WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO doggy this mama is tired today. I'm not 100% sure why, but my armband is telling me I'm only at 88% sleep efficiency for this last week so that must be it.

Or, it's just from the day. It's been a day of running around. Dentist appointments for the kids, which always make me stressed out. You might recall Luke's dental track record and then you might remember why going to a new dentist is stressful. Because really, it's just picking out of a phonebook basically when you move, and I really have to get it right, because we've made too much progress dentally to start all over. So, picking them up and getting to the new place where you really aren't sure where it is on time (did not score). Clean bill of health? (SCORE!) Great dentist? YES! LOVED HER! And she didn't even criticize the previous person's work. What's up with that? Why when you go to a new dentist/hairdresser/mechanic/have someone to your house to do some sort of work/ etc. do they always say something to the effect of "a colorblind 2nd grader who read a do-it-yourself manual must have done this work"? I have NO idea why they would have done it this way, but it's CERTAINLY shoddy work and must be redone.

And she didn't do that. SCORE! But then, it's an hour and half later, the little missy has missed her nap, the front office people realize that the 11 page per kid online new patient forms I filled out last night (JUST to avoid having to do it in the waiting room with three kids!!!) didn't come through and I must sit there and refill them all out.

And missing my exit on the way to the dentist. And changing a poopy diaper in the school lobby on the dirty floor because there's no where else during basketball practice. And babies swirling fingers in toilets. And dishes to still clean up from dinner at 8:30 after putting all the kids to bed. Whew. I'm tired.

But, there was one thing that did not wear me out today and that was hearing my weight loss comeback at JC.

Week 5 Results:

Lost: -4.8

Cumulative: -12.4

 

Yee hah. So thankful for this! And now into a new decade of weight which is always motivating to me. Now I can reward myself with the massage I got from Rob for Christmas.

 

The biggest thing that has changed this time around is how I look at activity. Prior to this, when I read things like get your exercise in by Parking farther away! Or, take the stairs! I thought that these pieces of advice were for really inactive 300 lb people who did not get off the couch often, and literally just needed to get up. However, what I have come to realize, is that for a person who isn't doing a lot of 'formal' exercise, your daily movements really do count. I am now trying to be as inefficient as possible, so rather than gathering up 5 things on the steps to carry up at once, I now make individual trips up and down. Instead of sitting down in the waiting room, I stand or walk around. And it's honestly through the armband that I can see the activity levels when I am running errands a lot vs. picking up the house. I can see the huge spike in activity when I do Just Dance with my kids, or take a walk after school with Josie in the stroller. And I can see when it's been enough to offset my calories, and when I still need to do more to make the deficit big enough to lose. I think being a numbers/analytical person, this armband and the data was exactly what I needed now to show me results in black and white. Calories burned minus calories consumed should be a 1000 calorie deficit each day on average to lose around 2 lbs a week.

The other learning would just be to eat a donut to kick off your weight loss effort for the week. It seemed to work.