Long week, and it's only Wednesday!

It seems like this has been the longest week and it's only Wednesday!  I had Monday off to make up for working on Sunday so it should seem like a short week but it hasn't turned out that way.  With working the weekend I had a lot of running around to do on Monday.  I went to Costco, the market and the grocery store to get our shopping done for the week.  I popped over and spent an hour or so with my parents and then I had to take my car up to get the brakes looked at.  When we had my winter tires taken off last week they told my husband that my brakes were low and we should get them done.

I took the car up and the man at the repair shop told me it would be about 2 hours so I walked over to the mall to do a little retail therapy.  A lot of my work shirts have gotten too big and sloppy looking so I needed to get some new ones.  Once I had selected my shirts I still had almost an hour to go before my car was going to be ready so I asked the clerk to hold my bag for me so I could go for a walk and get some exercise in.  They had no problem doing that for me so off I headed.  I just walked around a two block radius and was about to go around again when the repair shop called me to tell me my car was ready.  It's surprising how our mindset changes.  Six months ago, I would have stayed at the repair shop to read a book, I wouldn't have thought to go for a walk.  It all comes down to making healthy choices.  I'm counting the walking and shopping for smaller tops as my non scale victory this week.

On Tuesday I didn't fare so well in the healthy choices department.  I had 6 different meetings on Tuesday and I was busy playing catch up on email from Thursday onwards.  I honestly didn't have time to get my lunch break walk in. I walked to work from the train and I walked back to the train but I didn't get my mid day walk in and I felt it!  I retain water quite easily when I'm sedentary for too long and by the time I got home from work last night I had no ankles at all and my legs felt like they weighed a ton!  After we had dinner I took the dog for a walk, wanting to get some good steps in, but he was not cooperative at all.  It took us almost 20 minutes to walk what would normally take 8-9 minutes, I got frustrated with him and took him home but by then it was too dark for me to go back out.  I did do over 10,000 steps but I've had such large numbers lately that having a number under 12,000 felt like a disappointment.

Wednesday started out all right, but then about the time I was going to head out for my walk, I got a  text from my sister that my mom had been taken to the hospital with a potential heart attack.  I spoke to my wonderful boss and arranged to leave work an hour early to take the first train home so I felt like I shouldn't take my lunch break.  I did walk with a few of the ladies down to Starbucks a couple of blocks away but it only took us 15 minutes round trip, and that included getting an order filled.  When I got home, it was a lot of sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.  The hospital was very busy and they were only allowing one person with a patient so there was no point going up to the hospital but I didn't want to be away from the phone until I knew what was going on.  They've now admitted my mom so that they can do some more tests on her tomorrow and then we'll find out if she needs to have angioplasty done or not.

I am happy with my choices though, I've stayed on plan meal wise all week, despite being emotional and stressed.   I didn't give in to the temptation in the lunch room (chocolates and cookies) and I didn't eat non discriminately as I would have done in the past with a stressful day.   Although I didn't do a full walk at lunch time, I did hit over 10,000 steps today so that does make me happy.

I'm going to work from home tomorrow so I can spend time with my dad and take him up to the hospital to see my mom, add in walking the dog twice, and I should be able to get close to my work day goal of 12,000 steps.