Day 20 A 5k With Some Thinking Accomplished

Oh my word I am so proud of me!! I have been wanting and threatening to get a 5k in for the last week or so. So I woke up this morning and said "this is the day" I got up and coffee'ed up, got a little cereal in me, and headed out for 6 laps around my block. It is not an easy task to walk my block either. It has a gentle slope of a hill going down and a really steep hill going up if you go clock wise, which I do, so it wears you out! But I did my 6 laps which are just slightly over a half mile each! Yaaaay!!

While I was doing my waling though, I was thinking about something. I know I have lost weight before, sometimes a little here or there, sometimes a good bit, and a couple of times, a whole bunch. And I have always said I just didn't develop good eating habits with my method of dieting. That is so true and definitely a big factor, but I thought even harder about it, and quite frankly, I don't recall ever once, even when I lost 75 pounds in 2001, thinking I was anything less than a fat a**. Seriously. I was told multiple times how good I looked then, but when I looked in the mirror, I still saw 315 pound me. I never accepted what I had accomplished and said wow, look at that. So, as a result, I never once grabbed on to a good thing I had done and fought to keep it. I never said, "holy crap, I worked my butt off and am looking good! I better stop all this craziness of gaining weight!" I just never changed my mindset or my self image, so I saw nothing to lose by going back to bad habits and gaining weight back. I say that to say this. I was feeling very studly today when I got done walking. In fact, I felt plumb damn skinny! I was strutting around, looking in the mirror and admiring. I did get a reality check in the form of a picture that was taken of me last night at the Girl Scout Camp In I helped out with. But I also noticed, yeah I don't look full term pregnant anymore too. I looked like 6 months in, and that is progress!! I am going to start now changing my self image. I am not going to avoid mirrors anymore, I am gonna take a few minutes to appreciate when a shirt doesn't blouse out in front of my muffin top, or when my jeans are a little on the baggy side, or the fact that my friend, chin #2, is shrinking and disappearing. I will take a few minutes each day to see I made some progress and I will appreciate it enough to fight for keeping that progress and adding more to it. I am thinking about getting some visual aids, charts, etc so I can look and see a hard copy reminder of my progress. Any suggestions? I see some people have added like progress line charts on their blogs and I want to do that but don't have the knowledge or technical skill to do that yet. Any help would be appreciated.

I also had some good experiences today in terms of eating out and keeping it from pushing me out of bounds on my 1800 calorie bank. I had a small breakfast of a bowl of cereal and a fried egg for 300 calories this morning. A snack of tuna in brown mustard and a little fat free miracle whip and some chopped up jalepenos for 130 calories. We at lunch at Taco Bell, where I had the Fresco Burrito Supreme Chicken for 340 with a half of a bean burrito for 150 ( I threw away the end part). Then we went for a short hike and a tour of the nature center we live close to. It was a great little day trip and we all had a blast. We then went to eat at a little barbecue joint we like. I like it now because it is dry barbecue and you add your own sauce, as much or as little as you like. So I got the chopped chicken sandwich and an order of their cranberry coleslaw. Now this stuff is great because it is not like most cole slaws in that it is dry apart from the cabbage juice, so no dressing to add to the calorie count. They just mix in some almonds and cranberries with it and it is yummy! So with those two things and my pickle plus stealing Olivia's pickle and 5 of Laurens fries, I got out of there with a great meal for 585 calories! Well spent if I do say so myself. It is a bit more challenging to keep it under 1800 calories and quite frankly I like that. I like a challenge. I wish I had liked this challenge alot sooner!

I am so antsy waiting on the weigh day this Friday. I don't want to hope for too much of a loss, but I would be ecstatic to see me drop out of the 280's this week, I would only need 7 pounds to do that and I think that is a realistic expectation, but I don't want any kind of disappointment if I don't get there. I can't help but want good results, I just have to temper my thoughts if I don't get the results I hope for every time. I think the best thing I did different this time is to stay away from that scale every day. It is motivating when you see yourself lose 3 pounds every couple or three days, but when that stops and you only lose 1 pound in a week or two, that is an butt kicking that I don't want to deal with. If I weigh every two weeks, I am sure to see a loss, regardless of the amount. So yeah, I say good plan, stolen from Sean of course.....haha.

I am gonna get out of here for the evening. I need to decide if I want to do another 5k tomorrow morning. I really would like to get to the point I am doing one about 3 times a week, but time is usually my limiting factor. I will play that one by ear. Alright guys, I saw a lot of good news and some self realizations in the blogs I follow today and it makes me so happy to see those things. It is part of what drives me. I don't want to be the guy that brings nothing to the table in this community. Accountability. Love it. So you guys, keep on inspiring me, and I will try to do the same for you!!!!