Change in Plan

Okay, so I haven't lost any weight in the past week, but I have learned something very important: I have to change the way I'm doing this. I can no longer think of this as a weight loss plan, because if it's a weight loss plan, then I'm allowed to sneak things in and make up for them later. Only later never comes. So, I'm no longer going to be dealing with the Battle of the Bulge, but rather it's going to be a Fight Against Food.

Food may not the be enemy in general, but it's my enemy, the one I love and hate. I know the main cause of my being overweight is food, not lack of exercise, and I know that because I have been anything but inactive this week and still did not lose a pound, or even part of a pound. I did not exercise as much as I wanted or as much as I could have, but still, I truly don't think my problem is exercise. My problem is food, so I have to focus on that.

So, my new plan is to reward myself based on how well I eat in combination with the weight I lose, with more emphasis on the food. I'm going to 'grade' myself on how well I'm eating, based on the number of calories I consume. At the end of the week I'll give myself one grade for the weight I have or haven't lost. Then I'll average all 8 grades to come up with my grade for the week, then I'll reward myself based on that grade. I know that this doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be eating the best way I can according to the food pyramid and such, but I think it will mean that I'll lose weight, since weight loss is based on calories in vs. calories out. Now, my reward is going to be a monetary reward to myself, which I can spend at any time, or save until I can buy something I really want. So here are the grading scales:

Food
A 1200-1300 Calories
B 1301-1400 Calories
C 1401-1500 Calories
D 1501-1600 Calories
F 1601 Calories and above

Weight Loss
A 2.0 lbs
B 1.5 lbs
C 1.0 lbs
D .5 lbs
F 0 lbs or weight gain

Reward
A $10.00
B $7.50
C $5.00
D $1.50
F $0.00

This system will also force me to keep track of the food I'm eating so I'll know what grade to award myself at the end of the day. That's supposed to help, so we'll see if it works.

New Resolve (again)

Ok, so I'm going to try really hard to get back on this thing...again. I don't know why it's so hard for me to stick to dieting and exercise, but it is. All those articles that say you shouldn't consider it to be a diet are just wrong, IMO. If you are eating anything or nothing, no matter what it is, you are on a 'diet'. Everyone is on a diet, whether it be McDonald's for breakfast lunch and dinner, or the most strict vegan diet imaginable. It's still a diet.

Now, I'm sure what they mean is don't consider it a diet in the common sense of the word, which carries with it connotations of deprivation and starvation. Still, this doesn't work for me, because if I can't pity myself just a little, I go overboard without even hesitating, plus I know in the back of my mind that I'm not supposed to be eating whatever bad thing it is, and that, to me, is a diet. So, yes, I AM ON A DIET. Everybody else can call their eating plan whatever they want, mine is a DIET, because that's the only way it works for me.

So about this exercise thing. I hate exercising. It doesn't make me feel good. I don't enjoy the thought of it, actually doing it, or any feeling I happen to have afterward. I never feel energized or 'pumped', and it never seems to get easier. I don't know what is up with that, but as of now it doesn't matter. Just like I don't enjoy eating healthy food (although I do get the touted benefits from that) but I know it's necessary, I don't like exercise, but I know it's necessary, so I will suffer through it.

Finally, I always struggle with the doing this for myself mentality. I also don't know why this is so hard for me, because I know I can be quite selfish at times. Maybe it's because while I know this will benefit me in the long run, I've always struggled with a love of instant gratification. If I think a change should be happening now, I want to see it happen now. If I can have a little time to read or watch TV now and work longer later, or work for a little while now and relax for a long time later, I'd rather relax now and work longer later. It's weird, I know, but it just seems to be the way my brain is wired. I'm also really bad about procrastinating. I would much rather be under pressure to get something done than to start as soon as possible and have it done far before the deadline. I try really hard to not do that, but sometimes I just work better under pressure, so that turns into an excuse. So maybe all together I don't have a problem doing this for me, but doing it for my future self, if that makes sense. I can't see a immediate reward, and I'm not in immediate danger of any medical problems, so I have no incentive or pressure. Ok, sometimes self-analyzation works, so now that I have my problems down in words maybe I can work to change it a little more efficiently that I have been.

So what does all this boil down to? I'm putting a deadline on myself, and I just have to trust that I'll see the rewards eventually.

My deadline: May 1.
My goal: Lose at least 5 lbs, and some inches (I'm not sure what a reasonable goal is for the inches because I've never tracked that before).
My incentive: If I reach my goal I will buy a new outfit for work. :)

Plan: I will eat healthy and I will do some form of exercise for at least 30 minutes every day (except Sunday). I will weigh in every Wednesday and only on Wednesday, and take measurements.

Back on the Bandwagon

Ok, so in five months I've only lost seven pounds. I'm not very happy with myself, but I'm going to start again, and try to get this finished. It will happen this time. I will want to give up, but I won't. I will want to have 'rewards', but I won't. I will want to be lazy, but I won't. This has to stop. I can't keep going and fooling myself into thinking that I can re-start my diet tomorrow just because I screwed up today. Tomorrow ends up never coming. I'm starting today, despite the fact that I had Chick-fil-a for breakfast, and I don't feel like exercising. I'm starting today, and hopefully I'll be done by June.

The Downhill Slope

I am finally losing weight that I have never lost before. I'm calling this the end of the yo-yo phase. If I was ever this weight, it was sometime in high school that I don't remember, and that doesn't count because I wasn't an adult yet. My weight? 182.7! Yes! My weight graph finally is going downhill! Yay!

