Plateau

I've hit a wall or a plateau on this weight loss journey. I think several factors are in play such as it's winter and the weather doesn't always allow a walk, it's after holidays so we may still be eating snacks, drinks and things that we need to cut out again, and the weather has been especially gloomy so I'm getting depressed.

All the advice is to review what you were doing that worked. Check the portions. Check the ingredients. Check the time that you eat and bump up the exercise. It's hard to do. During our 6 months where we hit it hard it was summer. That allowed us to walk twice a day and make those walks longer. Once holidays rolled around and visiting relatives came, we were drinking alcohol and maybe eating more than usual. We were trying desserts, still eating salads and watching what we ate but not as strictly as before.

Now I find that I'm not maintaining. I'm starting to gain weight. I'm being stubborn, you know, like a four-year-old who stomps her foot and says, "but I wanna". I think I'm going to have to refresh my thinking and do some psychological work. Just like becoming aware that the brain is lying to you in the beginning of the journey. I stand up when the brain tells me to snack and check to see if the stomach is full or not. I haven't been doing that lately so that may be part of it.

To review, we were using the MIND diet. Basically, what we were doing from that was leafy greens every day, berries twice per week, nuts 5 times per week, whole grains 3 times per day, fish twice per week, beans 4 times per week, poultry twice a week and red meat only once per week. We haven't been doing all that. No sugar, no alcohol, no potatoes, no rice, and no pasta. I had a Manhattan last night, that was definitely a bad idea. What I have to do here is adjust the menu and get back on track. One of the things we also did was to have a meal replacement shake. Hubby likes those. The little girl in me is tired of them. It's cold outside so I don't want a shake. I'm going to try replacing that with miso soup and see how I do.

I see that I have to get back on the eating plan and schedule and bump up the exercise. I've been keeping up with my weightlifting. At my age I want to make sure I'm building muscle, so I keep up with my MWF routine. I've been slowly increasing the number of reps and the number of circuits. I can't seem to get into a routine with the stationary bike or the rowing machine. I gotta tell ya, I tried jumping jacks the other day and I thought I might have died. I think I managed 15 jumping jacks and 5 half-push-ups. I was ok during the workout but when I sat down afterwards my heart was racing and I felt fatigue. I'm definitely still out of shape.

The weather is warming up and the sun is shining so I'm going for a walk again. Wish me luck!