JUST FOR TODAY -- One Day at a Time .... Daily commitment thread for 2019

Hi all, been absent this weekend as yesterday was crazy busy with the dinner party for my parents and today has been mostly spent recovering. I didn’t even set goals for today but calling the weekend a wash and starting fresh tomorrow. Just wanted to check in and send you all lots of love. X

Scale Goals progress: 06/08: 167.4
07/08: 167.4
08/08: 166.9
09/08: 166.4
10/08: 166.4
11/08: 166.3
12/08: 166.0
13/08: 166.0
14/08: 165.2
15/08: 165.2
16/08: 165.0
17/08: 164.4
18/08: 164.6 Normal bounce up after prolonged dropping
==============================
DISCARD 5 LBS CHALLENGE
NAME: Terri
SW: 167.4
GW: 162.4
CW: 164.6 - 2.8 lb
==============================

JFT: Sun 18 August
Nice easy day today.

• Meditation/Reflection 🌟
• Log food/stay in the green/hydrate 🌟
• 25 mins circuits/yoga 😏 12 mins done
• 6000+ steps 🌟 6200+
• Visit Elder daughter and her boys 🌟
• 15+ mins declutter session 🌟
• Work on crochet 🌟

JFT: Mon 19 August[/b]

• Meditation/Reflection
• Log food/stay in the green/hydrate
• 25 mins circuits/yoga
• 6000+ steps
• 2 hour dance session after lunch
• 15+ mins declutter session
• Work on crochet
• Laundry

Snowflake1968 wrote: »

That character is a true likeness and struggle of me myself and I!!!

Haven't weighed myself for a couple of weeks. Did this morning and have put on a couple of pounds. Need to stop this now, would be happy with maintaining right now as not really focussed enough to stick to 1200 calories.

So JFT Monday 19th

Stay under maintenance
No snacking
Drink enough (have water when you can't get tea!)
Stay positive. Remember - positive thoughts make the day better

Hey all, checking back in after a bit of an extended absence!

I've been struggling quite a bit lately, which I see from reading through that lots of you have as well. I had a holiday in France at the end of July which I was really looking forward to - I was pretty exhausted from work so was really looking forward to a week off where I was planning to just relax, spend lots of time outside, exercise, read... Unfortunately, in reality it turned out to be less than a relaxing experience... I was staying with my boyfriend's very large French family and 'relaxation' turned out to be somewhat hard to come by. I could barely sit down to read for about five minutes without some child wanting me to listen to them read, or a command coming from my boyfriend's mother to come and prepare some food, or a request from the boyfriend's sister to watch the kids for a while. All this was obviously quite reasonable and natural - you have to pitch in when you're staying with a big family - but it meant that the relaxation didn't happen quite as I'd envisaged! Also, the weather was not conducive to the exercise I'd planned. Half of the week was a heatwave, where it was too hot to do anything, then the second half of the week was miserable downpour. So exercise didn't happen (but obviously eating did).

So the result was that I came back not particularly more relaxed than when I went away, but several pounds heavier. And I went back to work to find thing were still just as awful as when I left. You may remember that my organisation is going through a 'transitional change' - my old organisation got 'abolished' and then got merged with two other organisations into a new one. We had a new CEO, who was awful, and subsequently got fired. We were hoping that things were going to get better following that, but very little has changed. There seem to be some real bad eggs and nasty politics going on within the management, and this is cascading down to create problems and chaos for all of those below. The atmosphere is really terrible and it seems like everyone is leaving. Every week there is a leaving do - sometimes more than one. And the HR director is making it really difficult to hire any replacements, so the number of people is going down and down. The place is half empty, it is super depressing. And those of us that are left are having to deal with more and more work and assorted chaos. My direct report handed her notice in nearly two months ago now - she's leaving at the end of next week - and they are still faffing around arguing about whether we actually need to replace her or not. I'm really quite concerned about how I'm going to cope when she's gone, as everything will fall on me then. Although really, I'm already feeling the impact because, with her leaving in two weeks, I'm starting to take over stuff that would have been done by her because I'm the one who will have to finish it anyway.

So, work is pretty awful, and is eating my time and energy. At the same time, I'm trying to maintain efforts to get a new job. The good news is that I actually do have an interview! On the 11th September. The bad thing though is that I'm finding it really difficult to find the time - and energy - to do anything for it. I feel like I should be putting lots of energy into that, but I don't really have any left after I'm done with work. I take papers with me to work with the intention of reading them on the train, or in my lunch break, but then find I just can't. So I haven't really done anything, and I'm feeling guilty about it. I'm also feeling guilty about the fact that I'm not doing very much to look/ apply for other jobs as well. I am still taking a day off a week to in theory do career stuff, but the reality is I'm often only spending a couple of hours on career stuff by the time I've a bit of a lie in (because I'm exhausted) and caught up on the chores I haven't managed to do in the rest of the week (because I'm exhausted). So, other than the interview, I'm not really going anywhere with the career stuff and I just feel a bit trapped.

