A Hot Mess

That was me this weekend. Despite the best intentions and a plan!

Friday night, Hubby and I went for our usual happy hour with friends. I planned for two drinks (and figured out early based on ABV/PPV what I would be drinking). I stuck to that plan. I did not order any other beers and/or any food. I did however accept the 3 tasting glasses of beer that friends handed me. I drank 30 PPV on Friday!!! I loooooove craft beer. But apparently the higher ABVs are killing me. I need to find some love alcohol session beers. :(

Saturday was my nieces birthday (18!). We went to Cheddars for dinner. Cheddars does not have ANY nutritional data available. SO, I looked at the menu ahead of time and planned on eating half of a grilled chicken meal with veggies as sides. Which I did. My nieces ordered queso and potato skins for the table. I steered clear of the potato skins, but had a few of the chips. I also had a large margarita (didn't know it was going to be large, just ordered a rita). 16 point drink!!! I managed to stay within my PPV for the week and didn't use any Activity PPV, but still. WOW. I also managed to get in my run Saturday before dinner. :-)

I bought a ActiveLink from WW today. I have to spend the next 8 days not doing deliberate exercise so it gets an accurate reading of what I've been doing up to this point. Will pick up C25K (W2,D1) next Monday.

First Weekly Weigh in: LOST 4.4 POUNDS!!!! WOOT!!!!!!

So Far So Good - Though I'm Sleepy!

I"m sure the sleepiness has nothing to do with being OP. I've been getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night though and still feeling completely rundown. Every time I get in a car (even if I'm driving!!), I have to fight the urge to nod off. Not sure what's going on, but I hope it goes away as quickly as it came.

So the other day I mentioned that weight loss was not my only goal for the year. I also had a few other categories that I wanted to focus on and maybe delve a little deeper into. One of them was my faith and I mentioned that I've been pretty much failing at doing daily devotionals. Well you know what? Since I wrote that, I've been doing better. This week I've been focusing on the chant below in the morning and before I got to bed at night. Paganism is a very, very diverse belief system and it kind of works differently for every single person out there. In *my* practice, I do not actually believe in a God and Goddess as supreme beings. I do believe that there is a common energy that connects us all and that it makes a certain amount of sense to think of that energy as being male and female. The Christian God is male. His son is male. A lot of other Pagans believe that there is an actual Goddess (or mother nature) looking out for us. I think the energy that flows between us all is both male and female. It's up to us to maintain our balance within the flow. Anywho! This week's devotional:

Mother Moon come to me
This I call and ask of thee
Let me feel your strength again
And find the Goddess that resides within.

Tonight is the full Rose moon, also known as the Willow moon, Alder moon, Growing moon and See moon. See what I mean about different pagans having different beliefs? LOL! I will be celebrating the esbat by doing some garden work, cooking dinner for myself and Hubby and then doing a little meditation in the moon's glow (if she isn't hidden by clouds like she was last month). I am also going to do a little ritual asking for some clarity and inspiration. I've been thinking a lot about the new career path thing and I've had some ideas, but for the most part they are jumbled and chaotic. I'd like to get my thoughts under a little more control and start doing real planning for change.

So - yesterday's progress report:

26 Daily PPV
1 Weekly PPV
27 Total PPV

I took a little 10 minute walk at lunch but I didn't bother putting it in the tracker. According to WW, I need to be striving for 2 APPV a day. That seems a little daunting right now, but I'm going to give it the ol' college effort! Tonight is a running night, so I'll get in 3APPV.

See you tomorrow!

The Beer is Gonna Kill Me

I think the hardest part of staying OP this time is going to be the beer. Hubby and I are really part of the beer scene where we live. Most of our friends are people we've met through beer festivals or craft beer meetups. Beer is very much a part of our social calendar (the biggest part, in fact). I am not willing to give up beer. I'm cutting back and I hope that suffices. In the meantime, every Wednesday, we have a thing called the Twitter Bottle Share, where all our beer friends drink the same beer and talk about it on Twitter. Tonight's beer is costing me 8 PPV. :( Out of 26. Brought a very low-PPV meal for lunch today and I'm planning to eat a low PPV dinner tonight. Been trolling the WW website looking for meals that offer the most filling bang for the lowest PPV buck, so to speak. It's good to know ahead (and plan accordingly) what your hangups are going to be. Now I need to formulate my plan of attack.

