Synopsis of My Weekend

My goal is far from being achieved. After day one I have not been keeping active nor have I been eating food properly. Overall my portion sizes have been kept small but that doesn’t mean the amount of calories has been. I failed myself on Friday and drank another soda. On Saturday I celebrated a friend’s birthday after work. We ate salad but we also ate cupcakes (the small ones) and I ate more than my share. Sunday I drank two sodas and finished my day with chips, about 3 of those small personal bags. While overall I seemed to do better than I have in the past I know I should have done better. As Sunday came to a close I hoped that the routine that school would offer on Monday would also help me to come closer to my goal.

I have yet to find success and I have yet to push myself in that direction. Before I can reach my goal I need to be willing to make changes in my life. Am I truly willing to change things even if it is for a good cause? Perhaps I’m not convinced that I need to diet, though it clearly shows in my pant size that I do. perhaps my taste buds need more excitement then what I have offered. Perhaps the fall break brought boredom which brought with it appetite. Right now I’m not sure. I do know that I have not pushed myself for the success I seek and at this rate I can’t expect myself to do much better then I have in the past. Why does such a simple task (eat less, eat better) seem so hard?

Related Articles

• Eat Like a Jet, Healthily (fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com)
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Day Two

I have a confession to make. After I posted my day one entry I watched a bit of tv and then before going to bed the cupcakes on the counter caught my attention. They had been taunting me all day! I ate one. It was so delicious, chocolate cake mix and chocolate frosting, I had to eat another.

Day two was filled with temptation from the start. I woke up later than my goal, 10am, to start with. I had to run an errand almost immediately after so I took care of that. When I got back home I went to prepare my usual bowl of cereal and dry bread (I prefer it dry) when I saw that someone had already made a frozen pizza and left it on the stove. Temptation. There it was staring me in the face, “eat me! eat me!” I took my bowl of cereal and left but the temptation was there and I was in the mood for pizza now. I ate my cereal and bread and then sat in front of the tv for a few minutes but my mind was in the kitchen with the pizza. I couldn’t take it anymore so I ate a slice. Temptation had won. It won again when I opened the fridge and saw some sodas (I’ve been drinking only water so my taste buds screamed for the flavor). I ate only one slice of pizza and drank only one soda. Though the two were not needed at all I am proud of the fact that I stopped after one, that is sometimes a struggle of its own as well.

I ate an orange between lunch and dinner. For some reason I had this desire to snack all day and my orange that I didn’t end up eating on day one was luckily the only thing to snack on. The chips that fill the house were tempting but temptation seemed to have known it won and I was freed from the mind games. For dinner was some pasta dish with chicken and I ate two servings which was actually only one bowl. I ended my day better than I started it in some ways.

I didn’t exercise at all but I spent a great deal of time moving my stuff from one room to another and painting my new room. Hopefully that was enough activity.

Related Articles

• Coping with temptation when dieting (justslimming.com)
• Eat well but you can still eat pizza and icecream (respiratorytherapycave.blogspot.com)

Day One

The day is not over yet but I have finished dinner and already calculated in the orange I plan to eat later.Last night I didn’t sleep. I knew that going to bed late would make it difficult to begin today with waking up at 6am but since I didn’t sleep, I was up. Yay…success. Sort of.

Since I was awake and I wasn’t ready to try jogging I searched YouTube for Tae bo videos. It’s not the newest routine but it got me moving. I did the same video a few times before the clock turned to six and then I realized my first great hurdle in my new routine. 6am may not work. Jogging at 6am seemed to be preferrable because it would be cool outside and few people would be up and about so I wouldn’t have to feel quite so self-conscious. When I looked out my window however it was still dark out and I just didn’t feel safe being out by myself. I spent a bit more time continuing the tae bo routine but not much longer.

I came across my first question today as well. Is it better to eat before or after exercise? Since I didn’t know the answer to this question I ate a piece of bread before and a bowl of cereal after.

For lunch I ate an apple, celery, and 2 servings of creamy peanut butter. To this point my serving sizes had all been perfect. I ate all the celery I bought, which I thought might have been too much, but it was only 6 calories or so. Needless to say I feel no guilt and my lunch was rather filling.

After I ate lunch I went for a walk with my sister’s dog. It was just a casual walk for roughly 30 minutes. It wasn’t much of exercise but it was an excellent start.

Dinner looked grim. It was beef ravioli or fettuccine alfredo, neither choice very healthy. We made the ravioli and I served myself a bowl without considering the serving size. After I began to eat, it occurred to me that I got twice as much as I needed. I decided I didn’t care. That was the first time today where I almost didn’t stick to my goals. I sat long and hard debating about getting a second bowl but I remembered I had an orange for later and if I desired a yogurt too (which has yet to be calculated in but should fit without problems). Remembering this helped me to refrain from my second bowl.

Tomorrow I don’t have school like I did today so I will jog in the morning as I planned to today when the sun begins to rise. I will also have readily have my 3 regular meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and 2 snacks (most likely a fruit before and after lunch). By having these readily available I won’t find myself so hungry I over eat.

Related Articles

• Trouble Sleeping? (psychologytoday.com)

Beginning A Journey

Everyone wants to succeed but for some reason the habits that are required to sometimes reach the success desired are far more difficult to implement in our lives then we first anticipate. Some people are lucky enough to naturally add these habits to their lives, others like myself are not so lucky. I’ve attempted to include such habits as exercise, proper eating habits, and even healthy sleeping patterns in the past with no luck but as I stared at the clock tonight I realized I want something better for myself.

Tonight I start this blog as a way for me to keep track of my goals and as a way to feel obligated to meet them. It is often suggested to have a friend or family member exercise with you so that you don’t give up but I don’t have someone who I am able to exercise with regularly. Instead of this person I am blog posting.

While the initial idea is weight loss, this is my journal to success for all the aspects of my life.

Tomorrow (today technically) begins my new life. Wish me luck.

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• The Inner Weigh: Lose Weight By Making Peace With Your Fat First (huffingtonpost.com)