Simply Cintia: MWLISS: Performance

"Prior preparation prevents poor performance."

I heard this quote during a WW virtual workshop, and I couldn't agree more. I decided that preparation was my focus for the week. I went to the store to purchase my groceries but first, I made a list ready to go.

My grocery cart

My favorite grocery store at the moment is Aldi. I don't mind packing my own groceries. I enjoy finding new items as well as relying on old items I find there. My list included baking naan bread and making pizza from scratch so the kids and I worked on it. Oh, Aldi has great fresh flowers too.

Naan bread rising

When I got home, I decided to pre-pack the kids' lunch boxes and mine. I basically packed 4 days of lunches with fruit and side things suck as pretzels, pita chips, and the muffins we baked a few days ago. Preparing their lunch ahead of time saves me a lot of time and energy in the morning.

pre-packing fun

I boiled a few eggs for my own breakfast. I also pre-measured fruit and other things I wanted to have during the week. The goal was to prepare to succeed.

Lunch

After all of that preparation (I also worked on two main meals), I got hungry so I had chicken, pita chips, grapes, and grapefruit. It was great!

Dinner

That evening, our family had butter chicken, naan bread, and salad for dinner. It was my first try and everyone was excited to eat hot naan bread. I still have to keep working on that recipe but for a first time attempt, it tasted great.

Breakfast

I ate a lot of the same breakfast each day. Boiled eggs, Mexican cheese, and I sprinkled everything with everything bagel seasoning. I used the Ole Wrap I find at Aldi. It is only 1 point and it tastes good to me. I add oat milk to my coffee and it is just the best breakfast ever.

snack

I decided to have a crunchy snack one day so I had rice cake with peanut butter and bananas. I love this snack and I've had it for years. I think the entire thing was 4 points on Blue.

Swimming

I've been telling myself that I need to swim more. Well, this week, I prepared my things ahead of time and I went swimming. I love to swim. It is low impact and you can get 'in your own head' in a different way than when you are doing cardio in dry land.

Dinner

My kids love shrimp. Over the years, they've enjoyed spaghetti in evoo and garlic and shrimp. I made a spinach salad with a homemade salad dressing that was just lovely. We were super hungry that night too, which guaranteed that there were no leftovers. I measured everything I ate to be sure I was counting my points correctly. I had to stop myself from sampling the food as I was serving it to the family.

cycling away

This week I've exercised more than I've done in the past month. I also realized that it has been a month since I ran my last marathon. I didn't run this week. I tried last week and I didn't feel I was fully ready to pound the pavement. So, I decided to cycle, swim, walk, and lift weights. It's been a joy.

Another thing I did right was to get enough sleep at night. Last week, I failed at rest and I paid for it. I thought about all the work it takes to come up with a menu, shop, prep, eat, pack the kids' lunch, and make sure I take my own food to work. Oh, I ate out once this week too. Here is the result I got from the scale:

woohoo! Getting closer to goal!

I was encouraged with the weight loss this week. I was even more encouraged with the way I felt because I decided to prepare for the week.

I've been attending a lot of WW meetings lately. They really help me with my mindset and focus. I showed the charm I got in the mail during one of the meetings I was attending. The coach asked me, "what does this represent to you?"

I took a deep breath. No one had ever asked me that question before. I said: "Hard work, preparation, and persistence." That's when she said: "Prior preparation prevents poor performance."

I agree. Preparation works. I know that sometimes, you can't prepare perfectly. But I can think about my goal of arriving at a normal BMI. My decisions today need to reflect the goal I hope to attain in a few weeks. Thanks for joining me in the journey of losing the last 10 lbs my friends!