Jackie and Dan’s Journey, Week 8

Hey guys!

Thanks for stickin with my through this week.  It’s been kind of rough for writing.  I overestimated my ability to write seven days a week in addition to my regular job, and it caught up with me.  As such, I’m going to dial things back a bit.  Here’s our new schedule:

Sunday: Jackie and Dan’s Journey Update
Monday: Grab bag
Tuesday: Character Breakdown(every other week)
Wednesday: Character Workout(every other week)
Thursday: (Character Skills OR Grab Bag on non-character weeks)
Friday: (Character Psychology)
Saturday: No posts

So basically, This week will be today’s post, a grab bag post tomorrow, and then a grab bag post on Thursday.  Next week will be a ‘Journey’ post, then a grab bag post, then a character profile series.  Sound good?  This will enable me to spend more time on higher-quality content for you, dear reader, and hopefully keep me from burning out again.  Sorry if the new schedule is a little confusing, I’ll re-post it a few times in the coming weeks so you get used to it.  Anyway, onto our weekly updates!

Jackie:

My weigh in this week was a really hard one.  I was 193.8.  This was really depressing as I have been going to the gym and staying very active for 2 weeks as well as tracking my diet.  I was hoping to see a loss.  This gain has lead me to my topic: trust.  It is the hardest thing to do when trying to change your life.  You have to trust that the changes you are making will work…eventually.  For someone who is losing weight, you sacrifice comfort you are used to and expect to see a return.  When you don’t see that change or return you grow frustrated and wonder why bother.  The challenge is to believe that not 6 days from now but 6 months or 6 years from now you will be the person you want to be and live the life you want.  So for now, even though this sucks so hard, I have to trust or I might as well quit.  So tomorrow instead of sleeping late, going to work, then coming home; I will get up early got o the gym and then work and finish my night off with some karate classes or going to the pool for some laps.  I just have to trust that soon I will see the results I want.

 

Last weigh in(two weeks ago): 189.8

This week’s weigh in:193.8

(Dan’s Note: Even though Jackie gained weight over the past two weeks, she has actually visibly slimmed down.  This is due to gaining muscle she never had before, while burning fat.  The muscle gain caused her to gain a bit of weight, but she has significantly less fat and more toning on her upper arms, shoulders, and back.  Sometimes we’re our own worst critics, but Jackie’s new workout program has really given her some progress already, even if not on the scale.)

Dan:

Yeesh.  I had a pretty rough week.  No weight lost, didn’t work out much, didn’t eat too well.  I’d love to make excuses about being burned out or whatever but honestly I was just being lazy.  Sometimes my love of tasty food overcomes my desire to lose weight, as I’m sure we all have issue with sometimes.  Part of it, for me at least, is ease of access.  I get free food at the cafeteria at work, and they always have tasty – if not very healthy – stuff on hand.  I stick with the cafeteria because, hey, free food.  But the temptation is tough.

I’m making a deal with myself this week, though.  Everything I get has to be from the salad bar.  This may sound kind of extreme, but the salad bar actually has a widely varied selection, with lots of tasty, healthy things(not just leafy greens and bland add-ins).  Additionally, rather than set a goal of working out a certain number of times, I’m instead going to crack down on my sleep habits.  More often than not, lack of sleep shoots me in the foot on the exercise front more than anything.  It keeps me from either waking up early enough to exercise, or limits my recovery time so I’m not really up for exercising again when I should be.  So this week is all salad bar at work, and at least eight hours of sleep a night.  Gogogo!

Last weigh-in(two weeks ago): 207

This week’s weigh-in: 209