Last week we talked about decluttering, we were all given the challenge of decluttering something in our world.
I started with the bathroom but found I wasn’t really getting rid of anything, just cleaning, so I moved to the kitchen and decluttered the drawers, the recycling and the fridge. It is amazing how many things I could permanently remove from the kitchen drawers, they are sooooo tidy now! No more rummaging around through all sorts of things looking for a sharp knife or a clip to hold a bag closed, its a bit amazing how much my annoyance levels while in the kitchen have dipped from that alone.
My masterpiece was the fridge, I don’t know why, and it is really weird, but I love cleaning the inside of fridges. Freezers too, but mostly fridges. I took everything out, sorted through each item, actually read the expiration dates on my condiments (I was horrified at how many were waaaay past their dates!) and put things back in an organized fashion. Proteins all in one spot, fruit and veg in another, dairy products in a third spot, you get the idea.
I’d say I did well with last weeks challenge. 🙂
However, food wise I obviously dropped the ball, sigh. I only lost 0.2 pounds this week, putting me at a total weight loss of 3 pounds in two weeks. Pathetic. 😦 The lady at the weigh-in was trying to be nice and telling me that was good an stuff but let’s be real here, 0.2 pounds down is not good, it is, well, to re-use a word, pathetic. I know what I did wrong, super early in the week I ate pie, lots of pie, I wrote about that pie and it was freakin delicious, but also super high in points (something I didn’t check on until I had eaten a lot of the pie, *rolls eyes*) and I spent the rest of the week trying to make up for that pie but obviously failing.
I’ve already promised myself that this week I will do better.
So now for this weeks meeting, we talked about two things, being encouraging and planning.
Create a support system for yourself, make sure you have people that are encouraging and also, be encouraging to yourself. I don’t know about you but I tend to be super mean to myself, waaaay meaner than I would ever be to somebody else, and that is something I guess I should work on. So, next time you are engaging in mean self-talk or putting yourself down in some way, stop it! Find a positive thing about yourself to say to yourself. Which yeah, ok, I know sounds way easier to do than it actually is. And sure, it will probably take a while because if you are like me I bet you think negative thoughts about yourself without even being consciously aware of it. But try, make a little goal for yourself this week, when you catch yourself being mean to yourself take a moment, breathe deeply, maybe close your eyes so you can focus, and flip that thought around.
Something that got brought up was one lady said how she had a bunch of clothes in her closet from when she was skinnier and while she was decluttering she decided to get rid of them. She found it hard because she was emotionally attached to some of the pieces but she was quite a bit larger than any of those articles of clothing and if she was being realistic, there was no point in keeping them. Then a second lady chimed in, said she had gone through something similar but while she was getting rid of her smaller sized clothes months ago she realized that when she loses the weight and gets down to the size of those clothes she will have earned new clothes.
I never really thought of that before, earning clothes. I, like most people who struggle with weight, have clothes from when I was thinner that I’d like to get back in to. I always saw keeping them as a way to motivate myself, or at least track my progress. But what this lady said resonated with me. Sure, maybe keep a couple items but not all of them. When you’ve put in all the work needed to get down one, two, ten sizes you have damn well earned the right to buy new clothes and not settle for all the old ones that you stuffed in the back of your closet!
The second topic was about planning. Specifically planning for parties, get togethers, trips, things like that. The upcoming long weekend, yay Canada Day!, is what seems to be prompting this weeks topic, apparently a lot of people party in the summer, shocking! 😉
Sooooooo there are a couple of ways to plan for upcoming social events. One lady said she saves up all her weekly points so she can use them at the party. That is definitely one way to go about it.
Other suggestions for how to plan were more focused on using your planning to prevent you from going crazy with the food and drinks at the parties.
Suggestions were:
- bring your own food (if appropriate) so you know the exact points of what you are eating. This is easy if it is a potluck type thing but can also be done with pretty much any gathering being held at a person’s home, maybe check with the host in advance though just to make sure they are ok with this.
- if it is a potluck or buffet type of deal walk the entire length of the table first, see all the offerings, and decide what items you are willing to eat that are high in points and find ways to minimize their effect on you. So say you really want that slice of cake, then maybe take a larger portion of salad and a smaller portion of foods with points for your entree.
- once you have seen the foods being offered pull out your Pocket Guide or your WW app and look up the points of the foods that you are thinking about. If you are leaning towards eating the potato salad checking the app and seeing that one serving is 9 points might deter you from that choice, or at least help you to take a smaller portion.
- focus on the fun, not the food. Instead of going to parties and focusing on what foods you are going to eat or how good things taste or how much wine you might indulge in focus on the friends you get to hang out with, the games you get to play, the time you are giving yourself to enjoy life. Don’t just sit at a table and chat with whomever is willing to sit near you, get up, walk around, the simple act of walking around and chatting with people will burn more calories than sitting in one spot chatting and it will help you feel more engaged in the party, more a part of the fun.
Our final thought of the day was Don’t Give Up! Maybe this week wasn’t a great weigh-in but forget about it. Last week is done, it is over, there is nothing you can do about it. Don’t wallow in the number on the scale, don’t keep thinking how you wanted to do better, don’t think there is no point to continuing with the program.
Don’t. Give. Up.
The act of trying counts. The act of working towards a goal counts. Sure maybe not every week will be easy, not every week will give you the results you want but remember the non scale victories. Remember that you feel better about yourself when you are trying. Remember that this whole being healthier thing is a journey and its up to you to make that journey positive. Remember that one week doesn’t represent the entire process, you started for a reason, probably for a lot of reasons, when you find yourself faltering remember those reasons and why they are important to you. And whatever you do, don’t give up! 🙂
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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