PadawanOfHappiness

The past few days have been a big struggle for me.  My scale was not going down, it had held steady and then started to creep up again.  Uggg.  I knew that it was bound to happen there are always plateaus and setbacks but it is still demoralizing.  I felt like this panda. ---> I did a lot of mental pep talks reminding myself that this is normal, that I have had a stressful 5 days and that will impact things, and I had been having problems with Noom and hadn't been able to log things well and I wasn't really sure how much I was eating calorie-wise, and of course with sinus congestion and pressure that makes it really hard to work out so that was lagging. For me, I know that I am emotional eater, specifically when I am stressed and beating up on myself will not limit my stress.  I crave crunchy things specifically cheeze-its, potato chips, nachos and sometimes I just let myself give in.  On good days I can make crunchy substitutes with baby carrots and...

(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 ...

Light Bulb Moment! I was pondering something this morning after I had shared a small success with Mr.Padawan, specifically that I don't think I celebrate the little successes as much as I should.  I have this huge goal that I want to reach and I have hit a few mini goals or successes without realizing that they were there, but each time I noticed them it was a mental boost, I felt better, happier and more energized to continue.   The phrase that came to mind was: A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. ~Anthony Trollope via Outer Order, Inner Calm I kept turning that phrase in my head thinking of the mini successes I have had and realized that I could paraphrase that into: Small successess, achieved with some regularity, will get you to the larger success, while focus solely on the larger success is likely to get you nowhere. In my previous attempts at weight loss, I know that I have focused on the larger picture an...

My journey on this healthier lifestyle change really comes down to habits, bad habits I want to break and good habits I want to foster or make.  So I started using the Noom app (previous posts talk about this) but now 25+ days plus into this I have seen some victories. This is an example of what inspires me to keep going. This dress, I had in my closet for 10+ years, in fact, my husband has never seen me wear it EVER.  I put it on and he said: "hey did you buy a new dress that looks nice."  That felt so good.  So I took the picture and wrote the words and now that is my phone lock screen so I see it often and remind myself why I am working so hard to make these changes. Seeing this and wearing this dress made me realize I achieved this goal by changing my habits.  On some level, I knew this but I didn't really internalize it, yet I took the picture as inspiration to keep doing what I was doing. Once I internalized this I knew I had to lean on my guru, G...

I like data, but just looking at it in plain form is relatively meaningless for me, for example, my Noom app lists my data in my history but only graphs my weigh-ins and I thought that was cool.  But alas I am not able to internalize the data like I thought I was.  For example, I thought my calorie intake was fairly consistent over the past 25 days but the graph shows otherwise. I also thought my exercise was consistent, but the graph shows otherwise. I thought my weight loss was consistent and I am in the ballpark, it is not as consistent as I thought but not as erratic either. In previous weight loss experiments I logged and graphed, that way I had the data but I could more easily see trends, I did this with a simple spreadsheet and only logged my exercise and weight.  This helped because I was also able to log in and see trends to help me fight mental demons.  Things like hey I "gain weight" during my period, nope not really because it disappears pretty qui...

What I liked or thought was good So I gave MyFitnessPal a try and in some ways, it was good and possibly better than Noom.  For their free version, it broke down the nutrient content which may be a bonus for some but not for me, at least not yet. I did like that they had a web interface that  I could use in addition to the app.  I also liked that I could import a recipe from a URL or type it in and then it would spit out the calories for you. What I didn't like MyFitnessPal So while I liked that I could import the recipes it was not great when I wanted to change things within the recipe to adjust the calorie count.  For example, I wanted to specify that I was using 93% lean ground beef, or I added more veggies to the recipe.  It was clumsy and difficult to work with. The other thing I did not like was when logging my food I could change the measurement of how I logged the food so I could do things like mL, or serving size but for me what works be...

Why did I try Noom? I need to lose weight, I know this, my doctor knows this and quite frankly I am tired of being tired and not feeling good.  They (Noom) are a sponsor of a podcast and so I figured I would give it a try.  My doctor had really strongly suggested I count calories which I have been so against for a long time and in fact it took me about 2.5 weeks before I could bring myself to do it. Noom and my doctor gave me the same calorie intake amount to shoot for so I was pretty happy with that, and it seemed fairly easy to use. What I liked or mostly liked The psych tips, and information about motivations and triggers and how to help counteract them.  Overall they did remind us that we will fall off the wagon and that is ok, just get back on, we are human.  That is very reassuring and something that I know in my head but it is so hard to embrace, I need to see that often. The daily weigh-in, this is a good and bad thing, it certainly helps keep me ...