Katie: Week 41

Speaking of continuing in patience...

Current weight: 134 pounds
Last week's weight: 133 pounds
Total weight loss: 36 pounds

Things have changed for me.  Again.  I'm not really sure where to start, so I guess I'll just start wherever and cover all the things I'd like to say.  Bear with me.

So I've been a bit... umm... undermotivated... shall we say?  One of the devil's oldest tricks is to keep someone from fixing a problem in their life by telling them that there isn't any problem at all!  From the outside this sounds bizarre.  But it's happened to all of us, I think, at one time or another and I definitely fell for it this time.  Shame on me.  How human of me.  How mortal.  Bleh.  See, the more stressed and sick and lazy and busy I got, the more Satan kept telling me, "You don't even need to worry about eating healthy and exercising!  Your body is fine just the way it is!"  At first I laughed him out of the room.  (This, by the way, is what I should have kept on doing.)  But after days and weeks of hearing this I gave up and agreed.  "After all," I thought, "I can always pick things up again later when I have the time energy money motivation."  And so, despite all of your wise advice, I took a break. 

Now I don't think it's bad to take a break every once in a while.  But my reasons for taking a break were sad; I just didn't feel like doing what it took to be healthy.  And we were traveling and in between trips and I had a cold and whatnot.  But our most recent trip included eating out for every single meal of the day except for breakfast.  By the time we got home I felt like my tummy was bigger.  And it probably was.  By the time we got back, I was ready to get back on track again. 

I'm ready now.  Again.

I know I've gone through this whole cycle multiple times since I made my goals at the beginning of the year and I'm sure you're tired of hearing "I love this!"  "I'm sick of this!" round and round in this little cycle.  But I know I'm not the only one who goes through this with weight loss and health and fitness goals, so I hope it's comforting to hear from a regular person what it's like to keep on going.  It's hard.  It really is sometimes.  But it is doable.

We got back from our trip on Sunday.  That evening when Bryan and I were out on a walk I told him I wanted to get back into the swing of things, that I wanted to eat well and exercise and do more cardio and ab work to work toward the flat tummy I've been dreaming of all along.  After talking about some different options, we decided (Bryan's idea) to go running together three times a week.  I also decided on a few personal goals.  They're really nothing new.  But here they are in all their old school goal chart glory:

Oldies, but goodies.  These are the things that work.  For me, at least. 

And I've also returned to my other go-to success item:

The wrap.

For me, these are a super nutrient-rich, low-calorie food that tastes wonderfully fresh and fills me up.

Here's how I layer mine (calorie info from MyFitnessPal.com):

-1 Flat Out wrap (Spinach and Italian are both good)--90 calories
-1/2 Laughing Cow Light Original Swiss Cheese wedge--18 calories
-2 slices Tillamook medium cheddar cheese--110 calories*
-2 slices Jenny-O Sun Dried Tomato Turkey Breast--50 calories
-3/4 cup Earthbound Farm Spring Mix Salad Greens--6 calories
-4 cherry tomatoes--16 calories
-1 slice Western Family Kosher Dill Sandwich Slices--0 calories

I make sure and spread the 1/2 spreadable cheese wedge all over one entire side of the wrap and then I do everything else in two rows(ish) on just one half of the wrap.  This arrangement helps everything hold together better.
*I think my numbers may be off on how many calories two slices of cheese is since cheese is measured by ounces and not slices.  So your guess is probably better than mine.  It might actually be double this amount.  I honestly have no idea.
(Sorry about the weird spacing here.  Blogger is being kind of dumb.  The new picture uploader and I are still in a fight.)

Today I teamed this wrap up with one sliced banana and a cup of carrot juice.  It was really yummy.  And filling.  And all together (with the carrot juice and banana and my probably wrong amount of cheese) it came out to 450 calories.  Not bad, I say.  Not bad.

So, anyway, I know that today I weigh more than I did last week, but I don't feel stressed about it now that I'm doing what I can to really work toward my goals.  Hopefully this time I won't lose steam before I get there!

Happy Tuesday!