Time flies when you're having fun!

I haven't been here in awhile to update anything. It just seems like the time flies by before you know it. I finished my weight loss challenge at work...well, more appropirately, IT finished, but I didn't. My goal was to lose 15 pounds. I lost as much as 13.something, but the end result was just losing 10.2. Not great, but not bad either.

My next motivation is vacation. It's nowhere exotic or anything, just that I'll be seeing some old friends. I'd like to finish that 15 pound weight loss for that. My #1 enemy is stress, and I know it. Money is so tight it squeaks, but I can't bring myself to stop certain habits that waste money. I mean, I do bring lunch to work every day, and I pack healthy snacks. But then I just have gotten into the bad habit of wanting 3 Musketeers bar - EVERY DAY! It wastes 65 cents each time. So, 65 cents x 5 days a week x 4 weeks a month = $13 wasted each month. How silly of me! Occasionally I can fight it off, but I know what I really should do is buy a package of minis at the store, and pack a few each day to take with me. The snacking would be smaller and the cost would be lower. I'm just afraid that if I had them at home, I'd hit up the bag at night and wouldn't limit myself to just 1 or 2.

Well, that's my brief update. I will TRY to do better. As mom always said, "all you can do is try your best."

Hanging in there

I haven't lost any weight in the past week or so, but (as of Friday) hadn't gained any more either. My dieting kind of took a hiatus last week, so I'm just happy it stayed the same.

It's a gorgeous day out. I just finished hours of house cleaning, so I'm headed out to enjoy the day!

Another week, another pound gone.

This is just great news for me, and surprising since I had a hard time staying on track this week. Just imagine how much better it might have been if I'd really focused my attention on controlling my eating habits! Especially since I worked my butt off ever since last weekend. (Not literally, of course, it's still there....believe me!) I did a lot of walking, gardening, lawn mowing, and lifting, and tried to do something every day.

I mentioned before that I'm doing the President's Challenge to get 30 minutes of exercise (minimum) 5 days a week for 6 of 8 weeks. I was just on the website to enter all my activity for the week. I'll have completed my 8 weeks in 2 more weeks, and in order to achieve the goal, I can't miss doing some form of exercise for 5 days each week. It's because I already missed hitting the goal on 2 weeks. I don't feel like a slacker, but I must have goofed off more than 2 days each of those weeks. I don't remember not doing something, so that's why it is so important to write it down. This applies whether you're trying to lose weight, track exercise, log your spending, or whatever. It's so easy to think you'll remember and then you don't.

Well, enjoy your weekend, whatever you're doing. It's going to be a hot one here, but I've been making good progress weeding our vege garden, so I'm sure I'll be out there over the next 2 days again. It might be early in the morning or later in the evening just so I don't overdo it, but I'll be there. It almost looks like a garden again!

3-day weekend coming up for me

After all my plans for last weekend, most didn't materialize since I ended up helping hubby with farm equipment problems. So, I have ALL the same plans for this weekend, with an extra day to accomplish them. We'll see how it goes.

I'm down another pound, wonder of wonders. But I need to be careful. I've been a little lax these past few days, and giving into cravings, mostly at night. We had a few crises - up one night late with the vet stitching up a horse that got cut very deep. A lot of times in the summer, we don't eat until after dark, but this time it was midnight. Needless to say, I cooked something quick and easy, but it sure wasn't healthy....hotdogs. A few other nights, I had dessert after dinner, which is a habit I've been trying to break, but when I get stressed out I just eat out of habit.

So...my plan for this weekend is to try to THINK before eating. I'm not writing down the calories for each meal, but maybe if I focus more on good healthy eating I can break a few of the habits that have started to creep back. We go to a cookout tomorrow night, and I'm going to try my best to keep under control then too. I think after this weekend I'll start writing down the calorie count again and tallying for the day. The pattern I've seen is that when I write it down, it stays somewhere between 1400 and 1600. When I don't, and do a mental tally at the end of the day, I can remember 1600-1700 calories but am never sure what I might have forgotten. The magic scale seems to know all though!

Is it HOT enough for you?!?!

My goodness, but it is HOT out! And, to add insult to injury, it's very humid too. This has been going on all week, and I think we have several more days of it in store. The good news is that my squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and other vine-y type plants are doing good with this weather. My other plants look a little wilted. I didn't get to water for the past 2 nights, so maybe I'll do it this evening after it cools off. Or, if I can stand it, I might carry jugs of water to them and just water around the bases during the day. That's a lot of carrying, but it counts as exercise, so I just might give it a try. While I dislike the carrying, it beats watering everywhere and giving the weed water too.

I've gotten the scale to nudge down a little bit more, to where it actually shows pounds lost on the sidebar. Yippee! I hope to see some improvement after this weekend too. I have a TON of things to do outside in the garden & yard. The other day while doing some chores, I spotted something floral that was near the back toward the woods. It looked like a big burst of cream color, so I investigated. It's some type of bush with these cream color clumps of blossoms that are 4 or 5 inches across. The flowers smelled wonderful! I noticed yesterday the blossoms have passed by, but I am definitely considering relocating it closer to the house.

Then, there is the forsythia that needs to be trimmed. This has been on my list for weeks. There are two of them that have not been trimmed in....maybe forever. I attacked one of them back at the beginning of the month, and left a lot of bare branches with just some foliage at the top. The first benefit after doing that was I can actually mow around the thing with our riding mower. Before, I had to use the push mower and go all around it and push the mower in underneath it as far as possible, over & over to keep things looking semi-neat. Now, I just noticed yesterday that the bare branches are all sprouting leaves, which of course I knew they would. As soon as I can hack away at that 2nd bush, I'll do it. It's bigger and wilder than the 1st, but it will look so darn much better!

Then, there is the lawn that needs its weekly mowing. That takes a good solid 3 hours, even if I don't trim anywhere with the push mower.

I guess I'd better quit goofing off inside where the A/C is and get out there and SWEAT!!

Avoiding temptation

I've gotten back on track again, and I'm happy to say that having a scale I can weigh-in on at work really helps out. I'm trying not to overdo it but I weighed 2 days ago and found I'd gained about 2 pounds with my weekend binge. I started looking back over what I was eating when I lost a few pounds, and recycled the menu. Yesterday I was back down a bit, and then I weighed first thing after I got to work this morning, and it had nudged down a little more.

That made it MUCH easier to resist the 2 temptations I ran into today - cake and ice cream! And it wasn't like I had to avoid 1 event either. I saw the cake in the break room at work, leftover from some celebration. Man it looked good. I was in there getting ice water, so I just turned my back on the cake and remembered how nice it felt to see the scale go down. Fifteen minutes later, they announced an ice cream social taking place in the parking lot. OMG! What are they trying to do to me?!?!

It was easier to resist both than I thought, so I'm proud of myself!

Yo yo yo!

Up and down! Up and down! I went on a downward spiral over the weekend, and I'm trying hard to recover now. Nachos supreme and a brownie sundae on Saturday, I don't even remember what on Sunday, and no counting calories yesterday or today. When I don't count I KNOW that I overeat.

I went shopping tonight and picked up more fruit, some 140-calorie granola bars and a few other things, so I should be able to put together enough food tomorrow to take for the day to keep me satisfied at work.

Believe and you can achieve! I CAN DO THIS!!!