the benefits of moving more

so i've seen great losses the last two weeks. and the only thing i can contribute it to is the fact that i've gotten my ass off the couch and am officially moving more. really, seriously, moving.

i made it one of my april fools' day goals to move more - in fact, put a definitive number on it. i am going to earn at least 10 activity points each week. and guess what - i have, for each of the last 2 weeks. i did it really late this week - on tuesday and wednesday (i WI on thursdays) - but it got done. which is great - i'll get a new jersey for baseball season, if i keep up the hard work. if not, no jersey. i never thought that awards would help me in my goal for a skinny me, but it seems it has. go motivation!

speaking of rewards - i need to get me some new shoes for hitting my 50-lb loss mark. shopping!

here's to walking!

i hate exercise. mostly because the word "exercise" to me connotes all things evil: spandex, gyms, trainers, crunches, crazy people who spend more of their life in the gym than they do with their children. i constantly forget that exercise used to be fun. racing my brothers around the block/school/park on our bikes. swimming laps for hours and hours. playing with my skip-it or just jumping rope with my friends at school.

when did exercise stop being play and start being evil?

last week at our WW meeting, we talked about getting out and moving more. just doing a little of things we loved as children. my leader said "kids don't come to the door and ask if susie can come out and exercise - they ask if she can come out and play. play this week."

i have a hard time motivating myself to go do something active. i don't know why, but i do. but this week i made the effort. i made my friends go for a nice walk last friday. i took my mom's dog for a long walk around the park on saturday. i went to the high school by my new house on tuesday and wednesday and walked laps at the track.

and you know what? maybe it wasn't jump rope or bike racing, but it was exercise. good exercise. i feel better today than i have in a couple weeks. and it was just walking. nothing fancy, nothing gym-related. just walking. and i played - i raced the dog (she won, but i ran for a whole half-block) - something i haven't really done in a long time.

mmmm enchiladas

I love Mexican food. Check that - I love food. Particularly food slathered in cheese (not nacho cheese, but real, delicious cheese). So of course it makes sense that cheese and onion enchiladas are one of my favorite foods. It makes me really happy that I'm on a weight loss plan that allows me to eat them. I had a wonderful plate of the cheesy goodness for dinner with my parents tonight. And even though they're lacking in vegetables and pretty much anything healthy, I enjoyed every bite. Thank you, Weight Watchers.

there are cookies in the kitchen

welcome to my workplace. there are cookies and m&ms in the kitchen, along with every variety of soda you could ever want, some peanuts, and lots of sugar, sugar, sugar!

it gets a little out of control (ooc, if you will) around here some days with the sugar consumption that happens... but i'm staying as far away as i can. i had one peanut butter cookie, and now i'll sit up here with my water bottle, and not go downstairs for a 2nd. there is the smell permeating everything.... but i'm going to have some willpower.

stupid people bother me.

i was in an amazing mood this morning. i didn't care that it was monday, or that i had to go back to work. it was a good morning.

and then it all went to shit. because people are stoopid.

and because i hate being treated like a child and like i'm invisible.

insert exclamation here.

i'm officially the lightest i've been in 3 years (at least to my knowledge) - the scale said 296 last night at weigh-in!

holy catfish!

after a week of maintaining, i lost 4.2 lbs this week. what a difference a week makes. chalk it up to finally destressing, getting rid of terrible snacks, and having real life vegetables to eat. the roughly 12 hours of moving over 2 days didn't hurt either - thank you 3rd floor walk-up!

so i've hit my valentine's day weight goal to get below 300. but i still have another part i really need to work on. granted, next thursday is valentine's day, but i'm committing to exercise at least 30 minutes twice over the next 7 days. tomorrow, i will take a walk with my mom, and tuesday, we're doing a walking tour of downtown, but i'll park far from the starting point and walk some extra steps. those are my commitments - hopefully writing them down will help me actually stick to them. hold me accountable, friends.

visiting the doctor

in case you've missed it, i'm well into my 3rd iteration of the cold i've had since before christmas. i was sick as a dog on christmas, and then again about 2 weeks ago, and now i'm on day 5 of a lovely hacking cough. which finally prompted me to go to the doctor - the last time i was this sick consecutively, i ended up being diagnosed with chronic bronchitis.

doctor's visits: trauma. i avoid them at whatever cost. excuses, selling my first born to walgreens, whatever it takes. so i wasn't happy about the fact that i had to go, but more unhappy about the fact of what going to the doctor actually constitutes: a trip to the scale and a look at the blood pressure. i was less concerned about the scale - i know where i should be because i've actively been watching it for the last 5 months. it's the BP that freaks me out.

rewind: back in 2003, i went into a major depression, and was put on an anti-depressant. i had to go to the doctor practically every time i was home from school for re-evaluation. after a few visits, my blood pressure was "high" consistently, and the doctor prescribed some pills. which made me physically ill. so she switched them. and i still was sick every time i took one. so i just stopped taking them. there's a good chance it was psychological, but even the slightest discussion of doctor's visits and blood pressure machines make nervous.

so the visit yesterday: not bad. scale made it look like i was at 298.5, but we'll see what the scale really says on thursday. BP: "elevated" was the word of choice. i think it was 130 something over 84. possible contributors: dehydration (i had only had a couple glasses of water at that point), the decongestant i'm on, coughing fits. no one seemed particularly concerned. which is good.

i need to schedule a physical. it's been awhile since i had one of those, and staying in touch with the doctor, even if it's only once a year, is probably one of those habits that healthy people have.

oh, and the doctor gave me this awesome cough syrup that's 100x better than nyquil in knock-out factor. i slept like a passed-out drunk last night. it was FANtastic.

and then it was sunday

and not just any sunday: SUPER BOWL SUNDAY! not that i care - i'll probably watch some of the game because it's on, but i'll likely end up watching a movie or tv on dvd. when your teams aren't in the game, it's not as big of a deal as the world makes it out to be. which is good, because we learned at WW this week that Super Bowl Sunday is the 2nd largest food day in american society after thanksgiving. which is crazy, but i can totally see how that goes with parties and the food that is typically served therein. no parties for me, so i'm okay for today.

big move this weekend. i pretty much moved on my own, to a third floor walk-up, and let's just say that i'm still exhausted from all the work i did on friday. but i'm finishing my laundry as i type, and i think i only have 1 or 2 boxes left to unpack. still have pictures to hang, but we have concrete walls, so i have to figure out how to rig pictures up. i really like the location and lay out of the new place, and i'm glad i took friday off to get it all taken care of. the movement is great for my WW goals, so hopefully, i'll see a good loss this week. at least enough to kick me into the 200s for the first time in 3 years.