Standing Up

Thanks to all of you for your comments on my last post. I felt pretty defeated on that one. You're right, too. It became far too easy for me to see a couple days of poor food choices as more significant than a year of continued success and more than 100 pounds lost. Well... sorta.

So I had the pizza, I hit the bbq and had a brat, some chips, a burger, a brownie, a slice of cake and 3 beers. The following day, I just couldn't find the nerve to face the scale, so I skipped my meeting (I hate doing that) and tried to do damage control throughout the day. Evening came, friends arrived and we had a buffet of finger foods and booze. I planned out ahead of time with what I was going to sample and how much. That didn't happen. I ate way more than I'd planned on having and I even made queso, which was never in the plan but oh so delicious. Everything was. I also made baked mozzarella sticks (I'll try that one again; very reasonable recipe and only 1 point per stick), baked jalapeno poppers with light cream cheese and turkey sausage and the queso. One of the guests brought some ham salad sandwiches and cucumber sandwiches as well as a strawberry sorbet. Another brought jerk seasoned chicken strips that were to die for. We also had beer and vodka. I drank less than I could have, I smoked more than my girlfriend would have liked (to wit, at all), I didn't win at any of the games we played, but I had a great time. I think everyone did. We'll definitely be doing this more regularly in the future.

So after 36 hours of bad food choices, I woke up at early on Sunday morning. I jumped out of bed and faced the music on the Wii Fit. Traditionally, it has been very precise in terms of agreement with the Tanita scales at my WW meetings, so I've come to trust its readings. I hopped on and was a bit pained, but not overly surprised to see +5 pounds show up. I had gained enough to put me below the 100 lost mark I'd fought so hard to reach. Blech. I told myself to let it go and get back at it. I'm not quitting this. Not now, not ever. I redoubled my efforts right there starting with a nutritious breakfast followed shortly thereafter with an hour and a half on Wii Fit.

Now, in the past I've discounted the level of intensity one can achieve on this particular game, but I've also never really given the strength or yoga games a chance. I've pretty much always done the aerobics (which can work up a sweat somewhat) and the balance games (which for the most part cannot). Yesterday I did a circuit through all the strength training games. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling after that, especially the plank, which had me holding my weight on my forarms and toes while keeping my body rigid for 60 seconds. Great core workout. I still put in a good half hour on the less-than-intense balance games, but I got a pretty decent hour workout prior to that.

After that, I got myself cleaned up, had a modest lunch and headed to my first event in the KC Corporate Challenge, disc golf. Much like traditional golf, it's not an incredibly intense workout, but 2 hours of physical activity, regardless of how light, is nothing to sneeze at. We did pretty well, too, tying for 5th out of 22 in our division. Considering I have only played one time in the past 4 years, that's pretty respectable, and I think I'm going to pick the game back up. It's a lot of fun, a decent workout and I can see myself improving pretty quickly. I feel like I already throw better than I did when I played between 02 and 04.

Dinner was light, reasonable and tasty. Overall, yesterday was a great day to be a Weight Watcher. I stayed within mypoints, got in over 3 hours of activity and felt good about myself. I hopped on the Wii Fit this morning and it agreed, showing a 1.5 pound loss from the previous morning. I've still got some ground to cover to make up for the gains, but I'm back on my feet and I hit the ground running this time. It's good to be back.