It’s all up to me

This new food plan is working well so I’m cautiously optimistic that I have found my mojo. I think just removing the stress of having to stay 100% perfect to make any progress toward my goal has allowed me to focus on making healthy choices instead of eating crap after making 1 bad choice b/c I’ll be “perfect” the next day. I’m still thinking about where to set my goal for daily stars and a total amount of points; I don’t want to put it so low that I’m not going to lose weight but also not so high that I’m back to the all-or-nothing situation I was in before. I’ll have to keep thinking about that one.

I hopped on the scale this morning for the first time in 1 1/2 weeks and was surprised to see that I have lost 1/2 pound. Normally nothing to be excited about but considering all of the crap I have put in my mouth it’s a huge victory. I was planning to use a bad number (I honestly expected to be back in the 230’s) to serve as motivation but the 227.5 worked even better for motivation! We’re going to be so busy this weekend on sanding/varnishing windows, stripping/painting door trim, painting, etc. that I’ll probably forget to eat and obviously burn a ton of calories. I would LOVE to see 225 or lower but know that’s probably a bit unrealistic. I’ll just focus on my behavior and let the scale take care of itself.

School today was fun and I had a great day w/my 6th period class. They’re the group that had to do worksheets for about 3 days b/c they couldn’t handle anything less structured and they have specific procedures that they have to follow. I monitor their behavior as a group and every 5 minutes they have a chance to earn a point. They decided to set a goal of 150 points by the end of the year and if they meet it we’ll go outside and play kickball one day instead of having class. Normally I am 100% against a token economy but I finally realized that w/select populations of kids they need it. This group isn’t a bunch of bad kids, they’re a bunch of kids who have never been properly taught how to behave in class, how to resolve conflict and how to work hard for the sake of working hard. Beyond some of the behavior issues a majority of them are of lower ability which often leads to frustration in school. Today we played a game to learn vocabulary and we had an odd number so I played against a student, meaning that I was not constantly supervising them. We played for over 15 minutes and there wasn’t a single problem. The kids were on task, they were laughing and they were learning. This is what school should be like.

I had to modify my workout a little bit b/c I’m feeling a twinge in my knee. My Thursday workout has a lot of squats and lunges along w/shoulder work so I didn’t go as deep into the leg work which seemed to help. Afterward I did TJ Cardio party (again, modifying some of the knee work) and then spent a good 10 minutes stretching everything out afterward. Even though I stink like a pig I love how I feel.

One more day of school until the weekend, hopefully I’ll hear about the guidance job tomorrow. Have I mentioned that I’m not a very patient person?

Progress toward workout goal: 12/300
Food points earned: 20