Setting New Personal Bests

In my therapy session tonight, my therapist and I talked about how this past week was, and how I responded to the sameness of the scale from last week to this week.

I think I handled things better this week than I did last week but there is still much work to be done up here (tapping head).

Something she suggested to me that I have been thinking about without really realizing it is that it is time to craft an entirely new set of goals that aren’t related to the scale.  That it’s time to focus on the things not associated with the scale that are also measures of progress.

I agreed with her.  It is time to focus less on the scale and more on the things I can do now that I couldn’t do before, or that I can do better now than I have ever done them.

It is also time to give up this fixation I have with time and deadlines and being able to accomplish things in a certain amount of time.  Time is something I have always been obsessed with–whether it is completing tasks in a certain amount of time, or being on time somewhere, I am always fixated on time.  Kind of like Tom Hanks’ character in “Cast Away.”  I mean, I feel naked without a watch–that’s how bad it is!

I am finally becoming okay with the idea that I may not reach my surgeon’s goal in the time frame I’d hoped for.  I am slowly accepting the idea that if I can get to his goal by July (not even July 8, my one-year surgery anniversary), that I will be good with that, and the remaining 50 pounds will come off in their own time, but by golly, they will come off.

I need to focus on achievable things like

• working toward lowering my resting heart rate to 50 beats per minute by December 31.
• completing a 5K (walking, running, however) by the end of March, the month of my 41st birthday; completing a 5K in July (the month of my surgery), and then completing the Jameson 5K at Homecoming in November.
• completing the 10 boxing classes I bought via Groupon last night before the Groupon expires in 6 months.
• increasing my strength and flexibility so that I can take yoga classes and swimming lessons (I need to relearn how to swim properly).
• getting my pants size down to a 16-18.  This is a size I deem acceptable, because I feel that it is likely I will never be able to wear straight sized clothing.  I am okay with this, because my body is not small.  I was never meant to be small.  I’m just not built for it.  When this weight loss phase is done, if I can wear the same dress size as the average American woman (which is a size 14), I’ll be thrilled.
• keeping my a1c below 5.7.  My PCP will help me monitor this number with the labs she has me do twice yearly.
• continuing to make good food choices 90% of the time and not beating myself up when I slip up, because it happens.  None of us is perfect, and if you claim to be, then I’ll let you cast the first stone.
• continuing to seek out opportunities to be active with my husband on the weekends.  We spend so much more time trying to do things that keep us actively moving now than we ever did before, and it is fantastic.  It’s also helping deepen the already strong marriage we have, which has been wonderful in so many ways.
• increasing my cardiovascular stamina so that I can work up to riding the recumbent bike for 60 continuous minutes or more.  I’m at 45 minutes now.
• completing my goal of 100 workouts in 2014.  I’m nearly 10% of the way there!

All of these are things that I can do that are still measurable, just not with the help of the scale.  I need to print this list off and put it next to my desk, on my bathroom mirror, and on my fridge where I will see it every day to remind me of why I make the food choices I make.  The scale is a good measure of progress, but it isn’t the only one, and that’s something I’m slowly teaching myself.  I’ve been working at being kinder to myself but I somehow don’t think I’ve been terribly successful.  Sometimes behaviors take a lot longer to unlearn than they took to learn in the first place. 

Today’s eating was pretty good, if a little high in carbs.  99 grams protein, 50 grams carbs, 30 grams fat, 866 calories.  I walked over 3 miles today, and don’t anticipate that changing tomorrow since we have a lab and I’ll be running around helping kids focus microscopes.  I had some strawberry halves that I bought at the store on Sunday as a snack today, and they were actually quite good.  Thankfully, I have the rest of the cup leftover so I can eat them tomorrow morning as well.  I’ve also got leftover veggies from dinner that I plan to eat as a snack tomorrow as well.  One thing I do love about this way of eating is that most days, I already know what I’m going to eat so I don’t have to worry about what I’ll be putting into my body fuelwise.

Today’s food choices, from upper right: rotisserie chicken breast with sauteed snow peas and orange glazed carrots; egg white and turkey sausage casserole; house roasted roast beef and Trader Joe’s Monterey Jack cheese stick; multivitamin and calcium supplements x2, iron supplement; Swiss Miss diet hot cocoa; Rudy’s smoked turkey and pinto beans; strawberries. Not shown: small piece of a dinner roll, tiny bite of King Ranch Casserole, and a quarter of a snickerdoodle.