Merry Christmas!

Christmas has come and almost gone already! It's almost 9pm and the day went by quickly – a day does that when it's an especially lazy one, don't you think? We did our celebrating with a nice dinner and all the trimmings yesterday, so today I was able to totally relax and loaf around on the couch watching movies and reading with my honey, playing with the cats, eating leftovers, and taking a heavenly four-hour nap. The perfect day to have, once in a while at least.

Tomorrow it's back to the office! Ho hum. The good thing about that is that it'll probably be very quiet with many people taking time off. That said I have some things that I want to get tied up by Friday, because then I am taking the longest bit of time off I've done in a long, long time – eleven days, to be exact! I cannot wait. It's been kind of an up and down year for me, and I usually just take off an extra day off attached to a long weekend, or just randomly, so  this will be a real treat. We don't have any plans to go anywhere or doing anything special, but that is fine with me. I guess I have turned out more like my mom in that regard, in that I'd usually rather have a stay-cation. In some ways doing it in the dead of winter seems kind of nice, too, because it is the time when you feel like snuggling into house and home like a hibernating bear seems like just the thing to do. After all, among our favorite things to do are watch movies and read books together.

So yes. I am very much looking forward to that!

I've more or less been between 322 and 325 the past two weeks – yesterday 322 at my recent lowest, but then gained three pounds today. I didn't even super indulge yesterday on our meal; I had one plate of food and a bowl of ice cream for dessert, and aside from a banana in the morning and about a glass and a half of wine, that is all I ate yesterday, not to mention slaved away in the kitchen. I didn't expect that much a gain, if any, but my partner reminded me that anytime we eat the stuffing I make on the holiday it makes both of us gain, true enough. Whatever, considering how I have been eating lately, I am not worried about it. I had:

A couple slices of ham, a few small pieces of turkey; a baked sweet potato with maple syrup and marshmallows; sausage stuffing; homemade cranberry sauce with orange and ginger; and of course, my delicious homemade cheese braid bread. Later, we split a tiny little cheesecake (literally – it was like three inches across) that my mom sent home with me the other night when I was visiting her.

Today I snacked on some cheese and crackers, and had a plate of leftovers. No wine, only water, and water for the rest of the day. I'm thirsty!

I guess, actually, that I haven't really checked in since the switch turned back on, that is, that I started eating better and more reasonably, and started walking regularly again – for now I'm going for at least three days a week for at least ten minutes, but have been doing five times the last two weeks, usually twenty minutes or more. There's a lovely little cemetery down the road from the office that's about a quarter mile away, so I've been going there and walking around a bit and ending up with a mile or a mile and a half. It's getting easier again. I'm thankful I can still do it. Even that little bit seems to be making a big difference in how I feel. I still have it in me to do this!

My mantra has been It won't always be like this. I'm hoping to be under 320 by the new year, and to stay there! While I am still very disappointed in myself that I let this much weight pile back on, I'm trying to look at in a positive way – it was a real slap in the face, I guess, to know that it can and will come back if you do not remain diligent. It's just a fact. And now I really and fully understand that, and caught myself soon enough so that I can double back and get to fixing it. I will never take that weight loss for granted again. Ever.

Therefore one of my main goals for 2018 is to continue in the right direction. I maybe won't set a specific goal right now, except that I should keep the number on the scale heading down or at the minimum maintaining in general. I've been weighing myself every day again as a source of data and to keep a close eye on what's going on – using the Happy Scale app, of course, to record it.

One thing that has been helping a lot is bringing food from home into work for lunch, and it's good for my eating and for my wallet, and takes away the guessing about what I want to eat and making not such a great choice when I am starting to get really hungry. Lunches have been things like soups, or a makeshift burrito bowl-type thing with black beans, cheese, salsa, sour cream, maybe a tortilla or tortilla chips. Tomorrow I'm planning on a nice ham sandwich on whole wheat bread and some fresh veggies on the side. Fruits have been my desserts for the most part, but I'll have a nibble of chocolate or whatever here and there. As usual, nothing is off-limits, but I'm trying to make better decisions and not eat so mindlessly.

I haven't been counting calories, but rather eating intuitively and listing what I eat each day in my own files. That gives me the chance to make better considerations and to have a general awareness of what I have eaten and maybe what I need more of or less of. I don't really know how to explain it, but it feels comfortable and I have been feeling not so bogged down like I was there for a while, eating such heavy lunches and snacking all the time at my desk. That was a very bad habit that I had developed indeed!

It is my hope that 2018 will be filled with happiness, new achievements and opportunities, and continued good health! I'll be outlining some specific things in a coming post. In the meantime, I wish you a very happy Christmas and will talk with you again around the new year!

Thanks, as always, for reading.