stress
WW Weigh-In #10
02 months ago
by Nanci
in #expectamazing, ActiveLink, eating out, hot yoga, meeting, scale, stress, water, weigh-in, Weight Watchers 360
It’s always a little disappointing when you have a great week with a stellar loss and then the following week you have a gain. And while I did not make the best food choices this week 100% of the time, and I do own that, I feel like I made up for it on other meals. It was clear that my body had other ideas when I stepped on the scale at this morning’s meeting.
I never like seeing the scale go up. Maintaining would have been so much better than gaining….
Things I did right this week are:
- Went to hot yoga twice. I wanted to go a third time but my arms were SORE. Still loving hot yoga!
- Hubby and I walked 3 miles on Thursday evening since I did not go to yoga. We had not walked in a bit, so that was nice.
- Still drinking water like it’s going out of style.
- One the two days that we ate out, I ate better on other meals. I am not opposed to saving my daily points for going out if I can make up for it on another meal. I certainly didn’t go around hungry.
- My stress level was SKY HIGH this week. I caved a time or two but bounced back on the next meal. Not throwing in the towel completely is a win for me.
What I will focus on this week:
- Planning meals (also our meeting topic so a good reminder!). I have a freezer full of chicken and vegetables that will be well-used this week.
- Make a new recipe I saw on Skinnytaste earlier this week – Cheeseburger Casserole.
- I will go to hot yoga twice, and I hope to make one of the classes the 90 minute one.
- I would love to get out and walk or run a couple time this week. I keep falling short on this goal, so I will keep adding it back in. I have the Sarasota Half Marathon next week, so it would be nice to get a little something in before that.
- Try my best to not let my stress get to me and if so, focus that stress elsewhere not on food. I will go back and read the post I wrote just the other day on what is your stress relief as a reminder.
One thing I want to make clear… I am not saying it’s wrong to go out to lunch or dinner and enjoy something high in points. It’s not wrong at all. I enjoyed everything I ate and I would not change it if I could go back. It’s all about choices. We had dinner out on Wednesday and I enjoyed a beer, chips and salsa, and had grilled tilapia and shrimp over rice with veggies for dinner. On Thursday, we had lunch out on Thursday and I had a burger, minus the bun, with pico de gallo, and a side of sweet potato fries, and a coke. Eating out is about making choices. I feel like I made good choices AND enjoyed the meals. The frustrating part is when those were just 2 meals out of the entire week and the other days were mostly filled with healthy snacks, water, veggies, fruits, and lean proteins. Sometimes our bodies just don’t want to cooperate and this was one of those weeks.
Here is my week on ActiveLink… 12 points for the week. 7 of these points alone was Thursday when we went for our walk. If I could just get out there more, I could really earn those activity points! I love looking back over my week and seeing how each day was based on how I did.
So now we are on to a new week! A whole new set of weekly points and the opportunity to earn activity points. Today hubby and I are going to do some yard work at my mom’s, I’ll be curious to see how many points that earns me! This evening we’re going out to eat – more choices! – and tomorrow will be dinner at my brother and sister-in-law’s house where there will be fantastic Italian food. I will enjoy all of it and move more to make up for it!
What do you do on a week when you feel like you should have lost or at least maintained? What do you do to bounce back from that week?
What is YOUR stress relief?
102 months ago
by Nanci
in depression, emotional, fear, happiness, hot yoga, mantra, mental health, positivity, run, stress, stress relief, walk, workout, yoga
We all deal with stress. Every day, we all have different stressors that affect us in multiple ways. And each and every one of us deal with our stress in a different way. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have stress. But we all do, and we have to find a way to deal with it.
When I get stressed, the first thing I want to do is eat. Plain and simple. For most of 2012, I ate my way through stress. Did it help? There’s an immediate sense of feeling better, honestly, but eating didn’t help what was causing my stress.
Since I started 2013 by going back to Weight Watchers and making the decision to take better care of myself, I’ve found different ways of dealing with stress, most of the time… And while none of these actually get rid of the stress, it’s a good feeling to know that I am not sabotaging my body by eating my way to oblivion.
So, what do I do to relieve stress?
- Hot yoga – I really cannot say enough about hot yoga. I wish I could go more. I love to sweat it all out, the stretching, and the amazing feeling when it’s done. And I sleep amazing afterwards. I wish I had tried it sooner.
- Run / Walk – really this should say “just move it”. Exercise really does wonders for stress. It makes me forget about what I’m stressing over, or at least realize that’s it’s likely I am stressing over something TOO much. I tend to worry to the extreme and working out calms that.
- Do things for ME – this can be anything. Shopping, reading, lunch out, anything that gets my mind off what I’m stressing over. Sometimes laying around being lazy is not good for stress and worry because it gives me more time to think about what is bothering me.
- Set goals – I love to have something to work towards. A goal weight, a race to look forward to, a new time to beat, something that pushes me and gives my brain something to focus on.
- Focus on the good, not the bad – this can be hard. Quite often, the bad can totally overshadow the good and it’s easy to forget so many other things that you can smile about.
- BE POSITIVE – I truly cannot stand negativity and I believe that if you think negatively, than that is exactly what you get. It can’t hurt to be positive and think good thoughts. Try it sometime…
All of these things are good for your mental health, for your happiness.
My dad used to drive me NUTS when something went wrong or we needed to resolve a problem and he would say, “it’s no big deal”. I didn’t understand how he could just brush it off like that and know that it would be okay, that it would all work out.
