PadawanOfHappiness

This post is going a bit off course, but for me, this is all related to my happiness journey.  Happiness is not one thing, there are multiple aspects of it and I keep working on it a bit here and a bit there and I am making steady progress and I am certainly in a better place than I was in January of this year.  w00t!  GO ME! I have mostly been writing about my weightloss and health journey because that has been a HUGE component of my journey to happiness.  And as I am reflecting on how far I have come and how close the end of the year is to me I realized that I need to work on my faith and spiritual life. I feel like I am on the right track with weightloss and part of that progress has helped my mental state but I am still experiencing more fear and anxiety than I would like because I know that with God I don't need to fear.  Alas I am human so I will fear but I can do something more to curb it, I don't want to be that drowning man. I think we all have hea...

I saw a picture of myself in Septemeber 2014 and I thought, wow I do not like the way I look.  I thought that I should do something about that.  And I kind of did but wasn't too serious about and I did lose some weight, it was such a struggle and I didn't feel it was worth the effort. 5 years later..... As you know at the end of August 2019 I got serious and decided it was worth the effort. So below is that original picture, then me at the end of September 2019 in the same outfit, and then the black dress was taken a day or two after that and was something that fit me a bit better than the pink shirt and capris. So from that 2014 picture when I was at my heaviest and when I got serious in August 2019  had lost about 18 lbs but I wasn't tracking it because it was embarrassing so that estimate is based on my recollection of what my number was at my heaviest. From August 2019 to the September 2019 pictures I lost 9.2 lbs. (n...

(Note aside from the post title above I am going to stop calling my previous attempts failures, keep reading to learn why.)   I went to HS with this lovely lady and we are FB friends, she too is going through her own weight loss journey (I don't feel like I am giving things away because I am not using her name and it was on FB but I am not sure if the page is private or not)  and she had a very honest post today about her past failures and it was inspiring, she is not letting the past dictate her future.  She has made changes that are working for her and is happy to take anyone else along on a similar journey.  Below is my response to her: Congratulations! I think for so many we try and we may even make progress and then we fall off the wagon and we see it as a failure rather than being human. I have tried and failed many times, what changed for me this time was I was ready and I was able to focus on the why aka my long term goal. For me, it wasn't to be a ...

In my previous post, I was frustrated by my up down up down cycle and then, of course, gaining a ton (reminder a ton is all relative) of weight.  At the end of the post, I figured out what caused the weight gain and I felt better because I had a reason why I gained it; I had drastically undercounted my calories.  I wasn't happy it happened but as long as I could explain it I could deal with it. Well despite my issues earlier in the week yesterday I hit the target I was aiming for.  I lost 5.2 lbs in 23 days which is an average of 1.58 lbs a week, again a totally respectable number and within the 'suggested' rate of losing 1 to 2 lbs a week.  Go me!  So why isn't it enough to keep me going? The numbers on the side in blue are to represent the increments not actual weight! :) I am not feeling all that great, my face was killing me, sinus issues are not fun.  And we had a wind advisory last night with insane winds.  I DO NOT LIKE THE WIND, especi...

So this week was really tough for me, I kept bouncing around the 1-1.5 lbs.  Up....down....up....up....down...up...same...same....down.  GRRRR! So each day has been a struggle to stay focused and keep working the system but I have done that with the help of my awesome helper, Mr. Padawan.  Honestly he really helps me reset my mind, work through the difficulties, and remind me of my past victories, and helps me see the long term goal. My biggest issue was looking at my weight this morning, I was so frustrated and I thought WTF!?  I was in my calorie budget and I worked out what happened, why?  This is where I kept reminding myself that the body is a weird and mysterious place. I had a potato soup yesterday for diner and I used Noom's calories for the soup and I realized today that their calorie count is very off from the count I got by using Happy Forks.  Once I adjusted yesterday's calories using the numbers from Happy Forks it became crystal clear w...

In my looking to the future post I had some "Immediate Goals" that I wanted to reach amd well I am late checking on them because I posted on September 22nd and here is October 7th- so it is two weeks later. The goals were: Wear that skirt that I talked about a few days ago that was just a bit tight Reach my 28-day goal within my Scaless App. My target date is in 3 days, to reach that goal I need to lose 0.4lbs.  This is totally doable I ended up hitting my goal, the day after I posted it so I easily made that one and began working on the next goal within the Scaless App, and as of writing this I am 14 days away from reaching that goal with 1 lb left to lose, so I think I will make that one, and possibly make it early.  Wit the app, once I hit the weight I set a new goal regardless of how long it took me to reach that goal. As for the skirt, I probably could have worn it last week but I forgot to try it on.  I did try it on this morning. And it fits quite nicely ...

Just a quick note because I want to record this moment because it was a big mental (and actual) win. I had an admittedly small breakfast and knew that I would need a small morning snack and I am ok with that.  Food is fuel and I need to eat, so I was pondering my options.  We have some mini pies left and they were there on the counter and I thought that would go really well with my coffee this morning and it is so tasty. But I paused and asked myself will I feel bad about this later?  The answer was yes, not because I had the pie itself because I am planning on having one tonight after the kids go to bed.  But I would feel bad this morning because I know that I would still be hungry it wouldn't hold me until lunch.  So I opened the fridge and took out some yogurt and had that instead. I was surprised how much of a boost I got just from making that different choice.  And it is not deprivation, because I am going to have the pie and I am planning my ca...