Ooops. This is Day 15 and I went way off back on the evening of Day 5, after that last optimistic post. Here was the sequence of mistakes:
1. I didn't put time into preparing good-tasting meals. I was hitting my nutritional targets, but eating two cups of raw vegetables a day to get there. After five days I felt food-deprived (not hungry, just not like I never really the big sandwich or pasta meal or whatever that I really wanted). I also didn't plan my meals as carefully as I should have.
2. The lean cuisines were a good solution (very tasty and calorie-moderate), but somehow I went way off track anyway. And then, instead of getting back on track right away, I just got discouraged by Life, In General. A certain amount of moping occurred.
3. I've got this scary meeting thing on Tues. and I'm kind of stressing out about it. Stress and worry about the future have always been the things that cause me to gain weight.
But I'm back. This time my plan is to stick to <2000 calories, as before, and to write down everything I eat ... but for the next two weeks, I'm not going to worry about hitting the complicated nutritional targets I set up when I started. I'll start with calorie-counting and then add the other things (like # servings fruits and vegetables, etc.) over time. I will also try to plan my meals in a sensible way.
I'm also going to try to say, Right now, losing weight is the change I'm making in my life. In a couple of months I can try making other changes, but losing weight is a big challenge, and for now I need to concentrate on that.
I will also try to make a positive effort to just relax and breathe--and read a chapter of a book, if I've got the opportunity--when I feel stressed and frantic, instead of snacking.
Now for the good things: today I went to Herberger's and got a really cute top. It looks great!
The thirty-minute workouts are very successful. I find that I really can and do make the time for a thirty-minute daily workout, and I don't try too hard to avoid them.
I'll also try posting my weight and a note every day, as before ... I really did feel that this was keeping me on track.
That's it, and good luck to all of you with your health-related goals! I'm cheering you on.
Yes, I'm still there ... although I have to admit it's getting boring. I'm sticking with my diet and exercise plan, but I'm not putting much effort into making the meals interesting.
Tonight I'm trying a Lean Cuisine ravioli meal for the first time. Buying a few packaged low-cal meals would be a way to make things more interesting ... assuming I can find good-tasting ones!
I'm also drinking a lot of diet soda these past few days.
It's cool because it gives you percentile rankings for your age and height (=where you stand in relation to the rest of the population), plus a couple of different designations for overweight/obese.
My BMI is 26.9 and I'm 54th percentile for women of my age and height (=probably American women). When I hit my (intermediate) goal weight, I'll have a BMI of 25.5 and be 45th percentile--but still be officially overweight.
I was really happy to post my inaugural weight loss today!
Hey, I keep losing this post when I go to Preview! So you know I'm still feeling my way around here.
I've set an intermediate weight loss goal: 10 lbs. in 5 wks. My plan is to write down everything I eat and do nutritional counts, with a goal of keeping the calories under 2000/day. I'm also going to exercise (15 min stretching in the AM, Egoscue exercises every other day, 30 min. biking/Nu-Step/walking six days a week, and 15 min stretching after exercise), and post my weight every day. I'll also make frequent blog posts. In the past, I've had trouble being consistent about making healthy changes because I lost motivation. I'm hoping that visiting this website daily will help me stay on track.
