Now I didn't gain anything, so that's the good news. I didn't even stagnate. I actually lost 0.4 kilos (a little over half a pound). But with my goal of 2 pounds a week, that half a pound looks tiny, miniscule... almost obsolete.
I won't lie. I expected it somewhat. As I confessed to my Euroknottie friends this morning, I will confess to you. This past week wasn't as stellar as my weeks in the past. I didn't push my cardio workout as much as I had before. I did do my strength training religiously, but I wasn't nearly as diligent with my cardio. My eating started off strong at the beginning of the week. No problems, but then the weekend rolled around and I got sloppy. We were busy on Saturday, it was kind of an eat-on-the-go day. We all know meals on the go go straight to your arse in most cases. Sunday was a whole different animal altogether.
Sunday was my father in law's, Fons, birthday party. A little cultural background here. Dutch people 'celebrate' every birthday, no matter how old. Now when you're a kid it's pretty much like American birthday parties. There are streamers hung, birthday cake eaten and presents ripped open. When you're older, or in Fon's case, quite a bit older, parties take on a whole different meaning in the Dutch world.
First you invite all of your family and friends over at around 2-ish. The younger generation skips parties like these now days so you get more of geriatric crowd. When you arrive you kiss the birthday boy on the cheeks (3 times, right cheek, left cheek, right cheek) and congratulate him on his birthday. But you're not done there!!!! Then you kiss everybody else at the party (3 times again) and congratulate them on the birthday boys birthday. It's easy to make sure you get everybody at the party becuase they are all sitting in a semi circle of chairs that have been set up in the in the living room. After making your way around the entire room you pick your seat. You must always be sure you pick a good one because you won't be moving the rest of the party. I learned that lesson the hard way as I chose a seat next to Marco's not-so-quiet Aunt at one of my first parties.
When you sit down the hostess will ask you if you'd like cake and coffee. You enjoy your really strong coffee and little slice of cake. Then after everybody has arrived and has been visiting for a while there will be a food tray passed around and you will be served drinks, generally of the alcoholic nature.
On the tray there is different selections of meats (think a variety of summer sausages), blocks of cheese with dijon mustard for dipping, and crackers with different spreads on them. When the tray is passed you take one item and only one item. Although cheese and crackers sound like a great snack DONT DO IT! Do not take more than one snack. This tray will be refilled and passed around again, about once every half an hour. Each time you will take one snack.
In the mean time you're more than welcome to drink as many alcoholic beverages you'd like on a basically empty stomach. Your continue to get piss drunk for hours until it's time to go home which can be anywhere from 7 in the evening to 1 or 2 am.
Now at this particular party, my husband and I played host so his parents could enjoy their guests. We were able to stay in the kitchen and serve everybody rather than sit in the circle of death...er... I mean... semi circle of fun. This also led to me snacking pretty much all day long on blocks of cheese and summer sausage. As the server you have access to the goods at all times so you're not confined to the snack-every-30-minutes time frame. Add cheese and salami with the slice of cake and it makes for a pretty good reason that I didn't meet my goal this week.
Now I say it's a good reason in the sense that I realize that THAT is probably playing a large part in my lack of weight loss, not to be confused with me saying it is a good excuse not meet my goal this week.
I figure I can handle this week in a couple different ways. I can say "geesh you suck Sarah, it's only been 6 weeks and you've already slacked enough to not make your goal." That, of course, would be self defeating.
I could say "hey you tried your hardest, it's just your bad luck this week. Everybody has bad weeks once in a while." Although this is true, everybody DOES have a bad week once in a while, or you hit a small plateau in your journey, that would be lying to myself. I didn't try my hardest. I did slack. I don't want to lie to myself anymore, it's really not ok.
So here is what I've decided to do:
- I'm going to kick up my cardio back to where it was and maybe even push myself to the next level.
- I'm going to re-read over the food serving suggestion in Dr. Phil's book. I'm going to write down on a note card how much of each type of food I should have a day (ex: 4 servings of veggies, 2 fruits, etc.) and keep it with me.
- I may try keeping a food journal for a couple weeks to really see what it is I am eating to make sure I have an honest overview of what I'm putting in my mouth. I didn't want to be a slave to numbers (counting calories, counting points...) but maybe doing it for a couple weeks will put things into a better perspective for me. If I can get to where I am comfortable again winging it on my own then I will stop listing. I can always revisit my list making (I love listing!) if I need to a few months down the road.
- I'm going to still meet my monthly weightloss goal. I'm keeping it mind that during my first 5 weigh-in's I lost more than my goal, so one week of not meeting the mark doesn't destroy all I've already accomplished.
- I'm keeping it as real as I can. It's disappointing, yes, but it's not shattering. I'm not going to go out and binge this week because "i've failed already so why bother trying." which is something I TOTALLY would have said to myself before.
- I'm going to kiss my husband more often every day and tell him thank you for being such a great support system. Without him I wouldn't be here writing this blog today, not that I'd be dead, but I would probably be sitting on the couch watching TV. I could have easily flipped my lid (and I won't lie, there were some tears) but he really helped me keep things in check.
And last but not least, I am going to remember that in the long run this journey isn't about the numbers, it's about being healthy, living healthy and living long.
I'd like to thank all the Euroknotties for their kind words of encouragement. You know who you are!!! How are those uniforms coming?
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