October

I'm so happy it's October! I have a few things going on this month. Like, my birthday and my nephew's birthday and my sister moving to town and the Great American Beer Fest and did I mention it's MY FAVORITE MONTH?

So the scale was down last week. It felt like a cheat because I was well over my points, but I'll take it. As a result of that loss, this week I have fewer points to deal with. I think that to get to goal (not the number but where I feel very healthy) something really has to change. So much has changed since I first started my weight loss journey but it's not over. I was pondering the fact that I'll have days where I eat A LOT - like, 2x the calories I need. Those days are OK every so often... like on your birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas. But I tend to have them, well, at least monthly. And lately I've been having high-calorie (or overpoints) days a couple times a week. Clearly there is room for improvement.

Enter the Blue Dot Challenge. On Weight Watchers, there is a monthly calendar where you get a blue dot on the dates your eating falls in a healthy range of points (27-37 for me). This is a great visual. In September, my calendar was about 1/2 full blue dots (thank you, vacation and generally poor choices!) Well the challenge is to get all, or near all, blue dots for a month. Since we just started a new month I decided to join the challenge and my plan is to get 6/7 blue dots for each week of October. It's interesting I found this challenge right as I have been thinking I need to level out my food consumption and focus on learning to eat like the healthy, balanced person I want to be... MOST of the time. This is a good way to start doing that.

This will take work, and I have to plan my day of the week that I'll get to go over. This week, it was delicious Mexican lunch with friends on Saturday. Next week, it's GABF. The week after that, my birthday and the week after that, Baby T's Halloween BBQ party. So there are my four days. And interesting enough, I don't feel badly about having this plan, or like it's going to be so difficult to manage. On the OTHER days, I max out at 37 points, so I just need to figure out how to keep myself in check. I can have a heck of an enjoyable day on 37 points. And I can also reassess this goal and figure out if these are realistic expectations, or if  I need to baby-step myself a little more. I also know I'm doing a bike ride Oct. 15th, so maybe that day or day after I'll be eating more... or maybe I'll just save the points 'til my bday. Heyyyyyy look at how I just planned that. (Though I promise if I am truly hungry or weak, I will pick the points up as my body dictates.)

Also, October is pretty much going to focus on weights and yoga. I'll add cardio back in after Halloween. And with that, I'm off to the gym. Happy October, friends!