I have realized, over the past few years, that saying I am going to lose weight or get in shape doesn’t mean anything unless I set goals. Also, long term goals don’t work for me- because the end result it just too far in the future and I lose focus. For this resolution, We have tried to make it short term and have some sort of reward.
Ian and I have set a goal to lose 2 lbs a week. We are going to be accomplishing this by restricting our diet to 1800- calories (3 400-500 calorie meals, and 3 100-150 calorie snacks.)and by exercising a minimum of 3 times a week. Seems simple right? Of course not! with busy schedules and a toddler nothing is as easy as just doing it. Here are some of the ways I am going to help me stick to this plan…
How we are accomplishing these goals
- I am bringing my lunch, breakfast and several snacks to work every day
This is one of my biggest weak points. I don’t eat. I know that seems kinda funny for a person of my size to say, but I don’t. On a busy day I will go into work forgetting to eat breakfast, will be stuck in meetings all morning and into the afternoon and next thing I know its 3 PM and I am starving. So I’ll quickly run out to a fast food restaurant and get fast greasy food. then 3 hours later I’ll go home and have dinner with Ian and Mannix.
By packing my lunch and breakfast the night before, and bringing it to work work, with the snacks, I am reminding myself to eat, and also saving money. This past week was my trial run at this, and it seemed to work. I had good food to eat and didn’t have to wait for a convieneint non-meeting time to eat.
- We are eating at home every night of the week
As I mentioned earlier, we are a busy and we have a two year old. This combined with the fact we live in a city with so many restaurants you could eat at a different restaurant every day of the year, made it so we were going out to eat at least 3 times a week. We weren’t paying attention to what we were eating either.
Eating at home will allow us to monitor our portions and calories better, and it will also allow us to save money. A win-win situation.
- We have a Gym Membership… And we’re using it.
My Company did work in trade, which resulted in us all getting family gym memberships…I don’t know about you, but I don’t really find exercise exciting. I mean, I do it… but generally if there is something more interesting on TV, I would rather just watch that. Thats when I discovered the best thing at our gym…. Treadmills and elliptical machines with built in personal tv’s! Yes thats right- the other day I found myself on the treadmill longer then my minimum amount of time because I wanted to watch the end Project Runway.
There are other things I love about our gym too, there is such a wide array of things you can do… Monday I am going to take aquatic kickboxing, today we went and checked out the treadclimber (=treadmill + climbing wall), and there’s also tennis, Raquet ball and more. Plus they have very good, very reasonably priced childcare - which means I can work out and even go in the sauna afterwards, with out having to worry. If anyone is from the Manchester area- I recommend the Executive highly!
- The reward
There is no denying that I am motivated by rewards. I think everyone is. To me, the immediate rewards give some sense of euphoric one step closer to the goal. Some of the reward happens naturally… I feel great as I’m leaving the gym and that motivates me to come back. Some rewards don’t really have an effect one me- me dropping weight isn’t something I notice because my sense of body image is so skewed, so for these I need some other sort of reward. So… for this, we have developed this condition.
If at the end of a week- Ian and I have dropped two pounds each, which was our goal, We will allow ourselves to go out to eat at a non-fast food restaurant. This serves as a little treat for the weekend, given we met our goal. We are of course, still counting those calories….
During the week we allow for two “cheats” (1- 100 calorie, 1- 500 calorie) There are always those days you are just really hungry….
Well, thats the plan. I will try to update weekly with how it is going and the additional methods we are going about to accomplish them.
Yes - TV makes exercising soooo much easier. I go to the gym regularly to lift but always hated doing cardio. Golds in Nashua doesn’t have those fancy treadmills with TVs. Finally, I started downloading TV shows onto my Ipod Touch and watching them while on the elliptical. I could easily stay on there for an entire 1 hour episode now. Its definitely win-win becuase now I’m doing more cardio and getting caught up on some good TV shows.
Hello Guys,
I am glad to stumble (or actually dig up) your web site. Glad to hear you are on the healthy eating/living path!
I am now a lifetime member of Weight Watchers. I read your posts and some of your blogs.
I agree with you Kelley, packing your lunch and snacks and eating regularly is a huge help!
When I go out with Levi I always pack a meal so if we are out longer than intended I wont have to stop for fast food.
I have also learned that Granola bars (something I used to hate) actually aren’t all that bad and taste really good when you are hungry!!
I look forward to reading more about your journey and reading more of your blogs!
I miss you guys!
Treasure