Contest

One of my co-workers has started a biggest loser contest. We pay $5 each payday from now until the Christmas party, and whoever loses the most by the Christmas party wins all the money. Woohoo! I'm always up for earning some extra cash! So wish me luck, because I most certainly intend to be the biggest loser. :)

New Resolve

Have you ever run into something that re-started your commitment to a project?

Well, I just did. My project is me, my body specifically. What did I run into? A little blue line. Yep, one little blue line. Changed my whole perspective.
You see, the problem with that little blue line was that it was not accompanied by another little blue line perpendicular to it. Confused? Let me go back to the beginning....

I woke up this morning, took my temperature, and discovered that it still hadn't shot up, which would signal my ovulation. That was mildly disturbing, because I should be ovulating any day now, and really should have yesterday, the day before, or the day before that. I'd also been having stomach pains, but not nausea. (You may already see where I'm going with this.) Let me make this clear, though: I did not think I was pregnant. I had my full period, and I had ovulated regularly before that. Since I have not ovulated since my period, there isn't really a chance that I could be pregnant, excepting divine intervention. Michael, on the other hand, being a guy and not fully understand all things girly (especially how 'it' works) thought I might be pregnant.

Michael's birthday is tomorrow, and I thought that if, because of divine intervention, I was pregnant, it would be really cool to tell him on his bithday. So the plan was to go to the store on my lunch hour and get a test. First, though, I went lingerie shopping, because I generally wear something new on his birthday. That was a small stumbling block, and started the head-long smack into the lonely little blue line. You see, I found a fabulous full-length nightgown that I knew would make him ... happy. I also opted for the smaller size of the two that I thought would fit because of the weight I had lost. I took it to the fitting room, and it did fit, it just wasn't flattering because of the pounds I still have to lose. My new resolve began to blossom.

I went out to the car, and knew my next stop would be CVS to get a pregnancy test. Then I felt it. A little bubble of excitment. Up until this point I had staunchly denied that I was pregnant, and I wasn't sad about it, having not yet met my weightloss goal. But there it was: I was excited that I might be pregnant. So I got the test, got back to the office, used the test, and there it was: one little horizontal blue line. Not two making a + sign, just the one. Just a -. I was not bitterly dissapointed, because I haven't met my goal, but it was enough to remind me why I'm doing this. It helped to remind me of the time when I will get to tell Michael that God has bestowed us with a miracle. And what I want to look like then, how healthy I want to be then.

So I have new resolve, and about 45 lbs to go.

A First

You'll never guess what I did this morning.

Seriously, it's ok, I'll wait. Guess.

Have you guessed yet?

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(I just threw that last one in for kicks :P)

So what's your guess? Wow...that's a good guess. But you're wrong. And I know you're wrong because I, myself, have never done this before. I've thought about it a few times, several, in fact, but I have never actually built up the gumption to do it.

What did I do? I got my butt out of bed at 5:45 AM this morning and I went for a run. Outside. In the dark. Outside. I was outside in the dark with just my little half-dog, and my husband's cell phone for company.

I will confess that I didn't really run the whole time. I speed-walked, and then I jogged, and then I ran for a little while. Then I had to walk again. Part of the problem was the puppy (who's not really a puppy anymore, but is still small, and so he's a puppy), who was super-excited to be out and about and therefore wanted to sniff-inspect every blade of grass and square inch of road or sidewalk we came across; he also heard nature's call and we had to stop a few times for that. The other part of the problem is that I am woefully out of shape when it comes to running, and I have asthma, which was only aggravated by the lovely humidity that TS Fay left behind. So I did the best I could while I was continuously calling to Harley to get him to keep up (which is rarely a problem), and trying to remember that I wasn't actually trying to breath water.

Here's the point: I set a goal for myself of getting out of bed, going outside, and walking/jogging/running/doing some form of exercise for 30 minutes. And I did. I was out of the house at 6 (with hubby's cell because I couldn't find mine and didn't want to be out in the dark without one), and I walked/jogged/ran for 15 minutes, and I went about a mile round-trip. Then I got in the house, dried off the puppy (wet grass...thanks Fay), and continued to exercise for another 15 minutes doing strength-training for my pitifully weak arms.

The reason I had to do all this? Gas prices. Really, I promise, here's how: Gas prices reached their peak just after Michael had to get a new job because of the state's budget cuts. Because our work schedules now coincided, we decided to start riding together. The problem with that is that it severely cut down on my Curves (women's gym) time, because Michael didn't have anything to do after work while I exercised for 45 minutes*. So I had to stop going after work. I tried to work while he was at my office for lunch and then take my lunch break later, but they are closed from 1-3 p.m. That forced me to either take my true lunch from 11-12 or from 3-4, since I can't routinely take lunch from 4-5, or come in at 9:00 a.m. Neither of those are very appealing. With the earlier one I would have to leave work just as I was flowing along nicely in a work groove that would take me to my 12-1 lunch without noticing the time pass. Then I would have to come back and work from 12-5. Ugh. Taking lunch from 3-4 requires me to work from 8-3. That's 7 hours straight! Then I would take a lunch and come back for one measly hour. Not happening. By the time I got all this figured out through trial and error, gas prices had started to come down a little, but the numbers on the scale (gasp, shriek, horror of horrors!) were going up. I couldn't let that happen. So Michael and I started driving separately 2 days a week. Which often turned into one or no days because of various things (Michael's lawn care business being the root of all of those various things).

I had to come up with another plan, and this is it. I'm keeping my Curves membership, because Curves is awesome, and I love getting there when I can, but this is the new main exercise plan. Wish me luck!

K8E

*Curves says it's 30 minutes, but by the time you get over there, change your clothes, work-out and stretch, it's 45 minutes.