I did actually have a good meeting with my CEO about my career. She doesn't want me to leave, and suggested a couple of things that could be opportunities for me:
- One would be that she's thinking of creating a role around 'service design' that she thinks I'd be good at, and is open to effectively telling the relevant director to create this role, which I'd probably get if I went for it. This is obviously good news, and I feel really lucky to have this option. However, I'm not too sure if this is the type of role I want to do - I'd been thinking about another line of work, and I don't want to go into something that ultimately isn't what I really want to do, because that would just take me further from what I actually want to to. I'd also potentially have to manage someone who is a bit of a pain, and also would have to keep on dealing with all the c*&* that's going on in my company. But, it's an option which I could consider
- The other would be for me to keep some of my existing role, but give up bits of it in order to take on new areas - in effect having a kind of hybrid role. This is actually quite interesting, but the big challenge is, with the whole issue around them potentially not replacing my direct report, it's not clear what bits of my role I'd be able to give up because there's nobody else to do them!!! If they do give the go-ahead to hire someone though, I could push for this - I would need to figure out what the extra things I'd like to take on are though

The upshot of all this is that:
- I've been feeling rather stressed, overwhelmed, and negative, and have been binging and overeating to make myself feel better. It hasn't made me feel better. I've put on about eight pounds now and am feeling really fat and flabby, and disappointed with myself. My energy levels are really low and when I try to exercise I struggle because I'm lugging round eight extra pounds of fat (and also I think I just feel mentally and emotionally tired which is making me feel physically tired)
- Because of the need to do career stuff e.g. prepare for interview, I've felt too busy to log on and set goals. I've been intending to use the time to prepare for my interview instead. I also feel pressure to keep up my French so I don't lose it. But in reality, I've done very little on either career or French because I've been too drained

Something needs to change, I can't go on like this. I think the first thing is going to be to just get my eating and drinking under control. Binging and drinking doesn't actually make me feel any better; overall it's just making me feel worse. I need to make a plan for how I can look after myself and deal with negative emotions without turning to food and drink. I think I also need to make a REALISTIC plan for how I can fit in my career stuff, without putting too much pressure on myself.

Within this plan, I need to work out whether I'll be able to log on here and post goals or not. It's tricky because I think I have done worse since I stopped doing that. But it does take out a chunk of every day that I'm not sure I can spare. I have thought about checking in and doing weekly goals on here, and then setting daily goals for myself just on pen and paper - I can do that more quickly than writing on here, particularly as when I write on here it tends to by on my phone and I'm not super quick at using the keyboard.

I'm going to take some time today to think about this and make a little plan. I will update later

Apologies for the huge moan. I was intending just to write a fairly short note explaining my absence... I guess once I got started I couldn't stop!!

I have missed you all and am sending love x

Good morning all! I feel like death after this weekend, no relaxation at all.. but must keep going! Have a great day everyone 😁.

JFT 8/19:

1. Stay within calorie goal
2. Finish putting dresser together
3. Put away clothes

JFT 8/18 Recap

Eat within maintenance calories
Healthy choices
20 minutes exercise
log accurately
journal

Peace and quiet! My kids are at camp, hubs is at work, and I have the day. I really need to fit exercise in today. I have some major work stress going on and need to get it handled today too. It's literally giving me a stomach ache. I hate that it effects me so much. I really overindulged Friday, Saturday I did ok and Sunday ok, but then got my period so that made me realize some of my feelings and indulgences were related. Didn't even realize it was on it's way.

Drink lots of water
30 minutes exercise
Eat within maintenance
healthy choices

So, the weekend was a bust food-wise and had really lazy day (< 4,000 steps) yesterday. Started out well, then went off the rails, didn't finish logging Sat. and couldn't be bothered Sunday. But I enjoyed it. Hugs to all, especially those who are struggling!

JFT M 8/19
1) Walked dog 3.66 mi 1:04:31 before work = happy dog & happy me
2) Move hourly / stairs breaks / 5 somethings
3) Meals & snack prelogged / net calories zero / 14c water
4) Complete GA-C/V O/I summaries & APG this week so I am finished when vacation starts F 4:30 p.m.
5) Make vet appt. for kitty / decide on dish to make for dept food day tomorrow / shop if necessary / drop off mail / prep for food day / wash dishes / other?
6) Unplug 9:00 / floss / retainers / set 5:40 alarm (walk dog before work T) / bed & tv off 10:20

bookmeister86 wrote: »

Hey all, checking back in after a bit of an extended absence!

