Step 3 of 5 to Lose 25

If you’ve been with me the last couple days, you know I’m renewing my commitment to losing weight, and I’ve created a five-step plan for myself. The first step was setting my goal weight and creating tracking charts to keep up with the data. They push data analysis in everything else, and given my love of charts and lists, I figured it would have to help. Step 2 was creating a support team. I identified my team members (hopefully they will read the blog and be aware they are part of the team, though I suppose I should make it a point to inform them) who I trust to keep me on task. Now we’re ready to move on to Step 3, which is to make a lifestyle change in the area of my eating habits.

I’ve mostly abandoned the lifestyle changes I made in 2013. Letting them go is much easier than keeping them. I’ve got to reestablish those changes. Therefore, Step 3 is a renewed focus on eating habits. First, while it would be in my best interest to give up pop completely, I’m not going there yet, but I will go back to what I did in 2013 and limit myself to Diet Dew on the weekends only, and to take it a little further, my weekend limit will be three. At least this will be a start in the right direction. I know that if I try to deny myself completely, I will become too focused on what I can’t have and that would ultimately make things much more difficult.

The next thing I need to pay attention to is portion sizes. I will aim for a daily caloric intake of 1,500 calories, maybe a little more if I am exercising regularly. I’ll have to plan my daily meals and snacks in order to do this. I’ve found that a particular problem I have is that I’m starving when I get home from work, and that’s when I go overboard and eat a bag of chips or something else I don’t need. So menu planning is going to be essential to success. I’ll have to distribute my calories throughout the day and make smart snack choices for foods that are filling yet lower in calories. One way to do this is to make sure that I’m eating more fruits and vegetables, and hopefully with summer on the way and those foods becoming in season that will be easier to do.

Other than trying to restrict pop to just the weekends, I don’t plan to make any particular foods off-limits as this often leads to cravings and over-indulgences. If there’s something that I really want, I’ll work it into the daily menu plan, and if necessary, I’ll add extra time to the exercise routine.

In addition to menu planning, I’ll also have to make sure I’m keeping track of what I actually eat, not just what I plan to eat. I have a food journal that’s part of my Fitbit app as well as the Lose It! app on the Kindle. Between the two of them, I should be able to track my actual caloric intake. Using the weekly menu and using the food journal apps are going to be essential to my success. If I don’t know what or exactly how much I’m eating, I won’t be able to successfully lose the 25 pounds.

And there you have it, Step 3. As you can see thus far, this plan isn’t rocket science. It does require a little time and effort on my part, though, but then that would be required of anything I chose to do and wanted to see success with. This is just the beginning, though. The real work will be with Step 4, so check back tomorrow to get the details.

Make a Plan, and Stick to It

Losing weight is hard to do. Anybody who tells you differently is lying to you. Some may think it would be a good idea to jump on one of the fad diet bandwagons, but that’s probably the worst thing you can do. I don’t know anyone who has had consistent success with a fad diet. Ultimately, once the fad diet is stopped, the weight returns. Losing weight truly is a lifestyle change, and it takes a lot of work.

Last year, I had more success than I’m having this year, but I know it’s because I worked harder at it last year. I had finally become frustrated enough to do something about it. I’m glad I did. I feel much better, and it’s nice to go to the doctor for those checkups and have her say nice things about your weight being down. It was also nice to finally clean out the closet and get rid of all the clothes that were too big. I don’t plan to need them ever again. However, I still have a lot of weight I want to lose. Ideally, I’d like to lose another 60 pounds and would be thrilled to lose 40 of that this year. For that to happen, though, I’m going to have to get back to doing what I did last year. And I’m frustrated enough with myself now to do that. I’m getting tired of getting on the scale and seeing no change, and I realize that I am the only one who can do anything to make it change.

One thing I need to do is get back to menu planning, a week at a time. I plan my meals for Monday through Friday, which gives me a little more leeway on the weekends. The thing is if I follow my Monday through Friday plan, I can treat myself a little more on the weekends, as long as I keep it reasonable. It’s not a free ticket to gorge myself with whatever I want. When Monday rolls around, I will have a menu for the week.

