1 New Habit at a time

I skipped my AM workout again this morning, but I went to the gym at lunch today! I also went to my bellydance class last night. I was pretty good about my food intake, but I need to be a bit better organized with my meal planning and making sure I'm eating regularly enough to not get super hungry. This'll just take a little bit of time as I figure it all out. Anyway, I've decided that it's all rather overwhelming to adopt all these new habits all at once, so I'm not going to beat myself up about it too much. Instead, I'm going to make sure that I start at least 1 new healthy habit each week. So this week, that healthy habit has been working out during the day (going to the gym or power-walking at lunch and attending my evening dance classes). I'm also trying very hard to eat healthier and hopefully I'll have that totally down by next week. I've also committed to going to LA Weight Loss 3x a week, and so far I've stuck to that. So, rather than beat myself up because I haven't also gotten up that 45 minutes earlier to work out in the morning, I should be quite proud of myself for the other stuff! Next week I'll commit myself to get up earlier and work out (in addition to the other stuff). Part of the problem with the mornings is that I also need to train myself to get to bed earlier, which is tough, I'll have to make that part of next week's commitment as well.

I should be all set to have 4 healthy meals today. For breakfast I had an instant oatmeal and a glass of pressed mango juice. After my workout (about 12:30) I stopped at the Salad Bar on my way back to work. I guess my body was craving carbs after my workout because the prospect of eating greens just totally turned me off and that's what I usually get. Instead I got fruit and a small helping of curried pasta salad. I've got green salad and chicken breast meat prepared for later this afternoon, and I've taken some salmon out of the freezer to have for dinner tonight. Hopefully, this will leave me properly satisfied and help relieve the temptation to snack this evening (my big downfall).

Let's Try This Again

Alright, here it is a new year, and I'm right back where I started (almost). I'm starting the year off at 194, I did manage to get down to 178 in the summer, but a month long road trip eating in restaurants every day followed by the holiday season has put me right back up.

I'm really determined this time though. I'm going to use healthy eating and exercise to lose the weight. I've committed to going to LA Weight Loss 3x a week (more for the accountability factor than anything else) and I've signed on with a personal trainer. I'll go to see him once a week (that's all I can afford) and work out at the gym on my own twice more a week. I also plan on getting up a half an hour earlier every morning (except Sunday, my designated 'day of rest') to start my day off with a workout video. I have a ton of these, and never find the time to do them with life being so busy (not with anything particularly interesting mind you, just work and family responsibilities). Anyway, the morning is really the only time that makes sense. I'm going to find this very difficult though as I'm not a morning person and it's extremely hard to discipline myself to get up out of my cozy bed on a cold winter morning. I've also signed up for 2 dance classes a week. The first one is tonight and that's bellydance, the other class (Burlesque!) starts on Friday, both at my local community centre. I've taken bellydance before and I really enjoy it, but I've never taken burlesque and I'm not exactly sure what it will entail, but I'm very excited about it. I might even take one of those pole-dancing classes once I have a little less weight to have to hoist. I'm not interested in doing it professionally or anything (I can't imaging taking my kit off for a bunch of strangers even if I was in awesome shape), but I think a class would be fun.

Anyway, so far today, I've been doing okay, but not great. I skipped my morning workout, electing to exercise only 1 arm by hitting the snooze button a dozen times instead. I've eaten well so far... oatmeal for breakfast, chicken and salad for lunch. At lunch time I went for long brisk walk (it's a non-gym day today). I'm aiming for 4 small meals a day and I'll try to keep my intake around 1500 calories a day. This should enable me to lose about 2 pounds a week.

Here's a nifty calculation if you're trying to lose weight... To maintain your current weight, multiply it by 12 and this is the number of calories you need to consume per day. 3500 calories equals 1 pound, so to lose 1 pound a week, reduce that amount by 500 calories, to lose 2 pounds a week, reduce that amount by 1000 calories, etc. Keep in mind though that women shouldn't go below 1200 calories a day and men shouldn't go below 1500, it's not healthy.