Getting Healthy: Update

I believe I alluded to the fact that I made "Lifetime" with WeightWatchers a few months ago.  Since that time, I had some crazy stress which affected my maintenance plan and as of this writing, I weigh about 10 lbs above my WW goal of 162.  A couple months ago, I made the decision that rather than go back to WW, I would try the health thing on my own.  Really, now that I've achieved weight loss, I am more interested in improving health through diet and exercise.

My health is pretty good right now.  My ulcerative colitis has been in remission through remicade since the birth of my daughter in 2015.  My diabetes is now two years medication-free with A1C testing normal.  I need to keep the focus on a lower-carb diet and lots of exercise if I want to stay medication-free and essentially not diabetic as long as possible.

Diet

Since I'm trying to save money, meal planning healthfully at home helps achieve both goals.  My workday daily pattern is something like this:

Beverages: coffee with unsweetened vanilla almond milk
Breakfast: two eggs with fat free/reduced fat cheese with vegetable/salsa and low carb "bread"
Snack: plain greek yogurt with a sprinkle of low sugar granola
Lunch: leftover something
Snack: hummus or guacamole with carrots or peppers
Dinner: cooking something--maybe I'll blog some of my kitchen adventures

If I get hungry, I'll add a low fat cheesestick, piece of fruit, or chips and salsa.  I usually let myself have a small piece of chocolate or two at work (dove or hersey kiss).

This seems to be working for me, but it's not really a "weight loss" diet, so I'm not losing much at the moment.  I'm eating healthy food when I am hungry and not beating myself up about it.  I feel well fed and energized.

Fitness

When I began my new job, I decided I would take the time I usually used in the morning to lesson plan and grade papers before work started and exercise instead.  I have been sticking to this plan really well by doing two early AM classes at the YMCA on Mondays (Insanity and CORE) and Wednesdays (Body Pump) and continuing my dance fitness class (Bang PowerDance) at the Y on Saturdays.  I have also been going in Thursday or Friday morning (or both) to swim, jog, or lift weights, depending on my mood and body aches.

This is a lot more intense exercise and resistance training than I've ever tried before.  Although the first couple weeks hurt a lot and I feel ridiculously weak whenever we do anything involving shoulders and triceps, I LOVE it.  I feel stronger and get better at the exercises every week.

Although I'm not wearing my FitBit anymore, I'm still pushing myself to include more daily movement (walking up the stairs to the 4th floor office and to whatever level I'm parked on the garage, using part of my lunch break to walk around, parking in a distant end for meetings offsite and walking, etc.).  Again, I'm super focused right now on feeling more fit and energized.  It's been working for the most part.

I've noticed an increase in definition of my muscles and the clothes I bought when I hit lifetime are fitting well again, so I'm probably a similar size when I was at my lowest weight.

I need to go get my bloodwork done again, so hopefully the A1C is still healthy.  We'll see!