My Nutrisystem Journey

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Success at anything will always come down to this: focus and effort. And we control both ." It's day 7 AG (after goal) and day 939 of Nutrisystem. A whole week has gone by ! I suspect part of my self-doubt is really all about the fact that I never expected to reach my goal weight. I didn't have that expectation on day 1 and all along the way it was mind boggling to see the numbers on the scale drop. Even then I never really believed I would get here. I might have said I did .. but deep down inside I was full of doubt. Now that I'm here the big question is how do you adjust to being a healthy weight after being obese most of your life ? It's like "ok, what do I do now ?". I still marvel at the fact that my thighs don't rub together. I can sit in a chair and have room on both sides. I can cross my legs. I can put my shoes on without straining my back and cutting off my oxygen. I can look down and ac...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Think positive, be positive and positive things will happen ." It's day 6 AG (after goal) and day 938 of Nutrisystem ! After a few days of sliding back into self-doubt I pulled myself out of that negativity and refocused on thinking positive thoughts. I had it in me to lose 158 pounds, so I most certainly have it in me to keep it off. It's all about choices now. I can fall back into living in fear or I can rejoice in where I am and resolve to stay here. It's really pretty simple and an easy choice. I choose positivity ! I WILL keep the weight off. I WILL stay fit. I WILL stay out of debt. I WILL I WILL I WILL ... and I will write that 1000 times if that is what it takes for it to sink in ! My problem is I've forgotten how to be happy so I'm not really sure how to go about it. I always find something to criticize myself for and I'm always waiting for something bad to happen. It's not an every day thi...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Every time you feel tired, remind yourself of why you are doing what you are doing and keep going ." It's day 5 AG (after goal) and day 937 of Nutrisystem ! Tired. Today I was tired. Today I wanted to be able to just sit on the couch and eat whatever I wanted and do nothing else. I could easily have done that. After all, no one would know and no one would care. Well .. except for me. I would know and I would care. So today it was me stopping me from being lazy or giving up. Today it was me pushing me to push through it. I think we all have those moments in many different aspects of our lives. You just want to get off this crazy ride we call life and breathe for a little while. I think they call that meditation .. lol ! When I started this journey to wellness I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I don't think I expected to succeed. I never really thought about life after losing the weight. I never thought about the...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Success is not the place one arrives ,  but rather the spirit with which one  undertakes and continues the journey ."  ~ Alex Noble ~ It's day 4 AG (after goal) and day 936 of Nutrisystem ! I stumbled across this quote and it was perfect for where I am today. I've arrived at success but the journey continues. Despite my success I feel the same unease that I felt when I first started Nutrisystem. Can I do this ? Can I really keep the weight off ? What is different this time ? I don't have the answers to any of these questions. This is still a day by day process. I'm human and every day is not going to be perfect. With that in mind I stepped off the path to my goal weight and started the path to maintaining it. There's a big difference between these 2 paths. The first one had a finish line and something to celebrate: reaching my goal weight. This new path .. well, it has no tangible goals and it has no finish...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Every new beginning comes from  some other beginning's end ." It's day 3 AG (after goal). I've been following the Nutrisystem plan for 935 days now. I've never done anything for this long, other than breathe ! The journey to lose the weight, eliminate my credit card debt and get fit started on January 4, 2019. With all 3 of these goals finally met I'm embarking on a new journey .. namely to keep the weight off, keep the credit card debt gone and to stay fit. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just wave a magic wand and all 3 goals would "stick" with no more effort on your part ? I'll be honest, it's a little deflating to realize I'll never really be "done". I will have to be vigilant about all 3 goals for the rest of my life. I can't say "yay, I'm done" and go do something else. Nope. Still have to watch what I eat, still have to watch how I spend and stil...

🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Everyone sabotages their hard work from time to time. Don't be hard on  yourself. Get back on track ASAP ." ~ Chalene Johnson ~ It's day 2 AG (after goal). I never thought I'd be here. Yes, it took 932 days to reach my goal weight but I did it. That's really all that matters. Today's quote was not the vibe I was searching for but as I've said many times, sometimes they just speak to me. Sabotaging myself is something I am very familiar with. I've done it for years in every aspect of my life. It's not an easy behavior to change and even 934 days into my Nutrisystem journey it's something I still have to be mindful of. Was I tempted to throw caution to the wind and have that caramel macchiato yesterday ? Absolutely. Did those cranberry orange scones and gigantic cookies look amazing ? Absolutely. Did I give in ? No. For once. In the back of my mind was the 3 days I spent on the detox to reach my...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "So it's like starting over again,   but I look forward to the challenge ."  ~ Lee Majors ~ How can you go wrong when you start the day with a quote from The Six Million Dollar Man ? What girl wasn't totally in love with him back in the 70's ? LOL ! Moving on to the maintenance phase of this journey is definitely like starting over. The detox was a bridge between weight loss and maintenance and despite the fact that I did not like the products, it did a good job of helping me cuts the carbs and sugar back. I couldn't move into maintenance with all the extras I'd been allowing myself. Now that I've made the break I plan to proceed with caution. Saturday is still going to be my "day off" from diet & exercise but it's not an excuse to go hog wild. I'm not placing limits or instituting "rules" but I'm going to think a little harder before I indulge. I think it was good to ...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Your goals are the road maps that guide you and show you what  is possible for your life . " ~ Les Brown ~ Today is day 932 of Nutrisystem. It's a big day .. THE big day .. because I finally reached my goal weight ! I actually surpassed it, thanks to the 3 day detox I just completed. I lost 6 pounds over the past 3 days so the "weight loss" portion of this journey ends with a total loss of 158 pounds. I won't lie - I'm pretty proud of all that I've achieved. I'm happy to be done with the weight loss part of this journey and I'm ready to buckle down on maintaining it. A couple of changes I'll be making: I won't be documenting calories or water intake every day and I won't be posting my weight. I'm at 146 pounds and that's where I plan to stay, give or take a pound or two. I do plan to continue my same eating pattern for the near future but if my weight continues to drop I w...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Life is a series of circles. The end  of one journey is the beginning of  the next . " Today is day 931 of Nutrisystem. It's also Day 3 of my 3 day Beachbody detox. I look at this as a mini journey in my quest to reach my goal weight. Just another circle in this crazy thing we call life. I'm looking forward to shifting my focus to maintaining the weight loss, instead of worrying about continuing to lose. I will close the circle on weight loss and open a new one to maintain. Some days I wonder what I will do with my life when the quest to "lose weight" is over. The majority of the past 930 days has been all about losing weight and I'm approaching the end of this journey with some anxiety and a little sadness. Yes, I want to be done and yes, I want to move on to maintenance but I don't yet trust myself. So that is the source of my anxiety. I also still think about all the times over the years that life ...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "Every once in a while you need  to challenge yourself and learn  new things . " Today is day 930 of Nutrisystem. It's also Day 2 of my 3 day Beachbody detox. I'm definitely challenging myself here but I don't know that I'm learning anything new. So you detox for 3 days and then go back to your normal diet and exercise routine. It feels like a "crash diet" to lose a couple pounds in a hurry and in reading a bit more about the detox that's pretty much what people use it for. The goal for me was getting away from the extras that have crept into my daily routine and I feel like I'm achieving that. Do I hope to lose those last 2 pounds ? Absolutely. Did I need to spend nearly $90 to do that ? No, not really. This was all about trying something new, something I've never done before, and I don't plan to repeat it. My hope is that when I return to my Nutrisystem schedule on Friday I won't ...

  🖤  Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤 "You may have a fresh start any  moment you choose, for this thing  that we call failure is not the falling  down, but the staying down. " ~ Mary Pickford ~ Today is day 929 of Nutrisystem. Today was all about fresh starts as I embarked on a 3 day detox. I'll be talking about it over the next couple of days and we'll see what the scale says on Friday. Today's quote is yet another I can embrace now that I've been lucky enough to get a fresh start. Before my fresh start this quote would have gotten nothing but an eyeroll and a "yeah, right" from me. I've said this before - when your life is  chaotic mess these feel good quotes are 1000% useless. People can tell you life will get better but when your life is one disaster after another you're not going to believe that. I still remember always waiting for the next disaster to strike. I remember my heart skipping a beat when the phone rang, because f...