Weight Loss Wednesday: A rough week!

When I wrote my Weight Loss Wednesday post last week, I was excited and encouraged and ready to begin.

This week has been a rough week for me. I started back to work last Tuesday, so at the point that I wrote my “Weight Loss Wednesday” post, I was only one day in to my “back to work” mode. This week, it’s starting to catch up to me. The stress of work. Staying up late to write reports for work. Then, the late nights catch up with me and I have a hard time functioning and meeting my work out goals in the morning. In the past, the stress has inevitably led me to turn to chocolate and eating other food. It has led me to make excuses. I have the mindset that I don’t want to do that, but it’s going to be hard to overcome.

To review, here are my current goals:

*Exercise a minimum of four times per week
*Lose 10 pounds by 2/14/10

Here were the things that I said I was going to do to “meet” those goals (along with a commentary on how I did this week):

*Commit myself to Weight Watchers ~ I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting in three months on Saturday. I haven’t been able to weigh myself since I started on this journey because we have a digital scale and it doesn’t have batteries right now. I had no idea where I was starting out and I was pretty happy to find out that I hadn’t gained anything in the last 3 months since I had been to Weight Watchers. Considering that I hadn’t been doing anything to maintain my weight during the holidays, I felt pretty good about that.

Last week, I said that tracking was the key and I know that it is, but I’ve become lax about that. This week, things have been so hectic that I’ve honestly had a hard time fitting in eating at all and at the end of the day I have a hard time even remembering what I ate. But, I know that tracking is a key and using the tracker (I usually track online) helps me to remember things like getting in all of my water, fruits, and veggies. I’m going to try to get back on track!

*Drink more water – I was SO good about drinking water last week and I’ve had such a hard time remembering to drink water this week. Last week, I took a huge water bottle to work and kept it filled and right by me throughout the day. This week, I’ve had a hard time even making it to the break room to fill it up in the mornings (did I mention it’s been a rough week?) I’m going to try to get back to drinking more water.

*Create an exercise plan for each week – My goal was to work out 4 times per week. I intended to do at least 30 minutes of cardio 4 times per week using the “Couch Potato to 5k” plan. Last week, I made it through the first week of the plan. This morning was my first morning on the treadmill this week. The best time for me to work out is in the mornings, but it’s been hard for me to get moving in the mornings because I’ve been going to bed so late. On a positive note, I have at least done a weight work-out EVERY day this week. If you’re not familiar with Spark People, it’s a free site and one of the features is that you can generate customized work out plans. It includes demo videos for the different exercises! The exercises are manageable, even for beginners/couch potatoes looking to reform themselves, and I could feel it the next day which tells me that it’s working! You can check it out and design your own plan here.

Even though this week hasn’t gone as well as I would have liked for it to have gone, I’m proud of myself for not giving up completely (and for not digging into the leftover Christmas candy that is sitting around).

I watched The Biggest Loser last night and was inspired by the “Pound for Pound Challenge.” I signed up and hope it will be one more thing to help motivate me in this journey!

How did your week go? Feel free to link up and share your weight loss successes and challenges below!