Whatever Happens

I believe I started the week at 172 and was happy to be there. I ended my week at 168.4 and like a broken record I will say its been years since I have seen the 160's on the scale. 2 more pounds to go to reach my 40 pound loss! It doesn't seem real to me. Then again, I have been eating keto for more than a year now so at some point I knew it would happen, it has just taken a whole bunch of faith! What's interesting is that other than longer walks with the dog, I haven't worked out in the past 2 weeks. I also have not been limiting my use of liquid stevia in my water, whether or not I'm fasting. The past two weeks were pretty stressful with my husband's car being in and out of the shop only to find his engine is shot (we bought it from a used car lot when he totalled his other car due to icy roads) and we've had that vehicle less than 2 years. My husband's coworker just happened to be selling a used vehicle at the same time so we ended up paying cash. Our bank account started looking a little sad. The day after we bought the replacement we got our escrow shortage report and we were absolutely blindsided by it. Our property tax increased from $1,600 to $3,600. I understood that we would have to make up that $2,000 difference but we were not aware that the mortgage also increases when the taxes go up and only a portion of out mortgage is fixed (about 70%) the rest is subject to increase. Long story short, if we pay $3,000 up front, our monthly payments will go up by $200 a month, but I'd we don't they'll go up by $400 a month. Ouch! We should be OK but this being our first home and we've had it less than 2 years, we had no idea this was a thing. The bankers we spoke to said this is an insane increase in property taxes and its definitely something we're not expecting to see happening again anytime soon. It prompted us to talk to our 19 year old son to start paying us a small amount of rent to help out. Anyway, the other stress was trying to get my husband's not-working car sold. It was a lot of no-shows and people with ridiculous requests but we finally found a guy who showed up with a trailer and cash and we said "Good Riddance" to that money pit of a car! All the needing to be available after work for people coming and such, meant that I didn't take time to exercise in the mornings. I'm not entirely sure if it's related but I also had a lot of interrupted sleep last week and felt tired a lot. Actually, since I have been taking the caffeine pills again I find myself tired in the afternoon. I think I will need to get back to my experiment of drinking coffee instead of the caffeine pill, to see if I still get tired in the afternoon. Right now I'm having the pill AND coffee. I don't think caffeine is awful for our bodies, in fact I've seen way more informative that supports the contrary, but it's a habit and a crutch. I have been drinking my coffee black though, so that it won't break my fast or add extra calories. That also means I don't crave more and more of it like I do when I add heavy whipping cream to it. So there's more work to be done there. My workplace is starting a new challenge in alliance with the American Cancer Society that runs from April 27-May 18. Our goal as an organization is to log 10 million steps in those 3 weeks. We are a large-ish health facility with our hospital partners so I think that's a feasible number. I am not super sure how to establish a goal for myself, whether to make a per-day step goal or time goal, but I do think it will help me get moving again. I have also been thinking a lot about strength training again. I know I need to be consistent with it in order to not lose strength as I age. I need to strategize because I also miss yoga and I haven't devoted any time to learning those zumba classed or doing push ups. I think when I made the zumba goal for myself, I was coming out of a Peleton challenge but was in a place of not loving the Peleton app and not wanting to use it much so the zumba thing sounded good. I do love to dance but after having done more of the Peleton workouts I can say they definitely challenge me more than zumba so I will get more out of it. There are plenty of HIIT and strength classes for Peleton that include push ups so it should be easy to work that into my weekly training. I am not really changing anything with food other than the caffeine and not adding cream to my coffee. I have been so very very good, even on the weekends because I want to see the scale continuing to go down! The best part is that I am becoming perfectly comfortable asking for a burger without the bun and ketchup, and a salad on the side. It used to make me uncomfortable and I thought everyone would look at me strange, but no one bats an eye when I order this. Also, sometimes I just have a salad which is less complicated. In reflection of my progress I just feel so happy that I have been able to keep the faith and keep tweaking things when I wasn't seeing the number I wanted on the scale. I know that there will be more stalls and plateaus along the way, but I now have some good practice with making adjustments and knowing that if I just keep moving forward, eventually my body will release this extra baggage. I am hoping to lose those 2 pounds next week so I can cross the 40 pounds lost barrier, but I'll ride the wave of whatever happens.