I'm up, I'm sick, but I got my walking in.

As I anticipated, I was up on the scale this morning to 202.0. Sigh. I've been a little better today, but mainly because I have cold symptoms and don't feel like eating anything. I have a runny nose and my head is feeling drained. But I walked! I got in 45 minutes, though my pace might have been a bit slower than normal. I thought being out in the 80 degree weather this afternoon would help how I felt, but I actually got more tired and sick feeling while I was doing it. But at least I got some exercise in.

My Walking Challenge

Last week I looked at a website called http://www.thewalkingsite.com . I found it doing a Google/A9 search for "marathon walking" -- that's a far-off goal. However, they had just started a "Beginners Fall Walking Challenge," so I joined their group on Yahoo. They set a goal for each week. Last week the goal was walking four days out of week for 15 minutes each day. Since I had been walking intermittently before that, I usually walked 30-60 minutes, instead. But the challenge did discipline me into walking four days, and I made myself walk at times of the day when I might have otherwise shrugged it off.

This week, the goal is walking five days for at least 20 minutes each day. I've already completed two of the five days. (As you can see in a prior post, I even combined it with my errands.) Again, I made myself walk when I might not have otherwise, so I think it's been a good motivator for me thus far. Of course, it's helped that the weather here in Kentucky has been so beautiful. I'm not sure what the site's suggestion for walking in bad weather is. I'll have to look.

A week after the peak . . .

It's been a week since the peak, and I'm down to 200.8 lbs. -- a loss of 2.8. I'm not as happy about that as I have been about prior weight losses because I'm still above 200. In other words, I haven't lost all the weight I put on nine days ago.

I went to Jenny Craig today for the first time since I went above 200 on my bathroom scale. I hit my high there. I'm not even sure what it was -- I didn't memorize it. I guess I'm more focused on my bathroom scale lately.

Unfortunately, I did not eat well today. After Jenny Craig, I went through the Pizza Hut express drive-thru near my house and got a personal pan pizza/breadstick combo. When I got home, I returned a call to my friend, "EB," who wanted to go to lunch at Moe's Southwest Grill because he had a coupon, and, well, he's unemployed right now. (As am I, still, but that's another post.) And it's a buy-one, get-one-free coupon. I said sure, let's go. I hadn't eaten the pizza yet, and considered putting it in the microwave. But, instead, for reasons I still don't completely understand, I chose complete decadence and ate the pizza before he arrived. INSANE, isn't it? I put the breadsticks in the microwave for later. And then I hid the other evidence from my friend by throwing it away. Eating in secret -- never healthy.

So when EB arrived, we decided to walk to Moe's because it was such a nice day. I knew I couldn't eat a burrito, but instead of trying a salad, I tried a quesadilla. It might be a little healthier than other quesadillas, but it didn't taste as good as I've had at other local restaurants. (No, I'm not including the Taco Bell one I had last week, but that one does have a decent sauce on it.) And I ate the colorful tortilla chips that came with it.

Amazingly, my stomach did not ache or explode. (I had not eaten anything before I went to Jenny Craig, so that might explain it.) We walked around the shopping center some more before going back to my house. I did a lot of physical chores around the house, nothing requiring too much exertion, but physically active nonetheless. Meanwhile, EB worked on my computer. After he left a few hours later, I had the breadsticks for "dinner." Then I walked for 3o minutes before walking to Meijer for a few items. Then I came back and snacked again. Ugh. I'm nervous about what will be on the scale tomorrow. . .

11:17pm -- P.S. After writing most of the last post, my browser froze up, and I thought I'd lost the whole post and the time I spent composing it. (While I realize this post is no great work of literature, I still would have been disappointed to have lost it.) Fortunately, however, I was able to recover the post when I logged back into Blogger with one click of the mouse. My opinion of Blogger has now increased. Thank you, tech guys!

No, that wasn't the peak . . .

. . . the peak was yesterday. My nutso eating on Monday (especially some late night pasta) made me gain a pound on my bathroom scale -- a whopping 203.6 lbs.! But I did better foodwise yesterday. I had Jenny Craig meals for breakfast and lunch (silver dollar pancakes and pesto pizza, respectively), and I had a couple of Jenny Craig snacks (one more than you're supposed to have for one day), but I did not snack otherwise. For dinner I went to my parents' house, where Mom made tacos with Laura's Lean hamburger meat. I had three tacos (the shells were the normal, sort-of-small grocery store brand size). Then Mom and I walked for about 45-50 minutes in her neighborhood. I stayed at the house until ten in the evening.

As I drove home, however, I got hungry again. I hated the fact I was hungry, but I decided to satisfy it. In keeping with the night's Tex-Mex theme, I went through the Taco Bell drive-thru near my home and got a chicken quesadilla. Not the perfect choice, but not as much food as other items I frequently get at Taco Bell -- the Crunchwrap Supreme and 2 Chalupas. So I think the quesadilla was a reasoned choice for a drive-thru open past 10pm on a weeknight. It truly satisfied me, too. And I was not hungry the rest of the evening. I did have two glasses of wine after a friend came over, but the wine did not trigger any food cravings.

This morning, I was down 2.6 lbs. to 201.0. Yea! I know that yesterday I just exercised mild restraint rather than sticking to a true diet plan, but I still feel like it's a good "new" start. Now I just need to keep it up. Today it's been so far, so good -- I've had Jenny Craig's Sunshine Sandwich for breakfast and a Beef Chow Mein for lunch, and then I had two snacks again, but I'm going to try to hold off until dinner. I have errands to do, so that should keep me occupied.

God, I hope this is the peak . . .

Yes, I've had a terrible diet since I last posted. Life has changed significantly for me in the past few weeks. The day after my last post, I learned that my job was officially ending in two days. I knew my job would likely end soon -- actually, it was supposed to end back in August, but circumstances allowed me to hang on for an extra month. But then circumstances changed, and I couldn't postpone the inevitable. I consciously used the end of my job to eat and drink over the next few days, completely wrecking my latest surge of progress.

Since the end of my job I've been in a holding pattern. I left the job knowing I had a strong chance at getting one particular new job, then I got a better offer a few days later from the same organization. I'm really excited about the opportunity, but confirmation of that job appears to be stuck in some red tape. So I'm waiting . . . I meant to use my free time to get more exercise in. Some days are more successful than others, however.

I took time to visit and babysit my sister's kids last week, and did really well in part because my mom was there to "support" me (i.e., be there as my "monitor" me even though she doesn't realize that's how I use her in such circumstances). But I eliminated the progress I made this past weekend -- I actually surprised myself this morning with how much weight I had gained in just a couple of days. I'm at a new peak. I will say that I did have a nightshirt on, but I don't think it weighed that much, so I'm using today's weight as my new peak. Here's the scary number:

202.6 lbs.

AAAACCCKKKK!!!!

I've got to do something. I DID walk 30 minutes today. But I did NOT eat well. I had way too many calories. Don't know how many, but it was a lot of pasta, so I know it was too much. Now I feel too full and never want to eat again. Wish that feeling could last longer than overnight . . .