Last night I went to a cooking class with a friend. The food was loaded with butter and cream and mmmh was it delicious, but not exactly diet-friendly. Maybe I can find ways to modify some of them.
Needless to say I didn’t stay on my food plan yesterday. Now we’re headed off to spend the rest of the week with my mother in law. It’s not going to be easy to stay on plan. But then whoever said this would be easy?
I made it through the first day unscathed. I was worried because the first day is always difficult and because I had a lunch meeting at a restaurant. It’s not always easy to make healthy choices away from home, but one of the daily specials was salad, salmon, rice and broccoli, so I had that. I was busy all day, so didn’t get in as much exercise as I would have liked. I did two short walks with the dog, but one was in the pouring rain, surely I should get bonus points for that! Now I’m off to go swimming.
I’ve read several weight loss blogs where people describe the moment they realized they had to change. For some people it’s a birthday, the beginning of a new year, a health scare, an embarrassing moment or some other moment of sudden clarity that the time to start is now. My 25th, 30th, 35th and now even 36th birthdays have come and gone with me being only fatter. I’d say close to 15 new years have begun with me trying to convince myself that this would be the year I’d lose weight. I’ve had my share of embarrassing moments. No health scare yet, but I was involved in a doctor-supervised long term obesity program… and gained 15 kilos. A couple years ago I thought I’d found the spark I needed to light the fire of motivation under my wide butt the time I noticed that I weighed almost as much as the bears at my city’s zoo. Now I weigh more than those bears and I still can’t seem to find the motivation or dedication to get serious about losing weight. Instead, I’ve waged other battles that turn out to be more easily won– I’ve made friends, I’ve conquered my fear of showing up fat at the pool, I’ve got a job, I’ve begun volunteering, I’ve taken courses, in fact, I’ve done just about all the things that I told myself I would do as soon as I lost weight. Maybe just as an excuse not to lose weight?
So here I am still not convinced that I’ve got the motivation I need, but I know I need to start again. Here’s the plan:
Eat three healthy meals and 2 healthy snacks a day and keep a food journal.
Exercise at least 30 minutes a day—walking the dog is my main form of exercising, but I’ll also swim for 45 minutes at least once a week.
Weigh in once a week.
Write in this journal. Like a food journal, I hope this journal will keep me honest. It’s so easy to forget what I should be doing when I think nobody is paying attention anyway.
Thanks for reading.