My Nutrisystem Journey

🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 " You are the greatest project you  will ever get to work on. Take  your time. Create magic ." Today is day 848 of Nutrisystem. I was thinking today about the fact that I'm 848 days into this journey and I'm not at my goal weight. I was a little sad about that and kind of disappointed in myself. Was it unrealistic to expect to lose 154 pounds in 2 years or less ? I don't think it was. The problem is I haven't stuck to the program 100% for the entire 848 days. Ok. Well .. life means having dessert now and then. Life also means making mistakes. Life means learning lessons too. Once I got past the little pity party I started thinking about all the positives I've experienced. I won't rehash them here but trust me .. the list is long. I 100% agree that I am the greatest project I will ever work on. For most of my life my needs came last, not because it was always demanded of me - that's just who I was. I sp...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 " Your life is your story, and the  adventure ahead of you is the  journey to fulfill your own purpose  and potential." Today is day 847 of Nutrisystem. I also celebrated another milestone today - 36 years with AT&T ! I feel pretty lucky to have this job and I hope it carries me to retirement because I enjoy what I do, I'm good at what I do and quite honestly, I don't want to start over again somewhere else. I love being able to work from home full time too ! I did enjoy going to the office all those years but winters were tough with the snow. Not having to worry about winter driving has been a huge relief. Rising gas prices make me grateful I don't have to spend much on gas these days ! I'm lucky to have received very solid career advice over the years that kept me in the same department. Many of the departments I wanted to work in are no longer there because the work has been outsourced to other companies....

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 Attention: Due to recent setbacks,  my  summer beach body has been postponed  another year. As usual,  your patience  is appreciated. 😄 Today is day 846 of Nutrisystem. I thought this one was funny. I probably haven't had a summer beach body since I was 5 .. lol ! I don't think I'll ever have a body I'm 100% happy with in a bathing suit but I will definitely be happier than I've ever been before. The problem with losing weight at my age is your skin doesn't bounce back the way it would have 20 or 30 years ago. I lost about 50 pounds back in 1997 and I wasn't left with a ton of loose skin. There are surgical remedies for it but it's expensive and not really that important to me. I've had a few setbacks over the past year because I've allowed myself to deviate from the Nutrisystem program a bit too much. This is something I had said I wouldn't do ... but I did it anyway. I don't stress about...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 Me: I'm going to lose weight.  I'm  going to exercise every day.  I'm going to  go on a diet and stick to it. Also me: Is that cake ? " Today is day 845 of Nutrisystem. Dieting is hard - don't let anyone tell you otherwise. That being said, when I look back now I feel like the first 100 pounds was easy. These last 50 were tough and the remaining 4 ... well, they're going to be the hardest. I was really good about sticking to the Nutrisystem program for that first year and I didn't often have any extras. This past year a lot of extras have been sneaking in so I'm working on pushing them back out. I could blame it on COVID but that would just be taking the easy way out. It's just me indulging me. I didn't buy scones or cheese curds at the grocery store this week but I bought raisin bread and cornbread. 🙄 The bottom line is I need some extra carbs/calories in my diet based on my activity level BUT I...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Wouldn't it be great if you could   put yourself in the dryer for 10  minutes and come out wrinkle free   and three sizes smaller ? " Today is day 844 of Nutrisystem. Wouldn't it be great if it was that easy to transform your body ?!?!? I'd be happy to spend 10 minutes in the dryer .. lol !! Of course, we all know nothing it that easy and some people go the surgical route to address both issues. I don't see me ever doing that but I don't see anything wrong with it. I could very easily have gone the surgical route to address my weight and had I failed with Nutrisystem I might have given it some thought. At the start of this journey I told myself you got yourself into this mess and you are going to put in the work to get out of it. I knew myself well enough to know that I wouldn't learn anything by taking the surgical route. Sure, I could have reached my goal weight a lot faster but here's the bottom ...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Stop eating out, cook at home and  you'll lose weight. Quarantine  determined that was a lie ! " Today is day 843 of Nutrisystem. Yep, eating at home definitely doesn't mean you'll lose weight ! I used to think that I ate more in restaurants and that was the cause of the weight problem, but in reality what I was eating at home was just as bad and only compounded the problem. I feel fortunate to have been on Nutrisystem when quarantine rolled around last year because my food shipments never faltered and I didn't have to worry about being able to get the foods I enjoyed. Even so, I let the stress of quarantine get to me and some additional items made their way into my kitchen. It's proving difficult to completely eliminate them so it's clear the root of my weight problem is not being able to say no to myself. I've already talked about food as comfort and that is the real root of my weight problem. It ...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Diet Rule #4: If you drink a diet  soda with a candy bar, the calories  in the candy bar are canceled out  by  the diet soda ." Today is day 842 of Nutrisystem. I was never a fan of diet soda but I sure did like my candy bars ! I used to buy orange soda (brominated vegetable oil and all) once in a while and would have the occasional Pepsi with pizza. The problem with soda (for me) is I always had to buy it in 2 liter bottles and it seemed like it went flat 20 minutes after you opened the bottle ! You just can't get the cap back on tight enough to keep the carbonation in. I didn't like buying it in cans or smaller bottles because then you had to wash them all out and return them to the store to get that 5 cent deposit back. I really don't miss soda at all. I used to drink bottled water too and taking those back to the store was a huge pain, so I stopped that habit when I started Nutrisystem. I do not miss sta...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Diet Rule #3: Anything consumed  while standing has no calories .   This  is due to gravity and the  density  of caloric mass ." Today is day 841 of Nutrisystem. Well, if this one were true I'd do all my eating standing up ! LOL ! On a more serious note, I did some thinking about my eating habits today. I wasn't one to stand up and eat. When you weigh 304 pounds and your back and feet hurt the best place to eat is on the couch or in bed ! Before I started Nutrisystem I had quite an addiction to chocolate candy. For years I kept large quantities of candy in my bedroom. I'd have stacks of the large size Hershey bars with almonds and the large Mr Goodbar's. I also used to buy bags of peanut clusters, chocolate covered peanuts or pecan turtles in the bulk food section at the grocery store. Shoveling scoops of chocolates into a big plastic bag was every fat girl's dream ! I also bought big bags of Hershey Ki...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Diet Rule #2: If you eat from  someone else's plate, it will not  count as your  calories ." Today is day 840 of Nutrisystem. I've never been one to eat off someone else's plate but wouldn't it be nice if those calories really didn't count ?!?! At this point in this journey I am trying not to obsess so much about calories. It's more important to watch what I'm actually eating. I've made the mistake of buying "low calorie" items that actually have little nutritional value, such as the fiber and protein content that Nutrisystem teaches. Example is the 80 calorie mini scones I've been buying. Well, they have less than 1G of fiber and 3G of protein .. so they don't meet Nutrisystem guidelines for a "Smart Carb" (1G or more of fiber) or a "Power Fuel" (5G or more of protein). They really are just empty calories and they'd be ok once in a while. Problem is the...

🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Diet Rule #1: If nobody sees   you eating it, then it doesn't  contain any calories ." Today is day 839 of Nutrisystem. Wouldn't it be nice if this quote was true ? All of us closet eaters would be super thin ! I'd be lying if I said I don't miss any of the stuff I used to eat before Nutrisystem. One day I will revisit some of my old favorites but in much smaller quantities and only occasionally. I don't know when that time will come because right now I don't trust myself enough to not overdo it, so it's best to stay away. Who knows, the day may never come and that's ok. I've spent my entire adult life eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and that is what got me to 304 pounds. Another thing I've said 100 times is that you can't change a lifetime of habits overnight. 839 days may not be considered "overnight" but when you compare it to the 35 years I've been on my ow...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Dieting is easy. It's like riding a   bike -  except the bike is on fire  and you are  on fire, and everything   is on fire  because you are in hell ." Today is day 838 of Nutrisystem. I've felt like I was in hell plenty of times over the past 838 days ! There were times I would lie awake half the night because I was starving. There were days I would watch the clock until it was "time to eat". There were days I would search iFit for the easiest or shortest workouts possible. Then there were the days where I completely blew the "diet" and hated myself. Some days I found 100 reasons not to exercise - sometimes for days. One thing I was not prepared for was the emotional aspect of this journey. How do you get used to not being fat ? For a while there I was in front of the mirror all the time and worried about being too vain. The reality is I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I honestly didn't...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 Doing cardio like: "k, only 20 minutes  left. That's 10 minutes twice. Only  5  minutes 4 times ." Today is day 837 of Nutrisystem. This quote is so me. When I get into the longer (10+ minute) stretches of my treadmill workouts I start breaking the intervals down into smaller time frames in my head. I try hard not to watch the timer so I do that and also watch the mileage counter. I have to focus on multiple things to help pass the time. I can't just listen to the trainer or guide and watch the video. I do that, but I also spend a lot of time doing math in my head. The app on my tablet displays the time remaining and the counter on my treadmill displays the time elapsed so I switch back and forth between the two to mark the minutes (or 30 seconds !) on each. Keeping my brain busy does a lot to help the time pass and very often gets me over the hump and to the end of the workout.  Breakfast was a 2.8 ounce 150...