This week was met with the first frost of the season and all the fun of real, authentic, freezing, fall weather. I made that promise to myself to get out and run, regard less of the weather, but Monday was chilly and my planned rest day. Tuesday was also cold and it just seemed like a good idea to give my body just one more day of recovery… On Wednesday I started to recognize that I was being lazy and by Thursday I fully owned it by adjusting my calories which I blew through on Friday by feeling like eating my way through everything in my path that day. It was definitely a high-low week for feeling chilly, feeling good, feeling bad and feeling worn out! I battled the food demons, the Blerch and depression. It was a challenging week, so I am not going to be too upset about it.
One of my favorite moments was definitely Glasses Day at work. Two of my colleagues picked up new specks within a day of each other so we had a glasses day to celebrate their new glasses! I briefly wore my grandfather’s old army glasses. At 8:10 that morning, we met in the frosty air with all of our respective glasses on for a picture. I’ve loved every staff I’ve had the opportunity to work with, but I definitely think change is good. It’s not so much that my gifts were lost at my last school as much as they were already utilized and understood. It’s wonderful to go to a new work environment where I get to learn so much from my newer colleagues, but I also get to see myself anew through their eyes. It’s incredibly reaffirming and I definitely feel the love from and for my people. ❤️
This morning Bradley and I were drinking coffee, considering the day when I realized that he had a big project going (He’s pouring and making our concrete countertops! Our kitchen is getting finished, at last!). I realized I was going to be on my own in the house so I quickly hopped online and looked at the gym schedule for the gym close to my house and saw that there was a Zumba class starting in 15 minutes! Right after that a body pump weightlifting class was scheduled. I decided to get dressed and dash to the gym, and made it there ten minutes into the first class. It felt good to move, but I didn’t feel like I got an absolutely amazing workout, for some reason. I decided to definitely stay for the body pump class, and but the end of it my quads were burning, my shoulders tight and my triceps tingling! It was a great way to start my Thanksgiving week off right!
I snapped the mirror selfie on my way out the door because I keep being surprised by my appearance again lately. I don’t know what the shift is, but every once in a while I just catch a glimpse of myself and -I think it must be in an instant when I’m thinking I’m still 340 pounds or so – and I’ll get startled by what I see: this little person in the mirror.* This was one of those moments, so I took it.
The picture and the fierce feeling after my classes got me thinking, too. Maybe I need a goal in front of me. Maybe I need something to dangle in front of myself to stay focused over the course of the next six weeks, and just maybe that is making the goal of 150 pounds officially lost by 2016! I always say I’ve lost ‘about’ 150 pounds, but the absolute truth is that I’ve ‘only’ lost 148 pounds. It would be a pretty cool thing to be officially in the 150 club… So I think I’m going to try for it! That definitely means I need to be serious about working out and eating lots of clean foods! Here’s hoping I can do it! And if I don’t make it, putting every effort towards the success of this goal so I don’t feel disappointed in myself.
While in the class today, I got the big idea to make pumpkin soup from our remaining pumpkinMon our porch. I chopped it up when I got home and processed most of it for Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, and some of it for today’s pumpkin soup. I’ve had several run-ins with pumpkin soup this autumn, at high hunger times like after the half marathon or really delayed waiter services, and I have been a bit obsessed with getting my hands on a bowlful or seven more. So today, at last, I made a huge pot of it. It is so stinking good. So today, I will eat it to my heart’s content. Today. But that’s it. Pumpkin soup is kind of like a one meal kind of deal- done after that. A little bit and I’m set. It’s delicious, but it turns out I can only take it so far. I know that, now. 😉 Those beloved colleagues I mentioned will have something to warm their tummies waiting in the staff room tomorrow.
*At least littler than I expect- do you see Amazon Tamara in the glasses picture towering above her colleagues?? Like I’ve said, I have no problem being an Amazon and I only point it out so I can get used to the idea that I’m naturally bigger structured than most women and that’s okay! Perhaps my tag name should be Tamazon. Oooohhhh. I like that… Lol!