Teresa's Ponderings

 I'm going to start off with things I did well this week: 1) I stayed away from soda when I really, really wanted a glass. Sometimes my stomach gets upset and soda calms it down immediately, but I stayed away and for that I'm proud of myself 2) I had a moment this week where I was upset. I was in the midst of shoving food in my mouth as quickly as I could when the TOPS pledge came to mind, ' I will remember, even though I overeat in private, my excess poundage is there for all the world to see ." This thought made me put down what I was eating. Struggles this week: 1) I had to go to the doctor. In the notes on the computer was a section that reads "Underlying health issues." In that section it said, "Class 2 Obesity." That was sobering. I still tear up thinking about it. I've never been this heavy and I am so disappointed in myself.  2) I'm afraid to fail therefore I'm afraid to set goals. If I don't set a goal then I can't fail.

 I began going to TOPS (Take off pounds sensibly) last week. I have set a goal of making one change to my life each week. Last week I cut all soda from my intake and lost 3.6 pounds. It wasn't that hard cutting it out, which is something I knew ahead of time and that's why I chose removing soda as my first weekly challenge. The hardest part was breaking the habit of just grabbing whatever was the easiest to drink and making myself fill up with water instead.  Other things that may have attributed to my weight loss: I wore a different shirt. I didn't eat before going. I've set a goal of losing 5 pounds this month. Putting that goal onto paper was tough because I hate failing and I hate committing. Now, I've done both. My long term goal is to run the Ely Half Marathon. I have no aspirations on finishing well, I just want to finish.  Each week I will make one change towards achieving that goal. Last week I cut soda. This week will be a physical goal. ❤️ We'll see h

  When I sit down to do my year's end review, I generally have an idea of what we've been doing. As I picked up the computer and waited for it to power on, I realized I have absolutely no clue what we did this entire year. It's like anything before August is a complete blur. So, this blog will be just as informative for me as it will be for you. 😀 January We started the year off with a New Year's Day hike. I'm constantly amazed that I live in a place where there are thousands of acres at our disposal to use for pretty much any form of recreation we can think of. We did a lot of hiking/snowshoeing/skiing during the winter so the following are just various pictures of the different spots we went: Angleworm Portage/Trail Sunset at Shagawa Lake Skiing at Hidden Valley Sledding on Big Dutch Ice Skating on Miners Lake Trapping at an undisclosed location in the Superior National Forest Skiing on the Trezona Trail Quick break from skiing A couple of quick highlights, Santa