Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Brain Engaged, Hands Busy

It's clear to me that my motivation for writing has diminished severely! It is so unlike me not to be sharing my journey with my reader. Well, hopefully this post is refreshing for you.


There are a couple things I have been meaning to write about - but I'll limit this post to my newly developed hobbies.


Until recently, if you were to ask me what my hobbies include I would probably respond with journaling and singing karaoke. The problem with those is that I don't journal often enough to consider it a hobby and karaoke, let's be honest here, involves late nights out with certain beverages that can have adverse effects when losing weight. (wink wink).


I had two and a half weeks off for Christmas break (teacher perks) and I knew I would end up off my routine and probably track my food less and binge watch Netflix in my sweats. In fact, that's exactly what I did. I made it through all 10 seasons of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. for about the umpteenth time.


Will there ever be another T.V. love like Ross and Rachael? Sometimes I think Nick and Jess are a close second. Wait, that's a different entry entirely...back to hobbies...
Puzzling with my cousin -
"Christmas in NYC"


My uncle is a home-brewer and beer enthusiast so when I was browsing Amazon and came across a 500 piece puzzle of various beer caps I thought that would be a fun Christmas gift for him. Then I found a Wrigley Field 1000 piece puzzle that I thought would be fun for me to do over break. After weeks of delayed shipping of the puzzle I bought for myself I canceled it and started looking at different puzzles. I then bought two 1000 piece puzzles and that was going to be my Christmas break hobby. I figured if I was going to binge watch Netflix I should at least keep my brain engaged.
2000 piece puzzle


I grew up putting puzzles together with my grandparents so puzzling has a sort of sentiment to me. As a child, I used to hide the last piece so that I was always guaranteed to put the last piece in the puzzle. It was just our thing. And I loved it.


So, my puzzles were delivered and I quickly set in on the first puzzle. 16 hours later...I finished the first one. How were two puzzles going to last me two and a half weeks if I concentrated so hard on the first one?! Day 2 - second puzzle completed. I clearly needed to purchase more. Long story short, I completed seven 1000 piece puzzles in two and a half weeks.


Here is my point. Concentrating on my puzzles was a great way to keep my brain engaged and my hands busy. I did not focus on eating, I did not graze throughout the day, and honestly I preferred to stay home to finish my puzzle than accept invitations out with friends. I brought this up in my Weight Watcher meeting and another member expressed her love for puzzles too. That next week we traded our completed puzzles. Two of the puzzles she gave me are 2000 pieces. I have been working on one of those for roughly two weeks now. Since school is back in session I don't have the time I did over break. Again, this is keeping my brain engaged and my hands busy when I would otherwise graze in boredom. Last weekend I played around with something else I'd like to make a hobby and that is DIY candle making. It's really easy and your house smells amazing in the process. So now if you asked me what my hobbies are I would respond "Puzzling and candle making!"


Update on my weight loss progress - as of the 18th I was down 23.4 lbs. I weigh in today so hopefully it will be more than that. This past week I took our traveling journal home with me to manually track my food for others to see. This was the first week that I was 100% on tracking. Weekends are a struggle but I made it through tracking everything. Even Sunday when I ate all my points plus all but 15 of my extra weeklies. Tonight I'm looking for a 1.6lb loss. With that I will be at my starting weight from the first time I started WW and this blog.


Here's to hoping for a good loss!'


Instagram: PapaGrl