I finally have a handle on my food this week! Granted, I've eaten all of the activity points I've earned, but I've only eaten 1 more point than that, and I'll make it up tonight. I think my body is getting used to all of the extra activity as well because I'm shedding pounds like crazy. For the last 3 mornings I've been under 190 on the scale at home which hasn't happened since probably 1999. I'm positive I'll hit 20 pounds this week, and I'm hoping I'll finally hit my 10%. It's so much easier to stay motivated when the scale is moving down. The only downside to all of the gym time is that I feel like I'm not getting anything accomplished at home. I think I need to find a little better balance, but with the pounds falling off I'm not about to adjust the workouts.
As a little extra motivation, me and my neighbor joined a weight-loss challenge that starts on Monday. It's something they are doing here in Kansas City. We have 6 people on our team and the contest runs for 10 weeks. Whichever teams has the highest average of percentage lost wins a trip to Arizona, including airfare, accomodations, spending money, and spa treatments. It would be pretty awesome if we won, but at the very least at least we'll come out of it skinnier!
Through all of this I've had to rethink my "cheat" days. I weigh in on Saturday morning. I would then use Saturday and Sunday as days to kind of pig out and eat all of those bad things I wanted but wouldn't let myself have throughout the week. Cheat day didn't mean just 1 splurge, it meant multiple splurges over a 2 day time period. I would then spend the entire week playing catch up on the scale. This week, I let myself have some indulgences on the weekend, but I made sure not to eat more than my daily and activity points. I don't feel deprived at all, which was shocking to me. I've also been a little better about planning some small splurges throughout the week. I'm hooked on potato chips right now. Probably because we found some zesty ranch kettle chips. I make sure that I have enough points after dinner to have a serving of chips.
I'm finding that losing weight is more mental than anything else. I had made somewhat of a mind-shift when I started Weight Watchers in January. I found through my plateau (if you can call it that because I definitely wasn't working the program the way I knew I should), that the path is constantly changing. For a while, I could get away with having 2 full cheat days a week. That came to a screeching hault and I wasn't ready for the next mind-shift. Now, I feel as though I've made that next transition and can continue on my way. I had to realize that while I could still have 1 or 2 splurges throughout the week, I couldn't have 10.
It's all about prioritizing and figuring out what you truely want. I want to be thinner. I want to be healthy. But I also want greasy, cheesy pizza, chinese food, french fries, and beer. It finally clicked with me that to have the pizza I need to give up something else, whether that be high point meals for the rest of the week, or time at home because I'm at the gym. Let's face it, deprivation diets don't work. No one can eat like that forever, especially me. But I've also realized that I don't need the bad food all the time in order to feel satisfied.
Last weekend my splurge was sushi. My dad and I went to the sushi train for lunch on Saturday. They put 2-3 pieces of sushi on small plates, and a train pulls them around the counter. You just pick off what you want and they count up the plates at the end to get your total for the bill. After 4 plates, I was feeling full. I ended up eating a 5th plate because it looked good, but all in all I ate 12 pieces of sushi and 3 potstickers. Not necessarily an unhealthy choice, but those points add up. That was my splurge for the week and I'm completely ok with that. Next week I think my splurge will be Chinese food. I haven't had any since our vacation in June and I'm craving it.
I will update after weigh-in on Saturday. Can't wait!!
I'm very proud of you baby! Keep up the great work!
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