Daily Bread #51

One of the motivational tools Kaiser uses in the program is the “Passport.”

You earn “stamps” for attending the weekly meetings, exercise (420 minutes or 70,000 steps each week), and recording your daily food/calorie intake.  Once you get 18 “stamps,” you can turn the completed passport in and once a quarter there is a drawing for $20 Whole Foods gift cards.  I love prizes; they can help motivate me.  I increased my exercise minutes in order to earn that “stamp” each week.  The other two (meetings and recording) I was already doing.  I have actually been recording what I eat each day since August 18th of last year.  Yes, some guesswork is involved, especially when eating away from home, but I record every single bite.

So…..this last quarter was the first time I had completed passports included in the drawing………………………………………………………….

and the winner is….

Yay!  Of course, $20 at Whole Foods would be worth $30 at any other grocery store, but who am I to argue with free?

We opened the pool this week and I went swimming twice.  I think I will also continue at least some time on the exercise bike as it will help get my legs ready for knee surgery.

This week class was again tiny, with only 6 people showing up.  We had a good discussion though, mainly about making contingency plans when challenges surface.  Do we avoid movies because the popcorn smells are hard to handle?  We also had a long discourse on donuts, that ever popular office goodie.  Planning is critical.  We can’t change others or the world.  (Well, maybe we CAN change the world.  Activism has an impact.  Voting matters.)

But sometimes we plan, and the gods just laugh.  I was SO sure I would have achieved the milestone of a hundred pound weight loss this week.  I mean, I had only 1/3 of a pound to go.  But it wasn’t to be as my weight was actually up slightly this week.  Next week though, I hope to join the CENTURY CLUB!

L’Chaim!

(My stats for the last week – Up .7 of a pound, drank at least 7 gallons of water and exercised for over 650 minutes.  My cumulative weight loss so far is 99 pounds.)