State of the Weight Wednesday: Tracker Jacker

Welcome back to State of the Weight Wednesday!

Being healthy is about more than just the number on the scale. It’s about living life while getting healthy. SOTWW is about making small changes you can live with.

So this morning I’m down to 197. That’s a 3 pound loss after last week’s gain that was aided by some tilapia cross-contaminated by scallops. (Scallops are not my friend. It’s weird having a sensitivity to shellfish.)

Anyway.

197.

To be honest, I’m not happy with how I arrived at 197. Because I know it wasn’t healthy. I saw this notice more than once last week:

I was terrible about tracking my food, so to compensate, I just ate less. Which seems to make sense, right? If you want to lose weight, you eat less.

But I was eating less of the unhealthy things I probably shouldn’t be eating in the first place. Cookies. Crackers. Snack-y foods that don’t fill me up or offer much in the way of healthy sustenance.

I was grazing. A bite of this here. A Light Babybel Mini there.

As a result, my tracking was all jacked up because, well, I didn’t do it. Or I did it for breakfast and tracked my coffee but didn’t track lunch or dinner or snacks. Or I just tracked lunch but nothing else.

I’m having a hard time getting back on the tracking wagon since I know vacation is next week and I absolutely will not be tracking anything then.

So, even though it’s a loss, it’s sort of a bittersweet one because SOTWW isn’t JUST about losing weight, you know? It’s about losing weight because I’m making good choices. Not because I’m eating empty calories and starving.

(To be clear: I’m not starving myself. I’m not NOT eating. I’m just starving myself of good nutrients by making poor choices.)

I was also quite terrible about going to the gym last week. I could blame the holiday. I could blame my schedule. The truth is I didn’t make it to the gym because I just didn’t go. I didn’t want to go at 9:00 at night even though I could have gone then, so that’s all on me.

I did go on Monday (finally) and I realized that I’ve missed the elliptical. I’ve missed cardio. I’ve missed pushing myself.

So, even though I’m feeling sort of meh on the loss, I’m sort of pumped about the realizations I’m making. I’m aware of the way what I eat affects how I feel. I’m aware of the way working out affects my energy levels.

Those are good revelations, you know? I’m becoming self-aware.

I’m like Skynet.

I’m going to go to the gym as often as I reasonably can this week and pay attention to what I’m eating for the first half of it, but I fully intend to enjoy myself next week and eat as much fresh seafood as my belly can handle. I’ve been dreaming of all the food I will eat since we booked the rental in March.

After I get back, though, it’s on. I’m so close to 31 pounds gone I can practically taste it. I want to be there by September 1, and I think that’s totally do-able.

No goals this week since vacation is happening. Just doing the best I can, eating so much shrimp I turn into one, and then starting fresh when I get back.

So, what were your successes for this week? Setbacks? Leave a link if you’re blogging about your journey (and please check out the other links!) or let’s talk SOTWW in the comments!