I've been struggling quite a bit lately, which I see from reading through that lots of you have as well. I had a holiday in France at the end of July which I was really looking forward to - I was pretty exhausted from work so was really looking forward to a week off where I was planning to just relax, spend lots of time outside, exercise, read... Unfortunately, in reality it turned out to be less than a relaxing experience... I was staying with my boyfriend's very large French family and 'relaxation' turned out to be somewhat hard to come by. I could barely sit down to read for about five minutes without some child wanting me to listen to them read, or a command coming from my boyfriend's mother to come and prepare some food, or a request from the boyfriend's sister to watch the kids for a while. All this was obviously quite reasonable and natural - you have to pitch in when you're staying with a big family - but it meant that the relaxation didn't happen quite as I'd envisaged! Also, the weather was not conducive to the exercise I'd planned. Half of the week was a heatwave, where it was too hot to do anything, then the second half of the week was miserable downpour. So exercise didn't happen (but obviously eating did).

So the result was that I came back not particularly more relaxed than when I went away, but several pounds heavier. And I went back to work to find thing were still just as awful as when I left. You may remember that my organisation is going through a 'transitional change' - my old organisation got 'abolished' and then got merged with two other organisations into a new one. We had a new CEO, who was awful, and subsequently got fired. We were hoping that things were going to get better following that, but very little has changed. There seem to be some real bad eggs and nasty politics going on within the management, and this is cascading down to create problems and chaos for all of those below. The atmosphere is really terrible and it seems like everyone is leaving. Every week there is a leaving do - sometimes more than one. And the HR director is making it really difficult to hire any replacements, so the number of people is going down and down. The place is half empty, it is super depressing. And those of us that are left are having to deal with more and more work and assorted chaos. My direct report handed her notice in nearly two months ago now - she's leaving at the end of next week - and they are still faffing around arguing about whether we actually need to replace her or not. I'm really quite concerned about how I'm going to cope when she's gone, as everything will fall on me then. Although really, I'm already feeling the impact because, with her leaving in two weeks, I'm starting to take over stuff that would have been done by her because I'm the one who will have to finish it anyway.

So, work is pretty awful, and is eating my time and energy. At the same time, I'm trying to maintain efforts to get a new job. The good news is that I actually do have an interview! On the 11th September. The bad thing though is that I'm finding it really difficult to find the time - and energy - to do anything for it. I feel like I should be putting lots of energy into that, but I don't really have any left after I'm done with work. I take papers with me to work with the intention of reading them on the train, or in my lunch break, but then find I just can't. So I haven't really done anything, and I'm feeling guilty about it. I'm also feeling guilty about the fact that I'm not doing very much to look/ apply for other jobs as well. I am still taking a day off a week to in theory do career stuff, but the reality is I'm often only spending a couple of hours on career stuff by the time I've a bit of a lie in (because I'm exhausted) and caught up on the chores I haven't managed to do in the rest of the week (because I'm exhausted). So, other than the interview, I'm not really going anywhere with the career stuff and I just feel a bit trapped.

I did actually have a good meeting with my CEO about my career. She doesn't want me to leave, and suggested a couple of things that could be opportunities for me:
- One would be that she's thinking of creating a role around 'service design' that she thinks I'd be good at, and is open to effectively telling the relevant director to create this role, which I'd probably get if I went for it. This is obviously good news, and I feel really lucky to have this option. However, I'm not too sure if this is the type of role I want to do - I'd been thinking about another line of work, and I don't want to go into something that ultimately isn't what I really want to do, because that would just take me further from what I actually want to to. I'd also potentially have to manage someone who is a bit of a pain, and also would have to keep on dealing with all the c*&* that's going on in my company. But, it's an option which I could consider
- The other would be for me to keep some of my existing role, but give up bits of it in order to take on new areas - in effect having a kind of hybrid role. This is actually quite interesting, but the big challenge is, with the whole issue around them potentially not replacing my direct report, it's not clear what bits of my role I'd be able to give up because there's nobody else to do them!!! If they do give the go-ahead to hire someone though, I could push for this - I would need to figure out what the extra things I'd like to take on are though

The upshot of all this is that:
- I've been feeling rather stressed, overwhelmed, and negative, and have been binging and overeating to make myself feel better. It hasn't made me feel better. I've put on about eight pounds now and am feeling really fat and flabby, and disappointed with myself. My energy levels are really low and when I try to exercise I struggle because I'm lugging round eight extra pounds of fat (and also I think I just feel mentally and emotionally tired which is making me feel physically tired)
- Because of the need to do career stuff e.g. prepare for interview, I've felt too busy to log on and set goals. I've been intending to use the time to prepare for my interview instead. I also feel pressure to keep up my French so I don't lose it. But in reality, I've done very little on either career or French because I've been too drained

Something needs to change, I can't go on like this. I think the first thing is going to be to just get my eating and drinking under control. Binging and drinking doesn't actually make me feel any better; overall it's just making me feel worse. I need to make a plan for how I can look after myself and deal with negative emotions without turning to food and drink. I think I also need to make a REALISTIC plan for how I can fit in my career stuff, without putting too much pressure on myself.

