Perfect 10 - Week 2

Remember that I committed to a 10 week challenge called the Perfect 10. Quick review: I have three categories of goals. Updates below.

• Goal #1: Eat out once a week or less (there are some caveats, read the original post for details) - I ate out twice this week, but I would hardly call either meal worth it. Sunday night I was munchy munchy and just in the mood to eat crappy food. Sunday I just didn't feel like things were clicking. I have no idea what was up. This story, unfortunately, does not end well. It ends up, of all places, at the Sam's Club snack bar. While grocery shopping I just could not resist one of those pieces of pizza. Well, technically I could have, but I chose not to. A $2.48 slice of pizza and pop. Are you for real?! I hemmed and hawed over whether I should count that as a meal out. I mean, my motivation was both financial and for health. Should I really count $2.48 as an infraction? I ultimately decided that, yes, I needed to. This journey is for me. It's not for anyone else. If I lie or stretch the rules about what it means to eat out, I am just harming myself. More fundamentally, it sets a dangerous precedent. Little white lies become bigger and bigger and bigger....until they're 299.5 lbs or bigger big. And man, I don't need that! The second meal was today at lunch. I had Subway. All by myself, the result of poor planning and not having a lunch ready. Like I said, neither meal out was really worth it. Overall grade on eating out goal: C. Worlds better than before the challenge, but it's week two so the grading gets tougher. To get an A you have to nail the goal, which I did not do.

• Goal #2: Jump aboard the weight loss train again. I rejoined WW last week, and this week was my first weigh in. I lost 2.6 lbs. I count it a win. I am not loving weighing in fully clothed and later in the day, but loving watching the number go down :) I give myself an A on this goal.

• Goal #3: The fitness goals. I wanted to attend three different fitness classes a week -- this week I did five. I did BodySculpt (very similar to Les Mills' BodyPump) -- it's an all over toning class, working through all the major muscle groups in the body. I did Zumba -- twice! I loved it. I did Group Cycle spinning classes -- twice! (and again in the morning too). Tough workout, but I like it and I love the music. I did PiYo (pilates yoga fusion) and boy do I despise it. I like stretching my hips out (helps with my SI joint pain), but I despise sun salutations. And the whole thing seems very boring to me. At least there is music. And, of course, I did my beloved water aerobics :) With respect to the elliptical machine goal I set, I did not work on it. I am not sure whether it is doable (probably it is), but let me offer a legitimate explantation as to why I did not work on it. This week the gym has been PACKED. I swear to you that every single sorority girl apparently made a New Year's resolution to hit the gym, because darned if they are not all there (typically in packs of 5-10). It has been absolutely a beast to try to get a machine at the gym. I give myself a pass on this, and am considering joining a real gym (in addition to the one at school) that is less crowded so that I can try to meet my elliptical goal. I have not decided on this yet. Overall for this goal: I believe I earned an A since I literally could not get time on the elliptical. (Bonus - earned 60 activity WW points)

Overall, my grades average out to a B+. Not atrocious by any standard, but I am a perfectionist and I WANT AN A!! I need to up the game if I am going to earn that for next week :)

As for a previously unknown fact (to most of my readers anyway) -- I failed swim lessons 3 different times when I was a child. I hated putting my face in the water. I feared drowning and would cling on to the poor teachers for dear life. Fast forward to high school. My senior year, I went out for the swim team my senior year because a lot of my friends were on it. It was a great experience and the same guy who used to run the swim lessons was the HS swim coach. He was incredibly patient and encouraging, and I love him and sincerely appreciate him allowing me to be on the team. It was such a great experience. I absolutely sucked at swimming -- I beat a grand total of 6 people in a swim race, ever, including one relay team of four (and, BTW, there are 24 swimmers in a relay event. I probably swam 2 relays a meet. Probably about 10 meets. See, I am not exaggerating when I say I sucked!) -- but I had a great time. Although it was not really my calling to be a swimmer, I did win the award for most team spirit. More importantly, it helped me to love the water. Swimming is still one of my favorite ways to exercise, and I am absolutely hooked on water aerobics and aqua abs classes -- I've come a long way from not even being to put my face in the water to spending an hour in a 13' deep pool (it used to be 5 days a week) for my water aerobics classes.