A pause for the cause

Well, today was an interesting day. To start things off I had my Tuesday morning weigh in. I wish I was able to journal that I've had some giant breakthrough but the reality is that the needle was right where it was last week. 196.5 if I looked at it optimistically...

So, what does it mean? I must admit, at first this whole blog thing seemed a bit pointless when I saw the scale. My brain went right to "what a fascinating journal this is, I can show people how to exercise enough to not change your weight and how to not really alter your diet..." I believe that's what the AA people call "stinking thinking."

Once the pity party ended I tried to have more rational discussion with myself. Here's what I think I know today
- It's only been 5 weeks. I'm undoing years of bad stuff, so I must be patient.
- If I'm honest, my food tracking has gone south since I quit myfooddiary.com. It's time to get back on that, it's the thing that works best. For some reason, the LiveStrong tracker feels like I can lie to it more. Yes, that is correct, I lie to computer programs... Which means I lie to myself. You know, a handful of chips here, a piece of candy there and if you "forget" to record it, you make your goals for the day:)
- Going backwards is not an option, so maintaining my weight this week is a win
- It's 92.7% about diet
- Exercise must be scheduled (my overly fit brother confirmed that recently, I only call him over fit out of envy...and love)

Exercise and Nutrition update: Today was a complete day off. I had retirement parties at noon and in the evening. I drank a few beers and ate finger foods. I came home and split a small pizza with my daughter. It is all I can do to not categorize it as a "farewell to fat" evening...
Rather, I think we'll just call it a night off and move on tomorrow.

Tomorrow I re-register at myfooddiary.com. I also am planning on workouts after work on W&R. I will follow that with a trainer session with Danni Friday morning in the pool. That means Saturday off. And then Sun. & Mon back on before the next weigh in.

My regular schedule will be 5 days a week. I am designating Tuesday and Fridays as my days off. I will make exceptions to that when I need to meet with Danni on Fridays.

Random Musings: Tonight I was able to attend a retirement party for a teacher that works in my department and has taught there for the last 34 years. I like retirement parties, it feels good to see how much people care about the retiree. Those of us in education are spoiled in that we get to do work that has a very direct impact on others (certainly not the only profession that gets that, but we are one of them). To see someone wrap up 34 years of making a difference is pretty powerful.

I hope that when I'm ready to call it a career, I can have the sort of powerful emotions our teacher Tom did tonight. I don't know if I need a big roast, but I do want to know that what I did mattered.

If you can know that you are good at what you do and that you made a difference, that seems pretty good to me. For those of you following my other meandering search for meaning, I would add that getting another college degree doesn't guarantee any of that.