This 'n that

Hey Amigos,

I should really try and update this more often. Well, that's a bit ballsy of me, seeing as it makes the assumption that others are reading this often enough that they want to hear more from me. That could be true, but I shouldn't assume it.

I don't have an excuse for being silent, I just never got around to writing.

I posted a healthy loss last week, and posted the exact same amount as a gain last night. I'm not surprised. I wasn't exactly living a Bacchanalian existence this last week, but I certainly wasn't following any sort of real 'plan.' I had several things that caused this gain. Maybe if it had been one of these things it wouldn't have happened, but put them altogether and you've got a gain baby.

1. I didn't track my points (that is, I didn't log what I was eating and the points value of what I was eating).

2. Rather than cooking, I resorted to convenience foods. Not fast food or anything like that, but some premade sushi, a couple things from the Outpost deli, that sort of stuff.

3. Speaking of Outpost, I ate a few too many of their cookies. They're homemade all natural cookies, and I sometimes indulge myself because you can buy just one, but it's not something I should do regularly; and I obviously overdid it this week.

4. I didn't exercise enough.

5. I wasn't vigilant about drinking water.

So, you put all that stuff together, and what do you have? A gain.

On the interesting side, I gained the EXACT same amount I'd lost the previous week. So psychologically that is good because I can sort of convince myself that the past week didn't really happen. I'm exactly where I was a couple weeks ago and I can just pick up from here, which is exactly what I intend to do.

I'm not surprised I've lost a bit of steam. I've been going at this for 7 months now, and while I'm still quite satisfied with the program, I guess I felt tempted to push the envelope a bit. See what I could get away with.

Well, I learned a lot by doing so. My grip on my weight loss is tenuous and I need to be ever vigilant. I still see room for a little indulgence, but I need to maybe examine why I overdo the indulging thing every now and then. And I especially need to be more vigilant about getting out and moving around. I can almost guarantee that if I'd exercised better over the last week I wouldn't have gained, or at least not that amount.

And speaking of exercise, I just got back from my walk around campus. I'm going to try and do it again this afternoon. It's funny though, it's not that warm, but I still get awfully sweaty when I'm walking in the full sunlight (and there's not a cloud in the sky). I'd say my walk, which is about a mile, is about 1/3 in the shade and 2/3 in the sun. So I do come back to my desk a bit sweaty. But it feels so good to get my blood pumping. Something funny, I can tell that I didn't walk last week. It was just a teeny bit more difficult than normal. I'm sure my body reverted back to where it was. It's kind of done that all over the place, hasn't it.

Not much else is new amigos. I've got another busy weekend, but thankfully a friend is taking my 4 hour shift at the adoption center on Sunday. I took hers last week, a very last minute thing (the original sub didn't show), and was thrilled when she could do mine.

I steam cleaned my carpets over the weekend. I know that's not the most exciting thing, but it is one of those chores where you really feel a sense of accomplishment when you're through. I just rented a little Rug Doctor for a day and did the living room and kitchen (yes, my kitchen is carpeted; the owners installed brand new berber carpeting before I moved in; it's ridiculous but I haven't felt like changing it just yet). You should see the water when the canister fills up...nothing short of amazing, really. I also cleaned and polished my leather couch. The animals have done a number on it and it needed it BAD. I plan on bringing that into my regular cleaning rotation.

I'm sort of a changed person lately when it comes to cleaning. I'd say maybe in the last 6 months to a year I've just become a tidier person. I do my dishes more regularly, I vacuum more regularly, I tend to not leave stuff lying around. Except clothes. I haven't quite figured out the clothes sitch just yet.

I'm just really bad with figuring out what goes where. My bedroom has 2 closets; one is quite largish. It's not really a walk in, although you can walk into it, so maybe it is, it's just small. The other is an average closet. And i have a dresser and a bureau. But the thing is, I have no concept of what should go where. I've got bras over in one drawer, and undies and socks each have their own drawers. But everything else is a crap shoot. I have no idea how to best utilize the space; like what I should hang, where I should put sweaters, should I change things out with the seasons.

Yeah, I'm pretty lame that way. So a lot of the time I just have clothes around my bedroom. Folded and clean, mind you (that, like bras and undies, has a permanent space), just disorganized and not really put anywhere. I'm hopeless with arranging my clothes! And it's not like I'm not organized in the kitchen, because I am, relatively (you have to be with as little space as I have in my kitchen), but the clothes thing just has me stymied.

I'm tempted, though I never would, to hire an organizer. Don't sweat it amigos, I'm not going to do it, because in the end it seems foolish and should be something I can do on my own and I don't have money to spend on something like that. I am going to have to do some research, dig through some old Real Simple magazines, maybe watch an infomercial...

Whoah, jumped the track there didn't I...but I guess it's all tied in. Self improvement tends to have a ripple effect, don't you think?