't do that again". So I know a little bit about having to put some effort into breathing. I only struggled for a few days and Tommy has been struggling for months. His lungs are scarred and no one knows how much function he will regain, but one thing I know about Tommy is he will never give up. Some days when I think life is hard I think about Tommy and remind myself how blessed I really am. Rage on Tommy !
Breakfast was a 2.1 ounce 160 calorie cherry cheese roll and a 5.3 ounce 80 calorie Light & Fit key lime yogurt. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 3.7 ounce 200 calorie grilled chicken sandwich with a chef salad. Afternoon snack was a honey crisp apple (90 calories) and a 90 calorie stick of jalapeno cheddar cheese. Dinner was a 4.7 ounce 250 calorie meatloaf sandwich with roasted veggies. Evening snack was a 2 ounce 140 calorie pumpkin cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1130 and I got 80 ounces of water in.
I didn't get to sleep until after 5 am and I was up at 10:30. I could easily have gone back to sleep but I knew that would completely destroy my day so I forced myself to get up. My first thoughts were that I would have breakfast and relax until noon, then get on the treadmill. I ended up indulging in a second cup of coffee so it was nearly 1 pm when I finally got the party started. First workout of the day was a 32 minute jog in Munich, Germany with iFit trainer Casey Gilbert. I don't jog so I set my own pace & incline. After a short warmup I set the incline at 4% and the pace at 3.1 mph. I increased my pace by 0.1 mph every 3.5 minutes until there were 16 minutes to go. At this point I decreased the incline to 3% and set the pace at 3.5 mph for 8 minutes and then 3.6 mph for 8 minutes. I'm finding that breaking the workout down into these shorter slices makes the time go by so much faster ! I'm gradually increasing the time spent at 3.6 mph in an effort to increase my endurance. I'd ultimately like to go back and repeat iFit's audio endurance series using 3.6 mph as my base speed. When I did it in September my top speed was 3.4 mph, which was not easy when I got to the 32 minute endurance walk. At the time I challenged myself to complete that at 3.4 mph and it was not easy. The fact that I was able to do it inspired me to work on building endurance and here I am, able to sustain 3.6 mph for 8 minutes ! I'm still working on building confidence too !
After my first workout I made my "morning" shake and moved out to the front porch to enjoy the sunshine ! It was only 46 degrees outside but thanks to the sun the porch had warmed up considerably. I relaxed for a while, got a huge salad ready for a post workout lunch, and then headed back to the treadmill for round 2. Next up was 22 minutes of jogging intervals with iFit trainer Gideon Akande. The intervals were only 30 seconds at 4.2 mph with increasing inclines, which I could have done, and I thought about pushing through them but in the end I did a short warmup and then 7 minutes at 3.4 mph, 7 minutes at 3.5 and 7 minutes at 3.6. It took a few minutes to settle into 3.4 mph since I usually start my workouts at 3.1 mph ! Incline was 4% for the first 14 minutes and 3% for the last 7. My current focus is endurance so doing the jogging intervals "just to do them" didn't really fit with my fitness goals. For the longest time I skipped over iFit workouts that I "couldn't" do as programmed. Now that I've embraced customizing speed and incline I have an endless supply of workouts all over the world with a multitude of trainers. Who cares if the trainer is jogging or climbing massive inclines ? That doesn't mean I have to. Many of the trainers actually encourage you to modify the settings to match your ability or goal and that could mean slowing things down or speeding it up. So I do that all the time now. One thing I will never be is bored !
I had lunch out on the front porch after my workout. One of my favorite movies was on TCM but I recorded it to watch later. If you've never watched "Around The World In 80 Days" you're missing out ! I really wanted to just sit on the couch and watch it but it was more important to get my workouts in and accomplish the other goals I had set for the day. When I get a late start to the day it feels like all I do is eat and exercise ! I really need to spend some time working on making my weekends a little more consistent. First step is eliminating those double expresso shots at the casino so I'm not awake all night ! It's a miracle I was able to get up before noon today and actually function ! After my afternoon snack I completed workout #3. It was a 22 minute hike in Sedona, AZ with iFit trainer Dewayne Montgomery. He is new and I really enjoyed his energy and inspirational "never give up" message that was interwoven throughout the workout. I'm looking forward to the rest of his series ! I did change the settings and after a short warmup I set the incline to 4% for 14 minutes. I started my pace at 3.2 mph and increased by 0.1 mph every 3.5 minutes. With 7 minutes to go I decreased the incline to 3% and set the speed at 3.6 mph to finish strong. Today I logged 76 minutes, 4.3 miles and 529 calories. Before dinner I put in 45 minutes on the Total Gym.
I changed up my workout schedule a little today and it worked well. One of the iFit trainers had talked about eating before or after a workout and their suggestion was to eat after, so that your body learns to burn fat for fuel instead of the readily available carbs or sugars from our meals. I am often starving when I wake up in the morning so doing the morning workout before breakfast might be a problem, but I plan on trying it. I already use the treadmill before eating lunch or dinner but I usually have dinner before Total Gym, so going forward I'm going to try doing Total Gym before dinner too. Eating dinner a little later will help with evening hunger as well. Throughout this 661 day journey I've made little changes here and there to make the Nutrisystem program work better for me and that's the beauty of the program. They give you the framework and you build on it. I desperately needed that !
I'm sad to see the weekend go because I enjoyed it so much ! Hopefully I will have no trouble sleeping tonight because I have a full worklist waiting for me at work. I do love the fact that "going to work" just means getting out of bed and coming downstairs ! On that note it's about time for a shower and bed.
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