Figuring things out (Week 9)

• Push back lights out from 10:30pm to 10pm (no wake up alarm, just going to work on adjusting to going to bed earlier)
• Signing up for the sleep challenge over on Susan's blog The Great Balancing Act helped me confirm that my body really would prefer to get 9 hours of sleep, can do okay with about 8 hours, and can get by with 7 if I have to. When I allow myself to get 9 hours I wake up refreshed, fully awake, and ready to start my day. This means that if I want to be up at 6:30am, I HAVE to have lights out by 9:30pm. (This also means that I can't let myself get sucked into the Criminal Minds reruns on ION at night. lol)
• Saturday - lights out @ 10:30pm
• Sunday - lights out @ 10:30pm
• Monday - lights out @ 10:20pm
• Tuesday - lights out @ 10:40pm (wrong direction. oopsies)
• Wednesday - lights out @ 10:30pm
• Thursday - lights out @ 10:20pm
• Friday - lights out @10:20pm
• Slowly getting there.
  
• Minimum of 4 days of exercise, earning minimum of 6 activity points.
• Monday - 17 minutes Gazelle - Beginner workout on DVD - 1 Activity Point
• Tuesday - Hip Hop Abs Fat Burning Cardio (30mins) - 2 Activity Points
• Friday - 15 minutes Gazelle - music on iPod - 1 Activity Point
• Still not meeting my goal. Just need to try harder and keep at it.
  
• Stay within my points for the week  
• As an added part to this, points for the week now = daily + weekly only. I'm going to try not eating my activity points until I'm earning a lot more and then I'll only allow myself some of them. 
• Ate all of the points I was allowed to eat, but no more than that. :) 
• I am going to stick with not eating my activity points for now. When I am regularly earning about 10 a week, then I'll look into eating some of them. 
• I am taking away one of my daily points starting today, so that I'll be eating in the next bracket down for the week ahead. I'm only 0.6 away from the bracket so I'm hoping that I can assure losing at least that little bit this week.

New Things for the week:

•  Bellydancing fitness VHS tapes
• I got these from my friend Sue since either she didn't like them/want them anymore or now had them on DVD. I know she has some bellydancing DVDs. 
• Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss: Cardio Shimmy
• Not sure about this one. I don't think it is something I'll add into my tape/dvd mix right now, but it is worth hanging on to for the future.
• Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss: Hip Drop Hip Hop & Pure Sweat
• Hip Drop Hip Hop - As this is mainly hip drops and I'm having issues with my hips this is probably not the best thing for me to be doing any time soon.
• Pure Sweat - I think when I do finally feel like adding a Bellydance workout into my routine I'll start with this one. I'm not sure I could do the workout in sneakers, and the floor in the house isn't safe to be barefoot, and I'd slide all over in socks.
• The third tape got eaten up by my VCR and caused my VCR not to work for a while. It fixed itself and I had to throw out the tape since the tape inside was ripped. (Forgot to write down the title, but since I never got to watch it, its not a big deal I guess)
• In general, I'm iffy about bellydancing I think because it doesn't quite have the energy level of my other dance workout DVDs which helps to keep me going and pushing through the workout, and helps me enjoy what I'm doing. If I can figure out how to do the workout here (perhaps trying it with my sneakers on) I may at least try the Pure Sweat one at some point and see how I feel actually doing it vs. watching it.
• Gazelle workout DVDs
• Thought it was past time to try to use the DVDs that came with my Gazelle vs. just using my iPod to listen to music.
• There are two DVDs that came with my Gazelle: Crosstrainer and Quick Shape
• Crosstrainer DVD: Monday morning I used this DVD, on the beginner level. That means there is about a 3 minute warm-up, 10 minute workout, and about a 5 minute cool-down. What I like about this DVD is that once you pick your workout level it automatically goes through all three parts without you having to do anything. Definitely different than when I just listen to music. My legs could feel it a bit more too.
• Skinny Cow individual ice cream cups - Caramel Cone
• While I enjoyed it while I was eating it, I'm not sure I'd get it again. I'm not sure if I really love the caramel in it. I'll figure that out when I try the Dulce de Leche one I bought. Also, while I didn't think it would matter in such a small amount, but it did, my stomach was a bit upset by the chocolate coated cone pieces. They use coconut oil in the coating, and I'm allergic to coconut.
• Broccoli/Cheese experiment
• Results: never got around to making this. Try again in the week ahead.

I am trying to get out of the mentality of "allowing" cheat days, meals, food items. Cheating makes it seem like I'm doing something wrong, and by having that pastry, pizza, whatever I am not doing something wrong. Not if it is an occasional occurrence vs. a regular thing. I don't ever want to feel like I'm depriving myself of certain food items because they aren't "on plan."  If this is going to be a real lifetime change, then I need to learn moderation. I don't want to constantly feel drawn to unhealthy foods, craving them, because I haven't had them in so long and now they are conveniently within my reach. for me I think its the difference in mentality between "I can't have soemthing because it is bad for me/not on plan/etc." and the "I'm choosing not to have something because the taste isn't worth the calories to me/I only want it because it is there/etc." Making it a choice vs. depriving myself gives me the power instead of making me feel powerless to a "diet." There are days when I am going to choose to have cheese fries or cheesecake or fast food. But by making those choices valid ones to have, I don't feel guilty about having them. I try to plan ahead so that they fit within my points for the week and then as long as I'm within my numbers it is ok.


I think I need to cut back on my carbs. I don't think switching to the Simply Filling method would work for me, especially since I need to eat the foods I have around and there are a lot of non-filling foods, but maybe I need to follow the method regarding carbs... well sort of. Basically I want to limit the carbs to two meals a day. So that means that if I have oatmeal for breakfast and potatoes for lunch, I can't have pasta or rice or bread with dinner. Since I still haven't worked on my VitaTop stash, I will allow a VitaTop as a snack in addition to the other carbs. I'm not sure how I feel about having oatmeal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch (using WW multigrain bread, 2 slices = 1pt.) and then pasta/rice/potato with dinner. I suppose that could be ok on occasion, but I don't want to be alternating sandwich days with VitaTop days, because then that really feels like carb overload to me.


Weigh in results:
Down a pound!!! :)







Goals for Week 10:

• Follow my new carb rules for the week and see how it goes
• Minimum of 4 days of exercise, earning minimum of 6 activity points
• Keep working on pushing back time for lights out
• Stay within points for the week (dailys + weeklies)