Weekly Weigh-In #24 (week of June 25-July 1)

This morning, at my weekly weigh-in, I took one step back after 9 weeks of either weight losses or maintains (7 losses, 2 maintains). The weight gain this week was completely justified and I saw it coming. I'm certainly not pleased that I gained this week but I'm glad that I owned up to how terribly I ate this week to face the consequence of weight gain. The good news is -- as someone in my WW meeting pointed out -- it's easy to lose those pesky 1-2lb gains compared to completely giving up and gaining 10+ pounds and having to start almost all over again.

So, this was obviously a rough week for me. My week consisted of using all of my weekly 49 points+ and going over them by twice as much. I have no idea what has motivated me to do so terribly this week AND last week, but my bad choices have got to stop. I will not allow myself to slip back into old habits which is what I've been doing. I'm sure subconsciously I'm having a difficult time for some reason unbeknownst to me and I'm hoping my overall well-being will start to improve once I go back to seeing my counselor next week (she's been on vacation this week and last week). On the surface, I feel absolutely fine -- I feel as happy and content as I can feel. Compared to these past couple of months, I certainly don't feel as depressed as I've felt overall. So, as I mentioned before, I really don't know what emotionally could be going wrong with me to push me towards eating more than I should and making bad food choices these past two weeks.

With all of that being said, I plan to ask my Weight Watchers Leader if I can participate in her tracking challenge. Every evening a handful of people will send her their trackers for the day (either by screenshot or a picture) and she reviews the tracker to give any tips or suggestions as she sees fit. Not only is it helpful to get feedback from her but it also helps when I do this challenge because I hold myself more accountable for tracking honestly and eating better throughout the week. I participated in this challenge a month or so ago and I found it's what helped snapped me back to reality with how dishonest I was being to myself for not tracking everything that I ate. My hope is that by participating in this challenge, I will realize that I have to show my tracker to someone every night and therefore the challenge will help to reinforce my tracking 100% policy (which I'll do good with for about 3-5 days until I'll have a bad day and have to empty my Tracking Challenge jar completely).

I'd like to create a plan for this week for how I'm going to tackle it with the Fourth of July holiday coming up on Friday but I can't predict what I'm going to be doing throughout the week. All I know is that I will thankfully only be with my mom and four other people, so it will be a low-key kind of day with little-to-no pressure to eat lots of food or be presented with very few healthy options. As long as I'm celebrating a holiday with my mom, we can work together to great a holiday menu that includes lots of power foods (fruits, veggies, and lean meats). Of course, we always include 2-3 other sides or options that aren't as lean or not considered as healthy for others who don't need to watch their weight to enjoy.

Unfortunately, as for the other days of the week, I don't know if I'll be invited to any other parties. My hope is that I can stick to the power foods or simpler foods that are available. I'll also make sure that I leave extra daily points+ available if I do get invited anywhere. Otherwise, since I gave myself a 4-day weekend, I plan on spending as many of those four days just relaxing, swimming, working out, and making two new healthy recipes to eat over the next few weeks for my lunch or dinner meals at work. Essentially I'm allowing myself a "staycation" to take care of me and get some much need R&R.

As far as my goals for this week are concerned, my main one will obviously be asking my WW Leader if I can participate in the tracking challenge. My other goals are staying the same as last week's goal so I can continue to make these into habits that I don't even have to think about on a daily basis. The goals for this week include...

• T R A C K E V E R Y T H I N G
• Check off my daily Good Health Guidelines (GHGs)
• Add the fruits & veggies that I eat in a day to my WW tracker

My Non-Scale Victory for the week was going to get fitted for running sneakers. For many years I was convinced that my body was not built for running. A year or two ago when I first started my weight loss journey, I had begun to make my younger self proud because in elementary/middle/high school, I was always the last to finish the mile we would have to run or walk in gym class. Since losing weight I've become really good at power-walking. Yet now I want to take on a new challenge: I want to condition my body to run. I'm not sure if I'll become a runner, constantly running 5ks or races; but I do know that I want to check some things off my bucket list such as completing a 5k, a mud run, and maybe even a half-marathon. Therefore, on Tuesday, I decided to go get fitted for running sneakers. I currently wear a pair of New Balances that I highly recommend but they're meant for walking or all terrain physical activities such as hiking. I've been trying to do Couch to 5k for the past couple of weeks and last week I noticed that I had some sort of an in-step when I tried to run. My hope is that if I can get a good pair of running shoes that work for my mostly flat feet, they will help in my new goal of conditioning my body to run. I know I have a lot of other things to work on such as my pace and focusing on my breathing (I become very short of breath when I try to run), but at least I'll have a pair of shoes that are meant to help me along the way.