Weigh In #10

Another week has flown by. It seemed like a pretty normal week overall, but I gotta say that it was not when I look back on it. We started last weekend with a wonderful wedding and parties for two friends of ours. Then it was a mad dash to get video shooting done on Sunday and editing/post production done for Wed night's show. In the midst of all that is my "real" job (no travel this week!), the two side projects, and two web sites I maintain. Most of them had plenty to do as we approach Thanksgiving.

So, with all that said, it's no wonder that my stress level was up and the amount of sleep I got was down. Neither of those things is good, to say the least. For me, extra stress has always been an excuse to rationalize behavior. In times past, I could easily convince myself that it was OK to eat extra/eat junk/not exercise/drink more/spend frivolously because of the stress or activity. Of course, the two things don't have any direct relationship. It's like saying that the reason I'm bald is because it's Thursday. Non-sequitor.

But, hey, the human brain (and heart) is a very interesting thing when it comes to those internal conversations. Logic and reason can be so easily subverted. I think it was Andy Stanley (North Point in Atlanta) that said that, in the affairs of desire, we make the decision about what we want to do and then enlist our intellects to make up a reasonable excuse for it. Who does that? This guy!

I thought I was doing OK with that this week. I looked back over the week's "Report card" on livestrong.com and saw that I was under 1800 calories every day (including the day of the wedding!). But then I started thinking about the particulars of each day and some things that might not have made it into livestrong. Like snagging the last quarter of one daughter's cinnamon roll when she was done. And grabbing 2 or 3 M&Ms at a time from a bowl - 10 different times.... I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant with folks at work. I added the chicken fajitas to the list but didn't put the chips and salsa.

My rationale for leaving those off? Well, those are too small to really matter. I mean, 3 chocolate candies? That won't matter. And you know what, 3 M&Ms probably won't matter unless it becomes 30 or more pieces. That's about a whole bag. D'oh!

So what caused this honesty retrospective? You guessed it, the weigh-in this morning wasn't as good as I would like it. I stepped up and saw...

286.0

Ok, it's not a badweigh-in. I didn't gain any weight (I actually lost a half pound) but I had it in my head that I should have lost a few. I have to get out of the "short sighted" mind set. I'm in this for the long haul. I've got to keep my eyes on the goal. Not to the exclusion of the day-to-day - I still need to do the right things and hit the marks. But when I look bigger I see that I have lost 32lbs in 10 weeks. That's above my original goal of 1.5lbs a week (80lbs in 60 weeks before I turn 40 years old: 80-60-40). And I feel a lot better and have dropped some clothes sizes.

And we have raised over $80 for Love146.org! I'm going to keep going with the pledge of $1 per lb from now until my birthday (next October). If you want to get on board again with either a one time pledge or an ongoing pledge, please let me know in the comments below, on twitter, on facebook, or in email. I'll add you to the "team." Thanks to those who have donated and pledged as a part of ThisMustChange.org.

Until next week....

Photo credit to NYOBE