5% Body Weight Loss Challenge

The weather really turned to crap the last couple days.  I miss "pre-summer!"  LOL

I woke up this morning with minimal back pain, but after I got the kids off to school and Ben laid down for his morning nap, I decided to go back to bed (darn muscle relaxer was still pulsing through my veins and I swear, those things make me so tired and groggy) and when I woke up, my back was hurting again.  (How's that for a run on sentence? LOL)  Anyway, this is discouraging because I'm out of pain pills and I was going to go back to the doctor again today, but since I'd woken up the first time with little back pain, I'd cancelled my baby sitter and decided not to go.  Now my baby sitter is out of town and I have Ben and Kaiden with me and lugging Ben to the doctor with a back issue probably isn't the best idea.  I'll survive.  I don't want to rely on pain pills anyway.  I was beginning to feel like a junkie.  :/

I joined a couple friends on Facebook for a challenge during the month of April to lose 5% of our body weight.  I forgot to weigh on the first, but I weighed yesterday and it was 173.6 (yes, up a pound since my weigh in on Friday) so 5% of my body weight is 8.68.  My goal for the challenge is to lose 8.7 pounds.  I think that's pretty doable.  I've been struggling a lot, but I'm beginning to feel like I might be back on track.  I know what I want and I know what I have to do to achieve my goals, and adopting my old, bad habits is not the way to do it.

---

I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday and then a moment of clarity.  I have been reading a lot of progress blogs and running blogs the last few weeks and the more I read about people's successes, the more jealous I get.   I feel like I'm sitting on the sidelines, watching everyone succeed at their goals, when I KNOW if I could just get out there, I would be succeeding too.  I feel that by the time I'm back to running full time, I'll be starting at square one again and have to work myself back up to longer distances (I know, my longest nonstop distance is only two miles, but dang it, that's two miles I couldn't run 4 weeks ago).  That was my meltdown.

My moment of clarity was when I realized that running actually means something to me.  That no matter how much I loathe the actual action of running, I actually miss it right now.  I would give anything to run outside.  I haven't ran outside yet, because I'm scared, but I am tired of letting my fears hold me back and I've had more than two weeks to think about my future in running.  Once my back is not longer an issue, I'm going to run and I'm not going to let myself hold me back.  :)

I tried to walk on the treadmill today, but I barely got a 10th of a mile before boredom took over and I couldn't do anymore.  Just another reason that the weather needs to get nice again - if I can't run, at least I can walk outside and not lose my mind to boredom.  Instead, I grabbed some 5 pound weights and did a few different sets of lifts.  Clearly, it's been awhile since my arms felt any sort of resistance.  It didn't hurt, but I felt it in my muscles and it felt good.

---

Food Log:

• breakfast - lucky charms with silk
• lunch - turkey and cheese sandwich, cottage cheese
• dinner - tomato soup, blt
• snack - 2 small cupcakes, cottage cheese

As I was typing up my food log, I felt guilty as I added "2 small cupcakes" to the snacks.  Then I tried to justify eating them by telling myself that my calories were low enough throughout the day to allow myself the two treats.  Eating cupcakes is probably not going to help me lose 5% of my body weight this month.  But denying myself things has never worked for me.  I've managed to lose weight throughout this journey by allowing myself everything, but within reason.  And now I don't feel bad about my choices.  I enjoyed them and it could have been worse.  But I think I did okay.  :)