Within this plan, I need to work out whether I'll be able to log on here and post goals or not. It's tricky because I think I have done worse since I stopped doing that. But it does take out a chunk of every day that I'm not sure I can spare. I have thought about checking in and doing weekly goals on here, and then setting daily goals for myself just on pen and paper - I can do that more quickly than writing on here, particularly as when I write on here it tends to by on my phone and I'm not super quick at using the keyboard.

I'm going to take some time today to think about this and make a little plan. I will update later

Apologies for the huge moan. I was intending just to write a fairly short note explaining my absence... I guess once I got started I couldn't stop!!

I have missed you all and am sending love x

Following this morning's pity party, I've had a reasonably productive day and am feeling a bit better (for now). I went to the gym and burnt a ton of calories whilst listening to energizing music. It made me feel SO GOOD. I also did a little bit of reading on career stuff this afternoon and went shopping and bought a ton of healthy food for the week ahead (my cart was pretty much entirely fruit and vegetables, it was very odd).

I have made a little bit of a plan for how to spend my time/ manage my energy so as to stop myself getting so overwhelmed but also get stuff done. My plan is to:
- Use my morning commute for planning my day, doing a QUICK French podcast (a little is better than nothing) and reading
- I'll take a FULL HOUR lunch break and use this for preparation/ reading for my job interview. If it's not raining, I'll sit outside to do this. If it is raining, I'll go to a cafe and buy a cheap drink (must remember to take my reusable cup so as not to kill too many turtles). I've previously felt like I can't afford an hour lunch because it means I leave work later, but realistically I'm not being very productive in the evenings anyway due to tiredness/ being drained so I might as well take a longer lunch and make the most of that time - while I have some energy!
- I'll relax on my way home by watching positive Netflix shows that make me feel good and restore my energy. Anyone got any recommendations? I'm working my way through Queer Eye at the moment. Nothing requiring brain power! If I'm particularly stressed out I might journal/ meditate instead.
- In my evenings I may try to do some productive things that don't require brain energy, like chores or arranging appointments etc, or I may read a bit of a French book to the boyfriend. However my main priority will be relaxation (baths/ foot spa will be my friend).

I feel like this is achievable, but let's see!

I'm also going to make the following changes to keep myself healthy and in a better mood:

- Cut out drinking on week nights
- Stop going to work drinks, with the exception of leaving drinks for people I work with a lot. It's tempting to go to these to bond with colleagues, but the reality is they are often full of moaning and just bring me down
- Instead, make time for socializing with my real friends - and for quality time with my boyfriend
- Eat better - 5+ fruit and veg per day
- Try to get outside for 15 minutes every day
- Prioritize exercise!
- Make time for my gratitude. As rubbish as things are, overall I'm still a very fortunate person and making time to remember that is important

I may not be on here every day in the week - there is a lot going on at the moment as you can see - however I'll do my best to check in once a week to update on my progress and also to see how you are all getting on. I miss you all when I don't check in :-)

Wishing you all the best for the week ahead x

Scale Goals progress: 06/08: 167.4
07/08: 167.4
08/08: 166.9
09/08: 166.4
10/08: 166.4
11/08: 166.3
12/08: 166.0
13/08: 166.0
14/08: 165.2
15/08: 165.2
16/08: 165.0
17/08: 164.4
18/08: 164.6 Normal bounce up after prolonged dropping
19/08: 164.6
==============================
DISCARD 5 LBS CHALLENGE
NAME: Terri
SW: 167.4
GW: 162.4
CW: 164.6 - 2.8 lb
==============================

JFT: Mon 19 August[/b]

• Meditation/Reflection 🌟
• Log food/stay in the green/hydrate 🌟
• 25 mins circuits/yoga 🌟
• 6000+ steps 🌟
• 2 hour dance session after lunch 🌟
• 15+ mins declutter session 🌟
• Work on crochet 🌟
• Laundry 🌟

JFT: Tue 20 August[/b]

• Meditation/Reflection
• Log food/stay in the green/hydrate
• 25 mins circuits/yoga
• 6000+ steps
• 15+ mins declutter session
• Work on crochet
• Laundry