It makes me smile.

All this business about taking care of oneself actually feels really good. Completing goals, seeing the number go down on the scale again, watching my skin improve, and just plain feeling so much better is really quite nice. I’m now only 17.8lbs away from my lowest weight. That doesn’t feel nearly as daunting as it did a few weeks ago when I was looking at being 26lbs away from my lowest.

I’m feeling incredibly encouraged and happy with myself this week.

Last night I finally went and bought more of the skin care regimen I use, along with makeup remover. I haven’t actually had proper face wash in a few months. There are no words to express how good it felt to properly remove my mascara and wash my face.

I’m learning to take care of myself again and it’s definitely having a significant impact on my morale.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve felt this encouraged.

Let’s talk goals, shall we?

I think that I’m making too many goals for each week. It might be better to only have 2-3 goals that I’ll really focus on rather than trying to achieve 5 or so things a week. I mean, this week I did really well on two of my goals, somewhat decently on two of the others, and miserably on the remaining one.

I don’t think that “no sugar” actually needs to be an official goal anymore because I’ve already decided to continue with that until March when I’ll start slowly adding fruit and alcohol back into my diet. To kill the cravings I’ve abstained from anything with sugar, starchy food, alcohol, and any other high GI foods.

I miss mimosas.

So, let’s look at those goals individually to see how I did.

Last Week’s Goals

1. Go back to the gym – I finally did it. I’m going to write more in depth about this tomorrow and on Friday but for the moment I’ll say that it was hard to do and I’m glad that I did it. I didn’t actually work out because I was really tired but I went, used the hot tub and sauna, and made it through a trip back to the gym.

2. Practice at my keyboard four days this week – I had one really LONG practice session at my keyboard, another really short one at the keyboard, and one more not-at-my-keyboard-but-still-real practice session. It’s certainly better than I’ve done in the past. The long one was the result of waking up really bummed on Saturday morning and desperately needing to distract myself from thinking about which weekend it was. IT WORKED! I grabbed my sheet music and decided to focus on what I want in my future and to do something that worked toward that. I learned an aria.

3. Again, go to sleep before 11:00pm – Fail. Fail. Fail! I didn’t make it to sleep before midnight once. I felt it badly. It’s a new challenge, now that I FINALLY have wireless internet in my apartment, to put down the laptop and go to sleep. Now that I’ve rediscovered my favorite blogs and websites, though, it’s so hard to do. I did finally piece together a few pieces of what I want my evening routine to look like but I only did it once (post purchasing makeup remover and face wash).

4. Make my own salad dressings – I came so close to being successful on this one. I thought I had bought everything I needed but I left out a few very important ingredients and will have to wait until I get to the grocery store tonight to acquire said ingredients. I’m going to make myself a proper list on my lunch break.

5. Keep up with no sugar – I think I mentioned deserving a gold star for this goal last week. Now I really deserve my friggin gold star. I’ve done marvelously with this goal again this week.

This Week’s Goals

1. Go to the gym twice, this time to work out – I gave myself  a break on this one, first; because the lack of sugar in my body was making me a little bit tired, and second; because it was so hard to put myself back in that position to begin with. I did it, though, and now I’m going to take it to the next level and actually do a workout.

2. Turn off laptop at 10:30 and start getting ready for bed – I’m convinced that getting enough sleep is essential to continued success in weight loss. I really need to be smarter about this and make myself go to sleep. This week I’m going to focus much harder on making a bedtime routine and getting to sleep on time.

3. Cook a wider variety of things – This includes making those dressings I neglected last week, as well as a few other things I’ve wanted to try. Of course, this means I’ll have some new recipes to share as well!

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If I can accomplish these three things this week, it’s going to put me in a really good place for starting habits I can maintain. What are your goals for this week?

ess about taking care of oneself actually feels really good. Completing goals, seeing the number go down on the scale again, watching my skin improve, and just plain feeling  so much better is really quite nice.

I’m feeling incredibly encouraged and happy with myself this week.

Last night I finally went and bought more of the skin care regimen I use, along with makeup remover. I haven’t actually had proper facewash in a few months. There are no words to express how good it felt to properly remove my mascara and wash my face.