Reward and consequence

I've heard, read that during the weight loss journey I should reward myself. But don't use food as a reward.

Totally foreign. I really don't know how to reward without food.

The dialogue from my past goes something like:

Ooo, good concert, let's go get pizza!

Finals are over! Let's get to the bar!

Fourth of July! Let's bar b q!

Camping, let's have a fish fry!

It's Thanksgiving, haven't seen you in years! What's on the table?

I have no idea how to celebrate without food being a part of it. Until today. While watching "Heavy" on A & E they talked about a young man who was always concerned with food and if there was enough of it.  That clicked in my brain. There wasn't enough of it in his house so it became special, necessary, comforting. It became his reward, his special thing to comfort.

Shoes, shoes are a reward. A nice dress, a new DVD, some new music... these are rewards. These are little treasures I should treat myself to, not food. Even now, I find myself fighting this concept. Food isn't a reward? What about making special things? What about cakes and cookies and Friday doughnuts? What about chips and cheese to share over a movie? What about popcorn and a giant soda at the theater? What about an Icee on a hot day? Or going to DQ? My goodness, it's positively ingrained in me. The realist wants to say there is no way to avoid food as a celebratory factor, such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, New Years, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day... it does go on, doesn't it? A seemingly never ending reason to celebrate.

I think I will pick and chose which days I will use food as a celebratory thing. I hadn't realized until now how many times I've used it to celebrate things. I even instigated a doughnut day for when my youngest went to preschool to help him understand when the last day of preschool was for him. What I should have been doing was taking him somewhere special to do something fun instead.

This started out to be a post to explain how I was going to treat myself to shoes for every ten pounds lost as a reward. A really expensive pair of boots when I hit my goal weight. Now I've realized what a disservice I've been doing for myself and my family by using food as a reward for practically everything I could. They aren't overweight yet, but if I don't change they will carry that same thinking with them into adult hood and use food for celebrating every little thing.

Bike

I rode for about fifteen minutes, a quick run around the neighborhood. But enough to make me drip when I got home, heh.

My dismount was... not pretty. I'm not sure what happened but I found myself almost doing the splits with the bike under me when I was trying to get off. I prefer my inner leg stretches to be voluntary, thank you very much. heh.

I could walk up the steps so I'm OK. Maybe a walk later.

Walking

Walked yesterday. It was humid. The braces I purchased to shore up the ankles didn't help as much by the time we got home. The hot/cold gel did, whew!

However,  I got a little silly and bought a giant container of cheese balls. Cheese balls kept popping up in conversation that just made them sound yummy. And they are. They are almost gone due to the diligence of everybody in the place, heh. Late night cheese ball goodness = early morning puffiness.

My goal for this week was to get two pounds off. Now it's three pounds.    : /

How MUCH!?

Little Ceasar's Pizza isn't too bad.

Calorie wise it's a nightmare. 1/8 slice of the ultimate supreme, which I ate today, is 310 calories (K) and 33 grams of carbohydrates.

I had three pieces. A lot over the top for the plan of around 50 grams of carbs per meal I've made for myself. That's around 40% of a 1600 K diet that I know works for me. The pizza was the first thing I had to eat today because poor oldest had to go to the doctor with food poisoning. He learned a lesson in checking dates, poor thing. Because of the visit I didn't eat until around 1:30 this afternoon. I was starving! For anyone reading, he's doing fine now. Sleepy, but fine.

I don't expect to loose anything today. My eating wasn't the best. I should expect to maintain. I'm telling myself this because I did really well yesterday and have to remind myself not to get disappointed. There is a reason for a stall.

I also took my bike out yesterday which helps in the exercise area. I lost about 1/4 of an inch, give or take. A shirt I wore two months ago was loose on me. Yeah!

I feel normal in my body most days. It moves the way I feel it should, it doesn't creak too much unless I'm stretching and it is doing what I'm asking of it... most of the time.

The days when it becomes obvious to me that my body is not all it can be are days when I ask it to do something and it can't quite perform. I went swimming on Sunday. I was fine until I got home. I was so tired I couldn't resist taking a nap. Caused by twenty minutes in the water and forty just hanging out in the heat. I was one of those kids that was at the pool for hours on end.

We went outside to fix the youngest bike so he can get to riding. The wind was blowing and it was 98. I went inside and developed a nice little headache.

The worst of the worst for me is when I see a picture of me at a time I know I was feeling normal. One of me at a sewing machine during a class another of me dancing with the an old friend who is a bass player at one of his gigs. OMG! I need to really lose some inches.

Today I started with more mindful eating. Now I'm going out to help that youngster with his bike.