The next thing I need to do is get back into writing down what I eat in the Lose It! app. Yes, I have the menu planned, but it is just that – a plan. Sometimes things happen and the plan doesn’t become a reality. By logging what actually goes into my mouth in the Lose It! app, I can know for sure how many calories I’ve actually ingested, and that is very helpful to losing the weight because the food log is for every day of the week, not just the five I have menus planned for. It’s a way to keep me honest and to make sure I don’t go overboard on the weekends.

Another thing I need to do is get back to my exercise program. I haven’t done any walking at the track this summer, and I’ve done very little (and I mean hardly any) with the exercise DVDs I have. That will change on Monday. I’m also going to do a weekly exercise plan. I’ve made monthly plans before, and that never seems to work out the way I want, so I’ll just do these plans a week at a time, the same way I do the menus a week at a time. This will include something from the exercise DVDs and hopefully a return to the park. I don’t want to walk the track alone, so I’ll have to find someone to do that with. Hopefully, Nic will be up to it. If not, I’ll have to find someone else, or I’ll have to suck it up and walk by myself.

A part of the exercise plan will also be the infamous Squat Challenge you may have seen posted on Facebook. I got a late start on it, starting July 6 instead of July 1, so I’m a little behind, but I have managed to do the Squat Challenge for 7 days. That means I’ve already done 90 squats today (not all at once; that would have killed me. Break it up throughout the day, and suddenly the number becomes more manageable.). I will finish the Squat Challenge on August 5. I will then put it aside until October 1, the next month with 31 days. My plan, as of now, is to do the Squat Challenge in every month with 31 days.

In addition to the Squat Challenge, walking the track, and/or doing the exercise DVDs, I’m going to add some arm toning exercises. I’ve done enough of the Denise Austin DVDs that I know several arm toning exercises, and when I do the Squat Challenge, I’m going to add arm exercises to equal the number of squats I have to do. Since tomorrow’s number of squats is 50, that’s a small number of arm exercises to add. By following the schedule of the Squat Challenge, I’ll be working on both my arms and my legs, and hopefully I will see the results of that soon.

Finally, there are a few other little habits that I’ve strayed away from over the past few months that need to become an important part of the plan again. One of those is no eating after 9:00 P.M. With my summer sleep schedule, this one becomes more difficult, so I’ll say that until school starts, it will be no eating after 10:00 P.M., but when school starts back, it’ll go back to 9:00 because I’ll be back on a regular schedule. Another thing is I’d been drinking my Diet Dew only on weekends, and I’ve had a lot more pop during the week for the last couple months than that. It’s been nothing like the four or five per day I was drinking before I went to the weekend only plan, but it’s still too much for successful weight loss. So, starting Monday, Diet Dew is only allowed on Saturday and Sunday again, and no more than three for the entire weekend. As a result of having more pop, I’ve had less water, so the final habit I need to get back to is drinking more water. I add the drink mixes to my water because I’d never be able to drink as much plain water in a day as I’d need to. Doctors recommend we drink eight cups of water each day. That’s 64 ounces. I drink bottled water. My goal will be to drink four bottles of water each day, for a total of 67.6 ounces of water per day.

As I said at the beginning, losing weight is one of the hardest things you will ever attempt to do. However, it is also one of the best things you can do for yourself. I’ve gotten off track, and as a result, I’ve hit a huge plateau. I’m the only one who can fix that. I intend to do just that. I will reach my goal weight. I will lose that additional 40 pounds this year, and the remaining 20 next year. When I do that, I will be just 20 pounds over my high school weight (I think it’d be a bit unreasonable to try to attain my high school weight), but I will still be at a healthy weight. And when I get there, I’ll work hard to stay there. I know I can do it. I’ve watched what my baby brother has done with his weight loss, and when I become frustrated with myself, I remind myself what he’s done. He’s proof that you can decide to take control of your health issues and do something about it. It’s time for me to stop slacking, get back on track, and do just that.

Thoughts on the New Year

Here are a few miscellaneous observations to begin the year.

