Hope

Well...

things haven't been going so well. I've fallen out of my strong habits I built over the summer. I thought weighing every week was putting my focus in the wrong place, but this just isn't the case! Weighing every week DOES put my focus in the RIGHT place. This process must move forward, I can't just abort.

-I'm not walking everyday
-I haven't been eating my salad each day
-not drinking much water
-I've been gaining weight
-I feel crummy physically in the past few days

So I've identified what I'm struggling with:
-keeping fresh salad in the house (inventory control)
-walking in the dark and cold (I don't mind the wet!)
-drinking more water
-obviously, eating less

These things seemed easy when I started them, so why do they seem so difficult now? I need to spend some time looking at what's going on so I can solve the problem. I can no longer ignore that things just aren't working.

WALKING:
So...if my main walk is 45 minutes, what time do I need to leave the house so I can return before my husband goes to work? And what time do I need to get out of the sheets so I can meet that goal? I took a quick look at reality and discovered that I need to leave by 6:45am so I need to get out of bed no later than 6:30am. OK, so that's a hard constant. 6:30am.

The other issue is the dark. I've actually enjoyed my walks in the dark so I don't really need to worry about that. The darkest morning will be the Winter Solstice, which is December 21st...sunrise is about 7:58am on that day. So for the next six weeks, darkness will increase by about a half an hour. It may still be dark arriving home at 7:30am come Christmas, but then the glorious truth that the days start getting longer again after Christmas...and time for primroses on the porch.

The cold, on the other hand, is a tough one for me. We had two days in the low thirties...yes, below freezing is NOT my idea of good walking weather. Thankfully, we're back into the forties today. I think I'll deal with this one day at a time. Worst case, would it be horrible to take a week off if we have an entire week of cold...not really. Looking at the weather report, there's two days out of the next seven that dip into the thirties. I think I can ignore that and GO anyways. I don't like the idea of back to back days of freezing, possibly leaving the wet sidewalks icy. So I think the issue is ice, not the discomfort of starting my walk being physically cold (I soon get all warmed up as I walk). But for now, I'm good.

This comes down to CHOICE. I have to CHOOSE to get up. I've been choosing to stay in bed, but my HIGHER DESIRE is to GET UP. So last night, I made sure I had the right socks, put my shoes out, made sure my jacket was accessible and went to bed earlier, setting my alarm for 6:15am. This morning, though I didn't get up immediately, I DID take a great walk! I got out the door! YAY!

SALAD:
Last week I wrote down all my favorite salad ingredients in hopes of evaluating what's wrong. I don't like that the salad feels high maintenance! Every day I feel like I'm out of an item, which makes me not want to make the salad and I don't like having to spend so much energy thinking about what I'm going to run out of next.

romaine lettuce
spinach
chicken
celery
red pepper
red onion
snap peas
cucumber
garbanzo beans
sesame stix
sunflower seeds
fruit (craisins or fresh blueberries, which are now out of season)
salsa
salad dressing

The challenge is having the fresh items FRESH and not running out before the next trip to the store. I've decided to purchase bag-o-lettuce instead of fresh. My store RARELY has a good head of romaine, when then have any at all (they sell out so fast). This does help the fresh factor, I can buy a little "ahead" because the bags have the expiration date, letting me know about how long they'll last. So that takes care of the lettuce and spinach (snap peas come in bag, too).

Often, I'll run out of chicken and forget to prepare some ahead of time. Since I keep chicken in the freezer, if I don't plan ahead, I have to crack open a can of chicken, which is most unsatisfying on salad, in my opinion. Solution: cook up 4 chicken breasts, chop, weigh and put in ziploc bags in the freezer. When I make my salad each day, my job is to take out a bag of chicken for the next day (so it will thaw overnight). EASY. Now I have "fresh" chicken everyday and don't have to worry about it until I run out in the freezer. There's about 15 bags ready to go now. Perfect inventory control!

I've decided for the fresh veggies to buy organic. I could NOT BELIEVE the difference in TASTE and COLOR with regards to the (expensive) $5 red pepper. It was worth it! The celery I cut up and put half stalks in a container so that's the only item I need to chop before each salad. No more celery going bad because the pieces are all ready to go...no washing, just cutting each day. The cucumber...I cut up half the cuke into pieces and put the other half with the pieces in a container. Now I have pieces for a few days, but the other half of the cuke is still intact so when I'm ready for more pieces, they'll be relatively fresh since I didn't chop the entire cucumber when it came home from the store. Red onion lasts awhile, so I chopped up half and put in a glass container and wrapped the other half, hoping it doesn't get mushy.

Inventory control for garbanzo beans, sesame stix, sunflower seeds, craisins and salad dressing is not an issue.

By doing this exercise, I've discovered the reason my daily salad has failed in the past has to do with a couple key ingredients. By identifying these, I can get a better hold of what needs to happen to keep them fresh and ready for daily use. And since I've taken over the grocery shopping again, I really do have control and can plan trips to the store according to salad needs, if need be. YAY!

DRINKING MORE WATER:
Hmmm. This is more about actually DRINKING MORE WATER! I was using a daily tracking sheet and that helped me see how much I WASN'T drinking, I'll start tracking again today.

EATING LESS:
It is really exciting to me that eating breakfast and lunch are no-brainers. There's no temptation because I'm never hungry. I eat my bowl of Fiber One with coconut milk and one egg and then later, the salad. This gets me through until 4ish, when I need a snack. On hungry days, I have the snack earlier. We've been eating dinner around 6:30ish, so a snack at 4pm doesn't ruin my appetite.