Life Happens

Several factors upset my plan for today. I overslept, which I tend to do. I have a gig tomorrow, and I was (before today) pretty unprepared for it. I usually have rehearsal for my church gig on Thursday nights, so i wanted to get as much work as done on my gig as I could before I went. So I spent most of my afternoon working on a new original song and spicing up a Taylor Swift song for my gig tomorrow. At about 3:30, I found out that my church rehearsal was cancelled due to weather. It thus far has snowed maybe 1 1/2 inches in Knoxville, which is enough to shut down life. So, even though I had the time to go the gym, the road leading into my neighborhood being incredibly steep and slightly snow-filled kept me from leaving the house. So what do you do? LIFE HAPPENS. Situations arise that screw up your plans. You have to adjust. I still did my crunches at home and ate a little less for dinner. On the upside, I'm much less hungry than if I had gone to the gym because i didn't burn as many calories. AND I got to watch The Biggest Loser episode from Thursday! Silver lining, my friends. :)

Let me take this opportunity to talk about Weight Watchers. Here's how the program works: based on your current weight, age, sex and amount of everyday activity, you get a certain number of points a day. So, a 25-year-old male construction worker gets more daily points than a 45-year-old female office worker. These points reflect the amount of calories, fat grams and fiber grams that you eat. Foods that are high in calories and fat are worth more points, foods that are higher in fiber are worth less. Basically - it teaches you good foods and bad foods while keeping track of caloric intake. So potato chips are high in points but not filling, where grilled chicken is medium-high in points but very filling. In addition to your daily points, you also get 35 weekly points that you can spend however you like. If you have a special dinner planned and don't want to count points, or if you want to have an extra 5 points a day, whatever. You can also earn weekly points by going to the gym. So, I get 28 points a day, 35 points a week, and thus far I have earned 6 extra "exercise" points in the past 2 days. Yesterday, I earned 5 since I was at the gym for over and hour. Today I only earned one by doing crunches/ab work for 10 minutes. If I go over my daily points today, I just have to either work out an extra day or use some of my weekly points. This is the reason I love Weight Watchers - how you spend your calories is up to you. They do strongly encourage that, per day, you get 5-6 fruits & vegetables per day, 8 glasses of liquids, a multivitamin and 3 healthy oils (vegetable, olive or canola oil). So obviously eating chips or pizza all day is discouraged, even in smaller portions than I usually would.

On that note, I've noticed that my usual diet is extremely carb-heavy. And I've been making an effort to eat more fruits and vegetables. Yesterday and today I got a salad for dinner in effort to stray from chips or pasta. The trick with salads, I think, is to find ones that you actually like. I've noticed I stray toward ones with fruit in them, like apples or cranberries. I try to order mine without cheese or nuts (if it has them), because these things can quickly increase the calories in your "salad." Also, I've learned that not all salads are nutritious! For example, caesar salads are the worst possible salads for you. Take lettuce, cover it with cheese (fat), croutons (carbs), and caesar dressing (liquid fat), and it almost completely negates eating lettuce in the first place. Switching to a low-fat dressing is a great step in the right direction if you're not ready to cut out croutons or cheese. Cheese, at least, provides a filing protien. Croutons are basically toasted pieces of bread coated in butter. So, if anything, I leave on the cheese.

Lastly, let me say how much I LOVE the show The Biggest Loser. If you are touched or motivated by this blog and you don't already watched this show, WATCH IT. It can get a little dramatic with the challenges and stuff, but the basic message is the same - changing your life is hard but it is possible!! Don't let their their incredibly rapid weight loss discourage you - if you worked out 6 hours a day, you would lose weight that fast too. Celebrate your losses and work through your discouragements! Any weight loss is a step in the right direction! (For the record, I never though I would sound so much like a motivational speaker. But this is true!) Again, thank you ALL for your support and for taking the time to read this!