Day 2 Back on Program

Yesterday was my second full day back on program. I can't tell you how many vegetables and bits of fruit I ate. I knew I wanted to have a beer last night, so I basically ate zero point foods all day long and a low point dinner so I could enjoy my beer. The first two weeks this go-round, I'm going to allow myself to eat my Weekly points, but not my Activity points. In two weeks (starting May 6), I'll try two weeks eating Activity points, but not Weekly points. I want to see which method works best.

Started back on C25K last night. W1D1 in the bag!

4/23/13:
26 Daily PPV
1 Weekly PPV
27 Total PPV

3 Activity PPV earned (20 mins walk (3.2mph); 8 mins run (4.5mph) 1.66 miles

Hello Weight Watchers My Old Friend, I've Come to Talk With You Again

"...because a vision softly creeping, left it's seeds while I was sleeping. And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains, within the vision of obesity."

I can't tell you how sacrilegious it felt typing a parody of such a classic song. LOL! So, as you may have guessed by the title, I am back on Weight Watchers. I'm not even going to try to remember how many times I've tried before now. I'm going to just devote a little bit of myself for trying to make this the last time.

I apparently have like hobby-ADD. As soon as I start focusing on one interest, all other interests go flying out the window. I'm pretty cyclical though, so I always end up coming back around to them. I'm going to do my best (with this blog's help) to stop that pattern though. Surely I can focus time and energy on more than one thing? I know it's a little late in the year, but today I wrote up a list of goals for 2013. It includes sections for Health, Faith, Career and Finances.

Health:
my weight is a pretty obvious one here
blood pressure
cholesterol
BMI





Faith:
I don't really run around announcing this (the world is a cranky, cranky place just looking to pick fights), but I'm a Pagan. Truly a Tree Hugging Dirt Worshiper. I think that because my faith is something I try to keep close to the vest, I don't spend nearly enough time participating in it. Even if it means coming out of the "broom closet," I want to be more in tune with my spirituality. So, to that end, I've been trying to make a point of celebrating the Esbats and Sabbats this year. I've also been trying to make myself meditate (I can't tell you how challenging this is for me), and I've been mostly failing at doing daily devotions.

Career:
I have hated my job almost as long as I've had it (ten years next week). It's time to put up or shut up when it comes to career unhappiness. I can stay where I'm at as long as they'll have me (we're constantly under threat of layoff) and make a pretty penny with decent benefits. Or I can figure out what the hell I want to be when I grow up and take a leap of faith (in myself, not so much a religious leap of faith) and venture into unknown territory. I think about this daily. I need to stop thinking and start acting. Unless I'm thinking while running, then I can accomplish Health and Career objectives in one go! ;-)

Finances:
As part of any career leaps of faith, I need to get as debt-free as possible. Especially when I'm under constant threat of layoffs! I need to get my credit card and student loans paid off. I seriously have less than $10k of debt left (not counting our outrageous mortgage). I just need to finish it off.

Okay, so it felt good putting it all in writing. Now if I lose my piece of paper, my goals will live on in internet infamy. :-)

So - tracking! I created a new Weight Watchers profile Sunday night at 11 (LOL), so my new tracking date is Sunday. Obviously I did not track food and/or beverages I consumed Sunday. But I have been tracking every bite and sip since! So far so good. Let's do it for real this time, shall we?

Goal: 130
Current: 172

The Quiet Killer

I found this "Quiet Workout" the other day on Pinterest and then tried it Tuesday afternoon. I am STILL sore. I remember thinking during the workout, "Yeah, I'm sweating, but I don't really think this is actually doing anything for me." HA!! Let me tell you, if you need a quick 10 minute killer workout (that's also QUIET), look no further!

For whatever reason I can't get Blogger to accept the picture of the workout, but if you Google "back on pointe quiet workout" you should be able to find it.

Ladies of Craft Beer

Ironically, my first day back on the blog was my worst day "on program" since I started back. LOL! Last night was the Houston Ladies of Craft Beer 3rd Thursday meetup. The four beers I consumed seemed to loosen me up enough that not only did I eat a pork banh mi, but I split an order of pork fries as well. :S No more goodies for me this weekend! Now I need to spend the weekend eating right and getting in some exercise. It was good to see the ladies though. I hadn't seen one of them in two months. Was good to catch up.