19 May 2012

Planning


I am. Planning for a big change. Huge!!!

Sometimes, when I need to change something, I need to do it one small step at a time. And that's good. There are times when that approach works very well. One example is my effort to become more organized. I'm working on daily organization by going through the mail and throwing the junk away before it gets in the house. Small step, huge progress. I'm also slowly working on developing a place for everything and the habit of putting everything in it's place every night. Small step, huge progress. And these things are working. They are slowly becoming habits and that's what I want. But there are other times when huge, drastic, sweeping changes are necessary. I am currently planning for one of those.

I've mentioned before that I'm joining 24 hour fitness on June 1 - actually June 2, since I will probably have consumed excessive alcohol on June 1 (end of the year party!!!!). I was also planning on altering my eating by tracking everything and eating clean - I really want to lose 20 lbs!!!!! Then the other morning I realized (for the 10th time) that I really don't like coffee anymore. I used to love coffee. I loved the smell of it, the taste of it, everything. I even loved eating coffee beans. Yum. But for the past few years I have not been as thrilled about it as I used to. So I thought, if I don't really like it why am I drinking it? Because I'm addicted. I know what will happened if I go without coffee and I don't want that. So I decided that June 2nd would be a great time to kick coffee too. It will take 2-3 days for the headache and crappy feeling to go away and summer school doesn't start until June 7th. Perfect!!! I'm kicking coffee. Then I thought, well, if I'm going to kick coffee why don't I go off sugar too. Get all that nastiness out of my system all at once. Then I thought, wait, why don't I do an elimination diet. Get all the chemicals and processed crap as well as coffee, sugar, wheat, etc. out of my system. Go for a clean sweep. There are things that I eat that bother me. They cause gas and bloating and sometimes incredible lower abdominal pain. I don't know exactly what it is that causes this because I eat too much stuff that can cause this. So if I go on an elimination diet for a month and then slowly start adding these things back in, I can figure out what exactly is bothering me. Doing this while upping my exercise and having the time to put into the effort should result in significant health benefits. What a fabulous idea. So that's what I'm going to do. On June 2nd my entire life with change. My workouts, my eating, my working, everything. I have 2 weeks to plan and I'm rather looking forward to it. I think this is exactly what I need to really shake things up and get things rolling.

Sometimes you have to make small incremental changes for things to be effective, other times you just have to hold your breath and dive in headfirst. Here goes......

13 May 2012

No Control


When faced with certain foods I have no control. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Mostly those foods are ones that contain sugar and other empty calories. I know that I am a sugar addict, I have been for a long time. The truth of the matter though is that I haven't always been. I used to not like chocolate or candy much at all. I liked cake and cookies but I would never buy them, I would only eat them somewhere else - like Mom's house. But over the years I let my sweet tooth grow to massive proportions. Now when faced with a food that contains a lot to of sugar and carbs I have absolutely no control over it at all. None. That's not totally true either, my control is much better then it used to be, but it's still not where I want it to be. But today as I was reading something, it came to me - 3 bites. That used to be my rule when I lost all that weight the first time - 3 bites. I read a study years ago that said you only really taste the first 3 bites, after that the flavor fades. I tried to see if that was true and for a while really, really focused on what I was eating. It's true. 3 bites is about the limit of your taste. When I wanted to eat something that was very high in calories I would really focus on the first 3 bites and then stop. In general that would satisfy me. I lived by that rule for years and years. 3 bites. Whenever I had dessert I would share it and only take 3 bites, I'd let the others eat the rest. So it's time to get back to that. 3 bites. 3 bites. 3 bites. That is going to be my mantra this week.

In other news, it got freaking hot here quick. I don't remember it being this hot one day last summer and it's been like this for 2 days now. Don't get me wrong, I love it, it just happened so suddenly. We have been talking about putting some kind of water feature in the yard. We can't decide between a swimming hole type pool, a koi pond or just some outdoor fountains. A water feature would be so nice out there and it would definitely provide some cooling air for these really hot days.

Conversation with Hubby

 So yesterday morning I presented my idea of working out at home to the Hubby. Once I presented it to him, he said he was in. I told him I h...