Slow and steady (Week 8)

Progression of events for the week:

• 4 days of activity/Earn 6+ activity points
• I believe that my hip issues are due in part to spending so much time lately sitting on the bed using my laptop. The side steps in my walking DVDs seems to bother my hips a little too, but they seem ok after about a day.
• Monday - 13 minutes Gazelle @ low intensity - 1 Activity Point (done at 8pm)
• Tuesday - 1 Mile Walk Away the Pounds dvd w/ 1 lb. weights - 2 Activity Points
• Thursday - 15 minutes Gazelle @ low/moderate intensity - 1 Activity Point
•  Total of 3 days and 4 Activity Points. Not quite what I wanted for the week. Pulled out
• Lights out at 10pm
• Saturday -11pm
• Sunday - 10:20pm
• Monday - 10:30pm
• Tuesday - lights out at 10:30, toss and turn until midnight (gas bubble/stomach pain), fell asleep around 1am
• Wednesday - lights out at 9:45, probably fell asleep around 10:30
• Thursday- lights out at 10:40pm
• Friday -lights out at 10:30
• Wake up 6:30am 
• Sleep schedule is so out of control. Really need/want to work on it this week. 
• Saturday - up @ 6am to shower and do hair before weigh in (ugh!)
• Sunday - I think up for the day around 9am. might have been 8ish, forgot to write it down.
• Monday - potty @ 6:40am, up for day @ 8:10am 
• Tuesday - up @ 6:30am for the day!  
• Wednesday - up at 8:15am 
• Thursday - up at 7:40am for the day 
• Friday - up at 7am 
• Sleep schedule is getting better. Seem to be turning out the lights at 10:30 for the most part. Need to bump this up. 
• Stay within points for the week (daily + weekly + activity) 
• Success! This is slowly getting a bit easier, though still taking some effort. 

Food "experiments" for the week:

• Attune Bars
•  Last Saturday I bought 21 bars at the grocery store (7 each of Chocolate Crisp, Almond Milk Chocolate and Raspberry Dark Chocolate). Not sure how often I'm going to get up to Hannaford for them and I wanted to be stocked up for a while. The experiment is that this week I will be PMSing. Shall see if having a stock pile of these is safe or not. 
• Monday - I ate a banana instead of eating a second Attune bar. So far so good..... 
• Wednesday - I think when I bought the Raspberry Dark Chocolate bar to try I just happened to get one without a lot of raspberry bits in it. The one I had today had more in it and I liked it a lot.  
• Results of this experiment: It went well. I had two bars on Thursday, though at different parts of the day. Two bars (at 2pts each) definitely does not work out to a binge by any means, which I find to be encouraging. I think I'll stay stocked up on these. Though the true test will be this week/the next few days during my actual TOM.
• Mashed potatoes
• Last Saturday I bought some small bags of potatoes and planned to use them to make mashed potatoes this week and portion them out immediately after they were done. The actual making of the mashed potatoes was stalled because Saturday evening Rose made mashed potatoes and I ended up eating a bunch of those. I need to stop eating her mashed potatoes. I need to categorize them as a processed food to try and stop eating them (at least for a month or so) until I get a handle on if I can really have them around or not. (First major hurdle is measuring/portioning them out.)
• Wednesday morning - there are Red Lobster mashed potatoes sitting in the fridge and I did not grab them to eat for breakfast. I continued to make my planned oatmeal! :)  
• Gave in to the mashed potatoes Wednesday afternoon around 3pm........ 
• Made one bag of potatoes but did not turn them into mashed potatoes. Just used as a sub for plain boiled potatoes. 
• Results of this experiment: Inconclusive. Never really made mashed potatoes, so I'm not sure how it would work out. Though I did confirm that they are still a problem food for me if they are around.

Weigh in results:
Lost 0.4 pounds this week. Not great, but it got me to the 7 pounds lost mark. :)  I wasn't thinking when I made dinner last night and had boxed cheesy potatoes, lots of sodium.






For the coming week:

• Push back lights out from 10:30pm to 10pm (no wake up alarm, just going to work on adjusting to going to bed earlier)
• Minimum of 4 days of exercise, earning minimum of 6 activity points.
• Stay within my points for the week 

Food thoughts:

• I've been eating a banana a day for the last few days. I tend to forget how much I like bananas. I do like them a little on the not ripe side so I can't buy that many at a time. They've been working really well for me either pre-workout, or as a snack during the day.
• I've really been enjoying eating oatmeal most mornings. I find that I actually miss it when I don't have it.  I haven't really experimented at all with putting different things in my oatmeal, mostly because I am really enjoying my current combo of Polanar Strawberry Allfruit, both white and dark chocolate PB (2x the white than dark) and a sprinkle of mini chocolate chips all stirred together. I am a little afraid that I'll burn out on it, but as I do skip a day here and there and don't have oatmeal, and usually if I'm going to get tired of a food it'll happen within a week or two tops. I've been eating this off and on for three weeks now, so I guess I'll just stick with it. :) 
• Going to try to start eating the VitaTops in my freezer as snacks instead of as a breakfast item (since I'm on this oatmeal breakfast kick). Also may try eating my box of Multigrain Cheerios as a snack. 
• I'm going to try and recreate the filling from the frozen broccoli and cheese stuffed chicken breasts I buy sometimes. I'm not a big fan of broccoli by itself, but I don't mind it when it is mixed in a sauce. I think the stuffed chicken is my favorite way to have broccoli. To recreate it I'm just going to cook some frozen chopped broccoli and then melt a wedge of light laughing cow cheese on a serving. I'm going to pair it with some of my Living Right chicken nuggets.
  

Random notes:

• After this week I am going to drop a point from my daily points (most likely a little earlier than my weight bracket would say I need to). I'd do it this week, but being my TOM it seems silly to torture myself and not let myself have those 7 points that I am actually allowed. The reason for the drop is that my body get stuck around the weight points between point categories, and I'm hoping that by taking it away sooner I can avoid getting stuck.
• I am also wondering if I am earning too few activity points per workout to justify eating them. I know that since I've earned them, I'm allowed to eat them, but I'm wondering if this is stalling my weight loss efforts. 
• I've been doing well planning my meals a day in advance. I sometimes get a couple days planned in advance, easiest to do when I make things for lunch/dinner than have leftovers that need to be used up. Saturday's tend to be the days that I don't plan out completely. I have tomorrow and Monday planned out right now, and Tuesday is partially planned.