Day #22 - First Sign of Improvement

As some of you may know we are getting slammed here on the east coast with a big snowstorm.  Here in the DC areas we were mostly spared, but the weather has been pretty miserable all day.  I could have just stayed hidden in my office during lunch, but I knew what I really should do... head to the mall. 

I did my normal 3 laps which was about 2 miles.  Today's walk was my first that I noticed some improvement.  I could feel myself moving just a little faster and there was a little "bounce" in my step.  I finished a couple minutes early and there was really no pain or swelling.  After 3 weeks I'm starting to feel better!

The rest of my day was good; I kept to my eating plan and I got in my gallon of water.  I'm also starting to feel a little more productive at work, I think the doldrums from not smoking are fading away.  Dinner is in a few minutes and my goal is to make it through the rest of evening with no more than a cup of green tea with honey.

This morning on the ride in to work I started to think about what "future me" would be doing each day.  As I mentioned on the weekend I'm looking for a way to measure my progress each day so I thought I would start with asking WWFMD (what would future me do)?  I'm already starting to work through the kinks and trying to stay as objective as possible.

Day #22 is done; Time to focus on Day #23.

Stay Strong!

Spiraling Back Into Control

I've always been like a light switch when it comes to healthy eating.  Either I'm gung ho sticking to my eating plan, or I'm pigging out every meal with no regard for my intake.  This time it feels a little different.  This time I shifted focus away from worrying about my eating and instead put my energy into not letting my weekend fall from grace drag me down into a pit of depression.  So far it's worked.  I had more to do at work this week than I have in the last few weeks.  Those weeks where I felt so stressed out were nothing compared to this week, but yet I feel more calm. 

I'm taking a much needed vacation day tomorrow to do a bunch of yard work.  at 6:30PM I still had hours of work to do in the office, but I told myself I had done enough; the work will be there when I get back on Monday.  I went home feeling like I won.  It might not have been the best I've done with eating this week, but it was as good as I could muster.  With no pressure tomorrow at work I feel like I can take another step and have a good eating day.  I already talked about guy's night on Saturday so I'll probably indulge a little, but then I have Sunday to take another step back toward my healthy lifestyle.

One day at a time, one step at a time.  I don't have to just flick the switch and try to fix everything at once.  It's truly a different way of looking at life in general.  Even my best friend told me this week that he sees a change in me.  I didn't spiral out of control last weekend, I hit the side of the mountain and burst into flames.  The journey back has been up and down with a little more up each time.  My hope is that by Monday I'm right back at it, pushing hard to improve my health.  I've got two more weeks to go before I weigh in again and I want to see some progress though to be honest I haven't even thought about the scale for the last two weeks.  Interesting, I didn't spiral out of control; I feel like I'm spiraling back into control.

-Stay Strong!

 

[Photo: Flickr / Masakazu Matsumoto]