March 11 - I CAN DO THIS

That nice end to spring break ended up with a massive drunken pizza binge (remember when we broke up... um, we started seeing each other again last month...) and a middle of the night panic attack about achieving my long term goals versus living in the moment again and again, which I do NOT want to turn into my normal way of living (re: the crackers post).

I'm taking control!  I really do want this

and this

for myself.

I have been very focused on my job - I've been writing consistently, staying on top of my teaching responsibilities, I've been doing a lot of reading on current academic trends, I applied for a grant, and have been doing research on what I need to be a better candidate on the job market; I'm definitely so much more focused on my career, which is great, but it takes all of my attention away from my healthy eating goals.  I've mentioned before that one of the times in my life when I gained a significant amount of weight was when I was studying for my doctoral qualifying exams.  I legit could not read without eating something.  Looking over the past few weeks of blog posts, it seems that since the film festival I've been stalled in my weight loss journey.  That makes sense: the GFF was inspiring and really put my academic a** into gear.  I will not, however, allow focusing on work to affect my healthy living goals.  I'm putting a stop to it before it spirals out of control.  

It's funny, other women who write weight loss/maintenance blogs I read are going through/have recently gone through similar shake-ups to their very centered lives: Suzi @ OK, just one more beer and Sheryl Yvette @ A Neurotic Glamour Girl's Weight Watchers Experience and Fitness Adventures.  These two women were both just featured in the WW campaign, they look great, and they get caught up in bad habits, too!  I'm gonna be OK!

Now, the plan:

Weekends are the hardest time for me.  In order to address this, I'm going to switch my weigh-in to Friday.  This way, I'll have my extra weekly points all on deck for Friday/Saturday night, plus any activity points I earn through the weekend.  If I use all of my extra points before Monday, no biggie.  It isn't hard for me to stay within my daily range on a typical weekday, plus I generally work out M-F, so there are plenty of opportunities to atone for any weekend mess ups.  I'm reinstating the pizza ban, with a caveat: eating pizza isn't a big deal if it is out at a restaurant, it is ordering Domino's with Boyfriend at night, eating half a pie, and usually cheesy bread, wings, or whatever other calorie-bomb we get with it. So, no more pizza delivery at home.  I've been working on and will continue to work on tracking everything I eat, and will concentrate on filling my healthy checks.  In WW, you are encouraged to eat a certain number of fruits and veggies everyday, drink a certain amount of water, etc.  If you are focusing on getting your fill of the good stuff, it is harder to make room for the bad stuff.

I'm actually doing ok on the exercise front.  Having two 5ks and a triathlon coming up keeps me honest.  I do need to adjust my goal for the next 5k.  I don't know why I thought three weeks was enough time to shave almost 3 minutes off of my time, so my goal for the 3/17 5k is to run it in under 29 minutes.  Thanks to Paula I was able to figure out how to use my Garmin for an interval workout, and I ran some half mile repeats last week that made me believe I could hold a 9:18 pace for 3 miles.  I'll base my goal for the April race on what I pull out next weekend.  

There's something else I have to get off of my chest: knowing that people read this blog makes me feel like a disappointment sometimes.  When I look at other peoples' progress over their weight loss blogs, its down down down, and mine is down, same, same, same, up, same, down, down, same, etc.  I have to remind myself that first, everyone's journey is different, second, more people have a hard time with weight loss than they would like to admit and third, I started this blog for myself, and my own expectations - worrying about what other people think of my weight loss is a projection of me being disappointed in myself. 

I want to feel good about myself.  I want to be strong, and healthy.  And when it really comes down to it, I want to be more svelte to wear lots of great clothes. I have three big rubbermaid storage containers in the basement full of clothes that don't fit.  I want them to fit.  Boom.

There it is, and here I am, ready to get back to work.