From May 6, 2006

So I've been trying to get back into shape lately. I had a strategy for trying to get to the point that I wanted to commit to a better lifestyle. I just started eating a ton of junk. As I neared a new high and my largest clothes were almost too small, I hit a point that I knew I had to do something. Another thing that happened is that I saw one of my sisters, and she had lost a good chunk of weight. She said that she wasn't really even really trying. She had just been making better choices for the past many months and realized that her clothes were fitting way better. When she stepped on the scale, she had lost about 15 - 20 pounds. Of course, now she is really encouraged to keep it up. Plus, she has eased into a better lifestyle already, so it'll be not that difficult for her to just step it up a little on the exercise and all that and lose all the rest of the weight.

Anyways...back to me. So I decided that I was going to take a similar approach. I have been eating much better and trying to be more physically active. I have been fairly good for about 3 weeks now. For those who know me, this is pretty huge for me. I usually crap out after a couple of days of this.

My strategy is to eat plenty of healthy snacks throughout the day. When I go to work, I take several servings of fruits and vegetables, instant oatmeal, a couple of 100 calorie snack packs (to satisfy the junk food cravings), and a lean cuisine. We sometimes go out for lunch, but I do try to not eat the worst thing on the menu.

I have also been walking almost every day. My friend told me to do something for 21 days straight, and it will become a habit. Tomorrow will be day 21 for me. I hope she's right. I actually am starting to look forward to when I get to stretch my leg muscles during a good walk. I walk about 30 minutes each day before work. I started by walking outside, but I have transitioned over to the treadmill, because I push myself harder on that. I need to come up with some more variety, so that I don't get too bored and quit. I also have a co-worker that always walks on her lunch, and I've recently started walking with her. We work in a great area for this. Ann Arbor is beautiful, and it is a great place to walk. We went to the running store and bought pedometers. This really is a great tool to encourage more physical activity. We aim for 10,000 steps per day, but we usually exceed that by a couple of thousand.

The exercise makes me feel not so guilty for sometimes splurging on my calories a bit. I have been trying to not hang it all up if I screw up on my diet. In fact, I don't look at it as screwing up anymore. As long as I maintain an active lifestyle, it's FINE to have dessert sometimes or whatever.

Last night, I did have the urge to really throw in the towel. This week, I've struggled a bit more. I've been in some unhealthy food situations. Yesterday, we went to Pacific Rim for lunch. (Upscale Asian cuisine type of thing). I got Pad Thai with Shrimp. It was so good. I don't know how bad it is, but I'm sure it's not the best. For some reason, I started craving pizza last night. I didn't get it, but I was also craving anything I could think of. Anyways, I got some new makeup in the mail the day before - Bare Escentuals, have you tried them...sooooo awesome (that might be another blog) - anyways, i went upstairs to try out my new makeup. Then I felt like I should do my hair. I was feeling very good about the way I looked, and I think that helped me to refocus on my goal of looking awesome. Instead of giving into all the cravings, I started exercising a little bit, and then had a light snack. So that's my new strategy - every time I want to eat bad, I'm going to do something else that makes me feel and look good. I think this will help me stay focused. For some reason, it's easier to not care about being fat when the rest of you is a mess. Maybe next time I'll change out of the sweats and put on some sexy jeans and redo my hair and makeup. Then I'll think of the SMALLER sexier jeans that I could be wearing if I stayed on track to lose the weight.

I think that's a plan.