Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

So I have been forced to admit something difficult to myself...there is a major difference between "reasons" and "excuses" - and I have been trying to pass a lot of excuses off as reasons.

The fact that my hip was out was the REASON I couldn't run...but it was my EXCUSE for not doing much activity at all.

Being busy at work is the REASON I am tired...but it was my EXCUSE for not working out more often.

And PMS was the REASON that I occasionally gained some water-weight...but it was my EXCUSE for sometimes eating things I shouldn't.

It's tough being brutally honest with yourself - I actually even had a whole argument with myself in bed this morning!  For the last few months I've been struggling with my weight loss...lose a pound, gain a pound, rinse and repeat.  I've never been really good about tracking my food - I have no problem being honest about that...and while I'm sure I could be more successful if I was better about that, I think my real success has come from simply being more active. 

I got a real taste of that this summer when I pretty much didn't track at all, but was going to so many classes that I was earning beaucoup (that's French for "a lot") activity points.  Now, when I first got back to work in August, I really was putting in a lot of hours at work.  Was it extremely difficult to get exercise in?  Yes. Could I have still done it?  Yes.  I may not have been able to get in four Zumba classes every week like I did over the summer, but I could have done more than I did. And I have had even less excuses since about mid-September.  Yes, there are after-work activities that make things difficult...but that's just it...they make it difficult NOT impossible.

But, I also have a problem of getting comfortable in my routines and not straying far from them unless jolted. So, when my routine was becoming less and less active, I got comfortable with that.  I'll be perfectly honest...I HATE getting up at 6am to go to the gym...I always have.  So when I got an excuse to not do it?  I jumped on it!  My hip was out, it hurt my knee to run.  I just got my hip in then it went out again.  I got it put back in again and the doc said not to do much vigorous exercise for a few days while it adjusted to being back in.  Well, a few days turned into a few weeks cause I got lazy.

I got hit with a hard reality this week.  I was on duty and had to go to a call on the third floor of a building.  I was a good little girl and took the stairs instead of the elevator...but I was winded by the time I got to the third floor.  That hadn't happened in quite some time!  During move-in in August, I was running up and down four flights of stairs several times a day and barely got winded, but I got a bit winded walking up three flights of stairs once.  It was an eye-opener for me.  I realized how easy it is to get out of shape...and I'd let myself fall into the trap.  So, this morning, I got tough on myself and had a literal argument with myself in bed when the alarm went off at 6am until the good self won and I got out of bed to go to the gym.  Getting back on the treadmill wasn't QUITE as difficult as I had thought that it would be, but there was a clear difference in how well I was running this morning vs. the last time I ran before the hip issue.  I need to continue to move my tush if I'm really going to do this marathon in a year...but I got 2.5 miles done in half an hour, so I'm still happy with that!

So as I eluded to in my last post, I got a new toy to help motivate me to get my butt back in gear.  Weight Watchers teamed up with Phillips and made the ActiveLink...a super super super smart pedometer-like tool.  It's a little rectangular device, about the size of a thumb-drive.  You wear it on yourself all day long - on your belt strap, in your pocket, on a necklace, on your bra strap, wherever you'd like. You just tell the device where you're wearing it and it measures your activity all day long.  Unlike a pedometer, which only measures your steps, this little baby registers any movement...forwards, backwards, frontways, and backways, and sideways, and slantways, etc.  You spend the first week wearing it to monitor your general everyday movement so that it knows what you already regularly do.  Then, it gives you goals to reach over the next few weeks.  You wear it all the time, then you plug into into your computer through the USB port and it tells you exactly how many points you earned that day.  Even better, you can check out how active you were every day down to the MINUTE!!  It's pretty awesome!!  Other than my trip to the gym today, I didn't do much that I don't do every day - yesterday, I earned about two points for my general daily activity...today, with the addition of my run, I earned 10!!  Now, THAT is a good incentive to keep going!

Initial weight: 257.2
Week 47: +0.4
Week 48: -0.8
Total weight loss: -55.2
Current weight: 202.0