My favorite health foods store is .7 miles away from where I work. Now that it's gotten warm the last few days, I've been walking there and back for lunch, and getting healthy food while I'm there. I'm burning 140 calories (or so) on my lunch break, and eating low calorie foods. It's a good trick. :) Today's lunch, chicken tikka masala with lentil rice and a spinach&strawberry salad.

I added whole grains to the morning. I can't just do the fruit-only bit. I was way too hungry, and it was turning into that whole miserable dieting experience I want to avoid. So bran flakes or oatmeal with my fruit for breakfast. The overall morning caloric count is higher, but I'm finding I'm less likely to snack on salty or sweet snacks later in the day.

I'm done, just wanted to share those updates.

First off, sorry about unanswered comments. I have been writing responses and submitting, but apparently it doesn't actually post them... I'll fix that from the computer tonight!

Second, I'm pushing really hard right now. This is a major fight against my body that wants to be fat. After getting so angry at my body that won't behave, I told my husband at lunch yesterday not to freak out if I go a little extreme... I just need to see some real difference or I'll just give up and decide I'm just stuck being fat. I know I need to eat and I know overworking and pulling muscles is bad. I still need to be presentable for work and able to care for my son. But I'm really restricting my diet and I'm exercising way more. I'd better see a huge difference next month.

I'm going crazy. Still, I'm feeling like I have to push so hard and it's really frustrating. I mean, I'm on a pretty strict diet and I do a pretty major amount of exercise, some days walking 8 miles, and I work out every other day until it hurts, and I lose these teeny tiny bits at a time. Healthy people don't do as much as me, and they stay skinny. Small lifestyle changes will lose most people the weight they want, but I have to throw my whole world into upheaval in order to lose half an inch. What a pain in the ass.
That being said, I'm still pushing. I let myself enjoy 2 days for the holidays and tracked nothing, but I'm back on now. I ran this morning. Maybe I'll start running when it warms up. So we'll see where the numbers fall. Just wish I didn't have to put so much more into getting to a healthy weight.

I burned 200 calories before getting out of bed this morning.

That is all. Just feeling awesome. Now to get started on getting everyone ready for family visits. I suppose we should wrap presents and stuff, too. Have a Merry Christmas everyone! *love*

 I wanted to share some of the more detailed parts of my habits lately that I haven't gotten around to. First, y'all know I've been taking supplements for my low thyroid. The supplement I was taking had kelp and bovine thyroid, and it was uneven, sometimes spiking me to where I was having hyperthyroid symptoms, and other times having almost no effect. I decided it was too uncontrolled from pill to pill for me and switched to one that's basically a multivitamin with kelp for thyroid support, and I feel a lot more balanced.

I started a formal dieting strategy. It's more about discipline than anything else. First, I try to not eat anything but fruit in the morning. If I'm just too hungry for that discipline, I'll have a small bowl of whole grain cereal. I don't mix starches, and I'm drinking 6-8 glasses of water a day, which has really resulted in lower appetite and a better balance of energy throughout the day. I'm also only eating 3 times a day, avoiding snacking for the most part. I will let myself have a cookie, but I stop there. I tell myself that I'm eating it for the flavor, and I already tasted it, I don't need more. It'd just taste the same anyway, right? I'm also avoiding salt and most fried foods. They're actually kind of gross now. Melted cheese, too, and I've always been a huge cheese fan (though I still have my mini brie/preserves, but now that's as part of lunch). Unhealthier foods just don't look as appetizing. In general, I see food as fuel, caloric intake, and everything else is yucky.

As far as a plan to lose weight, I did the calculations to find out what my daily caloric usage is, and set my intake goal at about 800 less than that. Then I set a goal of trying to burn an extra 200 calories with exercise a day. Sometimes I'll burn 300, sometimes it's only 70. It's too cold for a long walk, and some days I just can't get peace to work out alone. What I do doesn't matter, I vary it depending on my mood.

I picked up a free subscription to Fitness magazine, and when it came, I was overwhelmed. Stories of women who lost their baby weight while caring for quadruplets, or that lost 70 lbs in 5 months, and I felt like a slacker. It's like a smoker reading successful cold turkey stories while they're on the patch. It kicked me into gear. I've tried some of the exercises and like some, dislike others for various reasons. Some don't agree with my back and hips, and some just aren't fun. But I have lots of options now, and really can't wait to get a treadmill.

For the rest of life, I am staying in school and not taking any time off like I thought. Instead, I'm retaking classes I want a better grade in, and have my sights set - I'm doing the Instructional Design path I fell in love with. So before I transfer into the University I'm retaking stuff that dragged down my GPA. I looked at my transcript and apparently my first semester back in college, the semester I started 7 months pregnant, the semester I had a baby during midterms, the semester I started working full time with a baby while studying for finals, I made the Dean's List. Just like the Fitness magazine, big motivator. I can do some amazing things when I put my mind to it. So I registered for next semester, just a math survey class I had a lot of fun in but my terrible organizational skills led to missed homework.

I'm also working a normal 8-5 outside of home, and it's wonderful. My boss is great, and I'm getting fantastic pay. We get a lot of holidays and I love my coworkers. It's a small corporate office, so no two people do the same job. My boss has been really understanding to my family needs as I adjust to not being at home anymore. So it's a peaceful setting.

My business that I was starting is a little on hold for another business in higher demand. The previous one, I want it to be a physical business, but we're moving out of this state soon so I'm waiting to get a start on it until we move. This other business is online and has already made me $40 :) So we'll see how that goes, but I'm excited.

My husband and I are loving our neighborhood, and we've been enjoying all the tasty food in walking distance, as well as the co-op. We like to go pick up ingredients and take them home to cook together. Our boy loves to walk around, too, and we're in a safe neighborhood where we can let him walk with us and he's got a huge park right by our house to play at. We also love the Christmas lights. It's so worth paying more for the neighborhood. One neighbor dropped off tamales, another left a bag of homemade cookies at our door.

For Christmas, we're decorating the apartment. Ornaments and lights are up. I love it! Tonight, mall for Santa pics, and maybe some shopping. We're going to do family stuff Christmas Eve and Christmas will be for us at home. The next day, I have off of work, so we're getting family portraits done. We might also go to a friend's for dinner. So there's the update. It's amazing I manage to eat well and exercise among all of this. Hope you all are doing well and have a great holiday weekend.