Weight Check, Goal Check, and Did anyone get a Fitbit?

Since I did confess here that I managed to gain "only" 2.6 pounds while we were on a (one week) vacation in Disney World, I wanted to come clean about the 2 1/2 weeks that we were on our holiday vacation.

{insert sheepish grin here}

I managed to lose about a half a pound from December 16 to January 6.

Yes, LOSE over the holidays. Yes, eating pecan pie. And this amazing flank steak that my sister-in-law made. And Yum Yum's ice cream. And barbeque. And Christmas cookies.

You get the idea. It's kinda unheard of to lose over the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year's time of year. I'm not bragging by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I am no longer working to lose any more weight, so I don't get any "bonus points" for the loss.

But I do have the lifelong task of mantaining my current weight.

And guys, sometimes I think that's harder than losing weight.

Because of the whole "lifelong" commitment thing.

It's a balancing act. Eat right = Eat enough calories to sustain yourself but not too many to gain back weight (for me, that's about 1500 daily). And exercise regularly = Enough to keep your cardio regular and build your strength but don't exercise too much (or else we would see a repeat of Backageddon '13).

I worked hard for almost three weeks, fighting to just maintain what I had worked so hard to acheive in 2013.

Alone.

My Zumba schedule was out of whack with everyone on vacation. And my trainer was also off for those three weeks.

It was all Biggest-Loser-contestant-goes-home-from-the-ranch. #holycrap

But, I borrowed a set of 15 pound dumbbells from the studio (thanks, Patrick), replaced the broken treadmill in our garage (long story), talked to a few friends about accountability and "group exercise" (looking at you, Em and Jess!), and dove into Christmas Break head first!

First, I set a goal. Remember how important those are?

My goal was first to not gain more than 2 pounds. I thought that was reasonable with such a disruption to my routine.

But then I thought to myself, "You know what, I'm better than that." I've learned so much the last 3 years, and especially in the last 9 months. I can do better than that. I changed my goal. My goal then became to maintain. No loss, no gain. Just maintain and stay steady where I am.

Then, I developed a plan. We had the advantage of not having any travel over vacation. Days were not rushed, and we had a lot of flexibility to our schedule. And the weather stayed pretty mild. So, I was able to incorporate exercise into my schedule 16 out of 21 days. I tried to vary the exercises, as well, so I wasn't just doing a bunch of running.

Two different days, I did this Pinterest routine:
 

Do that 3 times. Pretty fabulous total body workout. And those jumping jacks get your heart rate rolling pretty nice.

 

Yes, I did do a lot of running- some outside, some on the treadmill. A few days of walking. A few Zumba classes (I think 4). And about 4 days where I tried really hard to remember arm/weight/strength exercises.

 

I also tried to eat with the mindset of "will I ever see this food again?" If it was something seasonal, aka Oma's Lasagna, I ate it up without a second thought. Things like mashed potatoes, rice, rolls? Nah. Cake from a box? Probably not. But Oreo Balls. Yes.

 

Many many Oreo balls. 

 

I jumped on the scale every 4 days or so just to see how things were going and make sure that what I WAS doing was working. Some days I was up, some down, some the same. I didn't obsess but I was aware.

 

Awareness is also key here. Yes, it's easy to just not weigh and not be aware of your current state. Especially if you say things like, "It's the holidays. I'll start January 1. I'll do better later."

 

But what good does that do you? You are just harming yourself and pro-longing the inevitable. Later is NOW, people.

 

But NOW is a new year. And NOW is time to set YOUR goals. So, what's your goal for the new year? Or even, for the first quarter? Set one for yourself. And let me know about it. You get awareness + accountability all in one. :-)

 

And did anyone get a Fitbit for Christmas? If so, look me up! It's still super fun and really does spice up that boring old walking. :-)

Good luck in this new year! I'll keep checking in now and again about how I am doing (but I don't want to get redundant and long-winded and boring).

Until then!