Just Keep on Keeping On

Today was the kind of day when I could get discouraged. All week long, I've been trying really hard to stick to healthy eating and exercise.

I have this poster on my fridge:

Each day, I'm checking off when I get in my exercise and stick to healthy eating and take my vitamins, etc. I've been getting in some great workouts and eating. So, today, after five days of A or A+ days, I figured I'd break my pattern of Monday weigh-ins and see how much weight I'd lost this week.

The scale was not kind. The scale said I'd GAINED three pounds. You know, usually that would be enough to send me off the deep end with an attitude like "I eat healthy all week and I still gain weight? Why bother eating healthy? I'm making chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast!" This time, I didn't slip into that thinking. I had my usual breakfast (two eggs and a strawberry smoothie), and headed off to work. I think I finally figured out the cause for the gain: we had homemade sauerkraut with dinner last night, and it was very salty. I was probably just retaining a lot of water.

I stayed the course with healthy eating today, and after lunch, headed over to my daughter's school for their "Race for Education." The kids do laps around the soccer field for an hour to raise money for school. I told my daughter I'd walk/jog with her. The weatherman predicted rain and thunderstorms for the afternoon, but it was sunny and clear and 80 degrees. After the first mile or two, it was getting harder and harder to keep up the pace. But, we just kept plugging away, and we did 4 miles.

On the way home, we were both hot and thirsty and tired and hungry. We stopped at the grocery store to pick up some fish for dinner, and I told Bethany she could pick out a treat. She picked up a single-serving cup of ice cream... Double Chocolate Fudge. She doesn't usually eat ice cream with a fork. It was the only silverware I had in my lunchbag.

It would have been easy to justify getting myself an ice cream, too. After all, I just worked out for an hour. I stuck to my diet for most of the day. I stuck to my guns, though... this was my treat: 

 Yum! 

Hopefully by the time I do my official weigh-in on Monday, all the sodium will be flushed out of my system, and I'll have a good loss to show for this week's efforts. I'm learning. I'm getting there, one step at a time, one pound at a time. Today was a good day, despite what "Mean Old Mr. Scale" had to say to me this morning!