Eats and election anxiety

OMG. THE ELECTION. FUUUUUUUCK.

Now that that's out of the way, let's proceed as planned. Today, I was in the office, which meant walking pad time! Before lunch, I had about 4k steps. I did a workout during lunch, and rounded out my 10k steps before even leaving work. That's always nice, especially on nights the kiddos are with me because I already have a ton of Mom guilt about not seeing them all the time so I'd feel too guilty not being able to spend time with them while I exercised. On weekends when I have them, I don't feel so bad sitting them in front of a screen for an hour so I can exercise, but on weekdays when the time together is already limited, I just won't take that time for me.

Food photos today were a bit harder because 1) I had to take them while walking on my walking pad and 2) I forgot a few of them and thus will supplement them by using online photos. Today, I ate the following:

Breakfast at work

Other part of breakfast

Grapes for a snack

Fiber bar for poops and farts

Right before lunch snack 

This is what's pictured above

Lunch: Banana and leftover pot pie

Berries for an afternoon snack

Cookie dough snack while supposedly making cookies

Reyah's plate (because I'd already eaten mine): Chicken tetrazzini and asparagus for dinner

Today's eats were pretty reasonable. I probably ate more than I needed to because I packed hella stuff for work and wasn't hungry every time I ate, but alas, it's something to work on. Tomorrow I'm doing a day call shift at the hospital, where it is WAY HARDER to eat healthy. You'd think they'd push healthy food at the hospital, but nope. They have mostly processed unhealthy shit in the physician lounge. Why? Because it's cheap and if you know anything about healthcare, it's a business and profit margins are the most important thing.

Toothbrush photos for a rounding out of the night:

And lastly, OMG. THE ELECTION. FUUUUUUUCK.

Fear of failure and a weigh-in

Upon embarking on this weight loss journey [again], I realized I needed to fit in exercise somewhere. Keeping moving is one thing, but upping my strength and my cardiovascular fitness is another. However, I am irrationally getting worried about going back to the gym. With COVID, we canceled our gym memberships. This wasn't a huge deal as I decided I'd just work out on our elliptical in the basement. However, that flared up my knee and then I stopped doing that altogether. I did a few elliptical workouts here and there once my knee felt better, but I haven't been consistent. So, now I want to work on consistency. Enter Mom guilt. 

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out when would be a good time to exercise. I used to do it right after work because once I'm home, it takes a lot of effort to go out again. But, if I go right after work, it takes even more time away from my time with the kids. And working as much as I do, I didn't want to sacrifice more time. So, then I figured I could exercise after the kids were in bed. But, exercising at 8/8:30 doesn't exactly appeal to me. So, what about exercise before the kids wake up? Hard pass. I already feel like I don't get enough sleep, so sacrificing some for exercise? Never going to happen. So, I've changed my work hours. Normally, I'm in the office from 9-4. However, In about 3 weeks, I'm changing my hours to 8-3. This will allow me to use the time from 3-4 to go to the gym and be consistent about it. That being said, I'm still scared to go.

One of the things I have a hard time with is fear of failure/not feeling perfect. When I head back to the gym, I'll be starting from zero. This will be depressing. For several reasons: 

1. I used to be fit and now I'm not
2. Exercising in front of fit people is embarrassing
3. There aren't a ton of machines where I go to the gym and I feel unworthy of using machines when other fit folks are around - it's like I think they deserve it more

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to tackle that one. I think it'll help that I'm not at the gym during peak hours (before or after traditional work hours) and I think it'll help that I already know how to use most machines. It'll just be hard to remember that no one else is thinking about me as much as I am.

Any thoughts on how to feel more confident once I start heading back to the gym?

Food photos:

Breakfast

Other part of breakfast

Turkey meximelts for lunch: turkey meat, pico, cheese, and low carb tortilla

Watermelon with lunch

Homemade chicken pad thai for dinner

Aaaaand, this week's weigh-in!

Four pounds down from last week!