The Journey Back: Day 25

 “Stay committed to your decisions, 

but stay flexible in your approach."

Flexibility. This has always been a trouble spot for me. I can't tell you you how times I locked myself into a decision and then gave up the minute I didn't abide by it 100%. Everything in my life was pass/fail ... or just another way to justify giving up. Part of my problem was I never really had a plan to back up any goal I wanted to achieve. Sure, I wanted to lose weight but I didn't have a plan. 150+ pounds is not just going to disappear. Sure, I wanted to be in better physical and financial shape but again, I didn't have a plan and nothing was going to change without one. Having a plan was just the first step. Looking back over the past three years I can honestly say that the "plan" was the easy part ! Implementing the plan took a whole lot of hard work and it's a never-ending learning experience. That's where flexibility comes in. The plan I set on Day 1 was great but over time I've had to revisit the plan and make changes. I've had to do that many times and honestly, I didn't expect that. No matter what you are trying to accomplish, you really do have to continually review your plan to see what's working and what is not. Then you have to be flexible enough (and realistic enough) to make some changes to ensure your success. I had trouble with that because I looked at it as a failure. It's so true what we are our own worst enemy ! I'd say I am more flexible today but .. and there is always a "but" .. I have to be careful not to confuse flexibility with plain old excuses. I have to be my motivator. I have to be my coach. I have to be my cheerleader. I have to be my critic. No one else can do that for me. I have to be able to say "you did good" at the end of the day. Some days I can say that, some I can't. My goal is for the good days to outpace the not so good days !

Today is Day 1113 of Nutrisystem. 181 days since I reached my goal weight. I maintained it for a while but as you know I've gained some weight and I'm working to get it back off and it's Day 25 of that effort. I'm pleased with the progress I'm making and have no doubt I'll settle back in at my goal weight soon.

Breakfast was waffles with sugar free syrup and a yogurt. Morning snack was a chocolate shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a pepperoni pizza melt with a chef salad. Afternoon snack was cottage cheese and oatmeal cookies. Dinner was a meatloaf sandwich with roasted veggies. Evening snack was a chocolate cupcake. 

I spent about 60 minutes on the treadmill today and I feel like I'm slowly getting back into the groove. Only problem there is I'll be going on vacation soon ! That means restarting yet again and that means more struggles. This is part of the reason I really need to look at this journey one day at a time. I'm already stressing about the time I'll be away from the treadmill and the Nutrisystem plan. I'm already worrying about gaining weight while I'm in Florida. I'm hanging onto the fact that my niece, who is half my age, will be walking my a$$ off through 5 parks in 5 days ! When I started back with the treadmill I made the mistake of trying to pick up where I left off in August. Well, that didn't go so well as I had lost a lot of the endurance I had AND I weighed a bit more. I struggled for a while and finally, finally (!) took a step back and decided to work at the pace I could. Once I did that the weight of self-doubt lifted off my shoulders and getting on the treadmill became less of a chore. Today I can honestly say I enjoyed those 60 minutes ! I'm also psyching myself up to get the Total Gym going again. I'm going to do that after vacation. One good thing about the break I've been on is that my left shoulder is no longer painful. It will take some time to work it back into my routine but my evenings are a lot longer since I have to stop working at 5 pm sharp ! A big motivator that I will have after vacation is the fact that a brand new iFit series with trainer Tommy Rivs is being released on February 7 ! After nearly losing his life to cancer I never in a million years expected him to be back - yet here he is ! When I think about what he has been through and how hard he has fought to get his strength and stamina back .... well, it makes my problems seem pretty small and irrelevant. I can't wait to start the series because I know it will be a source of inspiration for a long, long time.

As far as work goes, I'm working on getting everything in order before vacation rolls around. Today was pretty productive and I'm hoping tomorrow is as well. I don't like to leave anything hanging for someone else to deal with when I go on vacation. I haven't taken a real vacation in 25 years so I am really excited about this one ! It's ironic that my last real vacation was at Disney during their 25th anniversary and now I'm going back for the 50th !! Yikes - I am old !! 

Speaking of vacation, I'm so glad that my heating issue has been resolved ! Since the service was completed I haven't had one problem with it and I haven't been in the basement for a few days. I haven't received the bill yet but whatever it is it's worth the peace of mind I now have ! It's headed below zero tonight and for once I don't have to worry about it ! We had some snow flurries today but there is nothing major in the forecast right now, which is great. All winter my mom and I worry about bad weather interfering with our casino outings ! Saturday is just around the corner ! On that note, I'm heading for a hot shower and some tv in bed.