Week 2 of the Spring Fling THM - Challenge

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

So I finished week 2 of the Spring Fling THM-Challenge and I am starting week 3. First of all....a NSV (non scale victory). My NSV is that in 14 days....count 'em....14!!!....I have not veered from the plan even once. THAT to me is a victory. In all my years....I have never stuck to a plan this long without at least a little cheat. So as you can see....for me....it's big! I am extremely proud of myself and honestly, my body feels better for it. I have already lost the sugar cravings and I have never once felt "physically" hungry, the whole time.

I say "physically" hungry, because I will admit that there were a few times where I felt a few "emotional" hunger pains. You know what I am talking about. Your kid is suppose to be home at midnight and you haven't heard from him at 1 a.m.. The washer broke down and now you have to haul a U-Hauls worth of clothes to the laundry mat....or....you thought you were doing so good losing weight and you overhear someone make a less than flattering remark about your muffin top. Any and/or all of these things can send you over the bend and directly into "emotional" hunger. You know the hunger.....where you are tearing the house apart looking for those cookies you hid just in case or yanking up couch cushions looking for abandoned jelly beans.

Luckily, I was able to talk myself off the emotional ledge, but there were a couple of close calls. I have found that drinking water...a lot of water....in moments such as this does help. Another old trick that I use is when I know I am emotionally hungry and nothing more, I brush my teeth with the mintiest toothpaste I can find. After that, nothing but water is palatable for at least an hour and by then it is either time to eat or enough time has passed that the emotional issue is no longer an issue.

Even though I have been a "perfect" THMer this week, the scales showed only a 4/10 of a lb loss. I won't lie, after last weeks loss, this was a bit disappointing. I had to remind myself that even though it was small, it was still a loss and not to look a gift horse in the mouth. It did however make me take a closer look at my "perfect" week.

I think I said before that I keep a daily food journal. It is just a little notebook that I write down the foods I eat, how much water and GGMS I drink and my daily exercise. So on looking back at last week, the one area that was glaringly absent was EXERCISE. I managed to walk one day last week and the rest of the week....nahda. I also think that perhaps I had too many S meals and needed a few more E's and a few more FP's thrown in. While I never fell off plan once this week, after the week before, perhaps I needed to shake my meals up a bit. I will implement those changes with more exercise this week and then by next week, the scales should positively reflect the changes. Fingers crossed!

It is very easy to get frustrated, discouraged and down right fed up when you feel as if you have done it all right and the scales don't give you the numbers you are hoping for. It is at these moments that it would be easy to throw in the towel and find the first available cheesecake and devour the whole thing. However, when you are changing your life for the better, sometimes you have to take the good with the not so good. There will be weeks that the scale simply doesn't reflect all we feel we have put into our plan. That is when you look beyond the scale. Do your pants fit looser? Can you now fit into shorts that you couldn't a month ago? Look....you can now actually button your blouse. My hands aren't swollen from too much sugar. I was able to walk an extra mile two times this week, and I am now down to two chins instead of three. In essence, whether the scale is reflecting the changes or not....your body is. Don't judge your progress by your scales alone.

So, yeah....I did well this week even though the scales didn't move as much as I would have liked. I feel good and my body is feeling good. I have set a goal and I intend to keep it, knowing that this journey for me is about learning who I am, listening to what my body is telling me and proving to myself that I am worth the time and effort it takes to take care of me.

I hope you all are having an amazing Memorial Weekend and please remember those who have given their all so that we might remain free!