First, the weather is crazy. Yesterday, temperatures dipped into the single digits, and this morning when I woke up, it was -8 degrees. As I’ve said before, I love a good snow day as much as the next person, but I don’t like these frigid temperatures at all. I’m very glad that I haven’t had to leave the house. On the flip side, though, Byron and Nicole have had to get out in this to go to work, and I don’t like that at all. Byron only has a five-minute drive, so that’s not so bad. It’ll take longer for his car to warm up than it will take for him to get to work; however, yesterday, his car doors wouldn’t even open. Fortunately, his boss came by and picked him up and took him to work. Nicole, on the other hand, has at least a half-hour drive to get to work. The good thing is that she only has to drive on Priority A roads (the first to get cleared). She has been late the last four days she has worked, though, because of me. I simply wouldn’t let her leave the house in the dark, with snow flying and ice on the roads. When conditions improved, and it was daylight, I let her leave. She wasn’t terribly late, and thankfully those at the bank are very understanding. Here’s the thing everybody needs to remember. No job is worth losing your life over. If conditions are not safe, either call in, or wait for conditions to improve, then go in. The bank can hire a new teller. I can’t replace my daughter, and that’s my primary concern.

For those who have to be out and about traveling, be sure to have some blankets in your car. With these frigid temperatures, it’s important to have more than one blanket. The more people in your car, the more you will need. If you are not wearing a good coat, boots, gloves, scarf, and hat, then be sure you have these in your car as well. No one plans to be in an accident or to have car trouble, but sometimes it happens, and for your own safety, especially in these frigid temperatures, you need to be prepared. Obviously, the best option is to stay indoors if you don’t have to be out.

With the weather, our break from school has obviously been extended. With school already canceled for tomorrow, that makes our fifth snow day of the year, and it’s just January 7. It’s looking like we’ll be going until the end of May or early June. There’s no use getting bent out of shape about that. It is what it is. It’s always interesting to listen to folks who are so excited to get snow days, then those same folks complain like crazy when we have to make those days up. It’s also interesting to see who goes stir crazy having to stay at home and who is just fine with it. I’m one of the ones who is just fine with it. There’s usually so much going on during a normal school week, that when I get a few days to stay home, I’m perfectly content not to leave. I have no problem finding things to do, even if it’s just sitting in the recliner with a blanket and a book.

Yesterday also started my renewed attempt at weight loss for the year. I like for my weeks to run Monday through Sunday, so even though I posted my plan last week at the beginning of the month, it didn’t actually kick in until yesterday. I hadn’t completely stopped exercising during the holiday season, but I was only doing the walking DVD periodically and sporadically. I didn’t do the toning DVDs at all. So today, after two days back into the actively-trying-to-lose-weight plan, my arms and legs hate me. I have followed the plan thus far (granted, it has only been a day and a half), but after doing 10 minutes of toning for my arms yesterday and today, I’m feeling it. I also did the one-mile morning walks yesterday and today, and yesterday, I did the second day of the Couch to 5K training. Later today, probably before bed, I will do the two-mile DVD walk. I’ve had to adjust my menu to reflect that I’m not working. On a normal day, I’ll have breakfast around 7:30, but not on a snow day. I have, thus far, managed to stick to the menu. Hopefully, this will continue. With no school again tomorrow, I do still plan to do the workouts I have planned, though my legs will probably hate me even more since the toning exercises move to the legs tomorrow, and I do still plan to keep following my menus. I am determined to lose this weight. I’ve even set a mini-goal that I will be able to buy two new dresses in May (one for Travis’s graduation from UK and the other for Brandon’s wedding) that will be a size smaller than the dresses I wore last summer for Cody’s and Byron’s weddings. It would be so easy to let snow days do me in. After all, when I’m here with the fridge all day, it’s tempting to just go get something to eat for no real reason, but I’m managing not to do that, so far.

Whatever you’re choosing to do with these snow days and these frigid temperatures, I hope you are managing to enjoy yourself, and I certainly hope that you are making safe, wise decisions if you are out and about in this ferocious weather. As for me, I still have a book to finish (need to try to reach that goal of 84, and right now, I’m still on the first book of the year), so I’m off to enjoy the rest of my snow day with my Kindle.