I’m not sure when I realized that positivity would get me much farther than negativity, but it’s definitely been in the last couple of years. Somehow, someway, things will always work out. My mantra throughout the last few years has been…
There have been nights when I wake up with anxiety over whatever is bothering me and I will literally repeat this to myself over and over again in my head. Be positive!
So, no matter what obstacles, challenges, troubles, and more you are up against, remember that it will pass. And there are things you can do to combat that stress. Don’t let it take over your body. Get out there and move, do something you enjoy, and focus on the good!
How do you deal with stress in your life? Do you have a personal mantra you’d like to share?
A Letter To Myself
10Dear me,
You are a wonderful person and you are stronger than you know. You take care of those you love and you do the best that you can in everything you do.
So then, why do you doubt yourself? Why do you feel like you can always do more or do better? Why do you feel so fragile? You cannot let fear and your insecurities get the best of you. You must not focus on the negatives, but rather direct that energy to all the positives in your life. Letting the negatives get the best of you only sends your fragile state of mind reeling.
You know how good you feel when you do something for yourself, when you put yourself first. You seem to fall into the trap of not taking care of yourself when you are stressed out. There will always be something stressful going on, you have to decide how best to manage that stress and not let it get the best of you.
Yesterday, you made the decision to go for a walk and that walk turned into running. You ran when you felt like it and walked when you needed to. After not running for far too many weeks, you did pretty good despite the heat. You should not be so hard on yourself and just enjoy the moment.
Do you remember how you felt when you ran your first half-marathon? You felt like you could do anything – and you can. You have the ability to accomplish anything you set your mind to. It’s the reason you signed up for another half-marathon, to feel that enormous sense of accomplishment in completing something you never thought you would do.
If you are not happy about how you feel or how you look, YOU are the only one who can do something about it, YOU are the only one who can make the right choices and change. You’ve done it before, you can do it again.
Life is too short to be stressed out about things. You cannot control everything and there is no sense in worrying about the things that you know are out of your control. Focus on YOURSELF and the rest will fall into place.
Love,
Yourself
A Relaxing Saturday
11 year ago
I apologize for my lack of posts the last few days. I’ve been busy and it just carried over into blog-land. I hate it when that happens, but such is life. Today, however, made up for me being so busy the last few days. I had a very relaxing Saturday.
I started off the morning getting a massage. I cannot stress how much I needed a massage. My shoulders were so tight, there’s no doubt that I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I had a gift certificate to Massage Studio in Tampa and I enjoyed every minute of it. If you like, you can read my full review of it on Yelp. You can find it here: http://crazylifeofmine.yelp.com While you’re here, if you are a regular on Yelp, be sure to add me as a friend! 
After my massage, I went up to Barnes & Noble in Carrollwood for a book signing event for Colleen Houck. Actually, it was the second signing I went to as I saw her in Clearwater last night as well. Thanks to my SIL for inviting me! Colleen Houck is the wonderful author of the YA series Tiger’s Curse, Tiger’s Quest, Tiger’s Voyage, and the upcoming Tiger’s Destiny. I have read the first in the series and completed my collection today with the second and third and had them signed by Colleen. If you haven’t checked out this series, you need to. Visit Colleen Houck’s site here http://www.tigerscursebook.com/ . Or you can also read about her and the series on my SIL’s fantastic YA Lit Review blog, Making The Grade. You can find her here: http://mtgreviews.wordpress.com/
After the signing, I headed home and was hit with a killer sinus headache. The drive from Tampa to Clearwater was the longest ever. All I wanted was to get home, crawl in bed, and hope that a nap would help it. I slept almost 2 hours and when I woke up, my headache was a little better. I’m not going anywhere else today so I hope that it does not get any worse and even better would be for it to GO AWAY!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Just breathe…
21 year ago
What a week this has been. It’s been busy, crazy, overwhelming, and I was not at my best when I caved into the evilness of the Pizza Hut Dinner Box on Monday. I still say it was DE-LISH but it has had me stressing over my weigh-in this week.
This morning was my weigh-in and my moment of truth. Let me start by saying that I wasn’t as fearful of the scale this morning as I was earlier in the week when thinking about it. I own everything I do and eat, so there is no one to blame but myself for a gain. I am accountable for anything I do. And a gain this week would CLEARLY have been from the evil pizza/breadsticks/cinamonn sticks. There are times when the thought of seeing a gain due to a really bad meal will stop me from that meal, it’s enough for me to make better choices. There are times when I just don’t care, or I care less at that moment.
With that said, I weighed in this morning at the EXACT same weight as last week. I maintained. And I couldn’t be happier about it. Whew!
Yesterday was a hard day. Without getting into it just now, just know that had it not been the day before weigh-in, I would have eaten everything in site and probably would have thrown in a few drinks as well. Somehow this morning’s weigh-in outweighed (no pun intended) the emotional eating that I could have very easily given into. That’s my thing, emotional eating. Stressed, upset, scared, hurt, you name it – it sends me straight to the nearest food or snack or drink that is bad for me.
Today starts a new week, with new choices to make. I’ve already indulged in a McD’s lunch because I have the extra points for it, and that’s what they’re there for. It’s all a balance of not depriving myself and choosing what to have and if it’s worth the consequences. Today it’s worth it.
Just breathe will be my mantra today and in the coming days.
What a great tattoo!
