Competition and Recovery: 2011 Week 9 Update

I am still hacking up goobies from my lungs, but I'm feeling about a million times better than last week at this time. It no longer hurts to breath, and despite the mucous, my energy is up a bit again.

I took yesterday pretty much completely off from life. I sat/lay around reading a book all day (Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan). I did a little bit of tidying around the house because I was having my friend Katie over for dinner and movie night, but that's about it as far as productivity.

There were three major things I see as working against me in my weight loss efforts last week. For one, I knew that I was going to weigh in for the start of my between-friends weight-loss competition on Friday and although it might be silly, part of me was thinking, "Why lose the weight before the first weigh in when I won't get credit for it?" The second factor I'm going to blame this week's weigh in on (yes, it's coming) is recovery from bronchitis, and feeling generally sluggish. I didn't make it into work at all last week, and although I made it into class and got a few things done in my personal life, most of the rest of the time I was very sedentary. Third, last Tuesday I got a call about an interview that was then scheduled for the next day. I was pretty excited about it. I've been really struggling financially, and this particular position would have also been good experience to lead into the new career I'm aiming toward. But 3 hours or so before the interview, I got a call saying they'd already found someone so not to bother coming in. There ensued comfort food binge. I've been to the donuts shop twice this week. Not like me at all.

I need better coping strategies for when stuff like that happens. I think the first thing I did was call my mom and vent. I remember trying to be productive about it and go looking for further similar positions online that I could apply for. But I also ate. Maybe I should have thrown myself into cleaning. Or vented to friends until the sting wore off. Or taken my sick ass to a coffee shop or a bookstore for distraction. Hmm.

So anyway, in the end I'm 1200 calories over budget for the week. I did do a little walking. My protein was about 70g per day and my sugar was around 140g per day on average, so need to skew that back in the right direction again.

And, in the end, I'm 2.4 pounds up this week, back up to 337.8. So, okay, that's not great, and I'm now quite a bit further behind in my gradual year goal (I should be at 332.4 if I were on track). But I have come a long ways. Hell, even since the new year I'm over 12 pounds down, so that's nothing to scoff at. But I'm going to do better this week.

For the future, here are some things I want to try next time I'm headed toward food for reasons other than hunger:

-bubble bath
-give myself a pedicure
-read a good book
-go shopping or browsing
-watch a favorite movie
-call a friend
-make some tea
-do arts and crafts
-drive to the beach and look at the water
-write a letter
-clean
-write something (maybe here!)
-take pictures
-start a sewing project
-go to the gym / walk / do a workout video
-play with the cats
-chew gum
-play an instrument
-play a game