Finding New Motivation

So, back in January, I was trying to eat more eggs and better breakfasts than just cereal. I did ok for a few weeks, then it sort of tapered off.

I recently found some more breakfast ideas, the make ahead sort, that I've been trying out. I am particularly fond of the freeze-able breakfast quesadillas (here). It's nice to be able to pull them out and zap them; and they warm up really well; still tasty. Also, the yogurt parfaits are easy enough that I can just pull them together without too much trouble in the mornings.

But what's really been working is that I took advantage of scheduled text messages. I set up a month's worth of daily texts to myself telling me to get on the treadmill. It's actually been pretty effective for this first week. I paired the texts up with an audio book (finally getting back to Harry Potter).. and it actually is almost fun to get walking; the book gives something to look forward to.

It's still early, my normal burnout on these attempts to get more active or eat better, is about 2 or 3 weeks in.. but there's a *lot* of Harry Potter, so hopefully that keeps me going long enough to build some better habits.

"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down." - Mary Pickford

Trying a New Approach

Happy new year!

Truthfully, I'm not much of one for resolutions. I generally don't make 'em because my history is to go for a couple weeks and then fall off the wagon. Then I get discouraged and my motivation fades and nothing changes.

So, I'm sort of casting about, at the moment, for a new method that'll work better for me. What has been working the last couple of weeks isn't really quantifiable or with a clearly defined direction, however, my scale ticked down a bit for the first time in ages. Now, that little number isn't everything, but it is nice to see! What's been working is that I've changed the way I eat breakfast.

Typically, my breakfast is a bowl of cereal; it's fast and easy and that's nice. However, it doesn't seem to matter what type I eat, it doesn't stick with me and I end up munching my way through the morning.

So, I've decided to start eating an omelette for breakfast. They are pretty quick and not that hard to cook (thank you YouTube). Then I can fill them with veggies and they're quite healthy and sooooo delicious. Plus, they feel fancy and that's me starting off the day with a little boost of self-care.

Right now I'm loving a broccoli, tomato and cheese omelette. I steam the broccoli in advance, then cut up my tomatoes and warm them up a little as I wait for the eggs to cook.

Deeeeeelicious!

Starting off the day this way seems to lay a good foundation for my eating the rest of the day. I tend to snack less and it's not such a trial to avoid binging on sweets (even when I'm grumpy and/or tired).

So, maybe not a resolution per se, for now, I'll go with this.

Happy New Year!

It's resolution time and once again I have decided to try to get a handle on my weight. I started making a relatively valiant effort to gain a little self control in the kitchen sometime around the beginning of November. Leading up to Christmas I dropped a few pounds and then waffled around in a 5lb range. Then Christmas hit. There was chocolate in the stockings. There were gingerbread houses. There was candy cane bread. There just haaaaaad to be the traditional baking of cookies. My scale did not appreciate my festivities. It actually made a little popping cracking noise when I stepped on it. Ouch.

So Happy New Year. Happy New You is what it really should be called since that's what most people try to focus on at the beginning of each year. My new me this year is going to involve more gratitude, more consistent schooling for my kids, more artsy creative stuff, more traveling, and much less sugar. I've known for a long time that I am quite sensitive to sugar. Rits' reaction to her chemical ice cream? That's me with sugar. I have made several half-hearted attempts at the no refined sugar, only whole grain diet, but I have been successful twice for about a month each time and I literally drop 10lbs a week for two or three weeks. This time I'm starting with no sugar and am working my way over to only whole wheat. I'm almost there, but I'm giving myself another week to make the switch.

I weighed in on January 1st and in the last 5 days I've been 100% successful with absolutely no refined sugar and I'm down 5 1/2lbs. Not too shabby for the first week and only doing half the diet. I would like to make it a permanent change since I obviously do not respond well to sugar. Dave says he wants to do no sugar most of the time (as in he wants to have it on occasion, not he's waffling about joining in) so we can work on it together. Much better odds for success. :)

Speaking of doing things together, they say fitness is made 70% in the kitchen and 30% in the gym so Dave and I have been getting up early in the mornings to exercise together. We haven't been doing a ton, but about 20 minutes each morning of strength exercises. I think it's going pretty well and it's nice to work out with my hubby.

October Check-in

So, my goals kind of flew out the window this month. It was a tough one.

I'm up on the scale about as much as I was down, but I'm actually pretty happy with that:

Midway through September, we accidentally got a carton of low-fat no sugar added ice cream. Oops. Didn't taste good - it was full of chemicals and they definitely have a flavor. But the day after I ate it I was four pounds heavier. I've known for a while that I'm sensitive to chemicals, but this was a big reaction, even for me. Needless to say, I'm not interested in that kind of ice cream. (Normal sugary, fatty ice cream doesn't bother me like that.) Typically, if I have a soda or something like that, I'll gain, but it comes off in a day or two, so it's more annoying than anything else. This time, though, it took about two weeks for me to stop feeling fluffy and start seeing the scale creep back to where it had been. About that time, it was time for my cycle, and I always gain a bit right before that; it's normal for me. So, although I'm up just a tad from last month, I'm still pretty happy: the weight from the ice cream is pretty well gone, and the monthly weight will be over soon, and I can see where I'm at again for real.

October is Here!

October! A wonderful month. Autumn weather finally starts making an appearance, Halloween decorations can start going up. Just have to watch out for all the candy!

Making habits is rough business!! The inertia of my rut is *strong*. Here's what we have for this month's check in.

Eat Veggies every day:
So, this one was spotty.. some weeks I did pretty good, but other weeks not so much. But overall, a slight improvement from last month.. I give it a C+

Don't eat dessert every day:
This one. This is where my rut is so hard to get out of... It's almost like sweets are my replacement for a mom's quintessential wine at the end of the day. That and I struggle with moderation, so I've decided to change this one up. I'm going to take 10 days off, no dessert. Then, from there only once a week. This one seems more quantifiable and easier to track.
Replacing the bad snacks, I've been eating more almonds and craisins and apples with peanut butter. It's been 3 days, so still early but, so far, so good! C

Get up and move every day:
I've been keeping trying to dance around more, getting out for walks more frequently.. There's always room for improvement, but I say, overall, a C+ here.

Still, there's strength in not stopping. I'm still going.. slowly, slowly, but still going. Trying to get a better handle on things before the holidays really set in!

I am one day in to trying to get myself turned around on the healthy diet, healthy weight efforts.  I have to admit that I have not done well lately.  I thought that I would steal DoriAnn's idea and set some goals here.

1. Get to bed no later than 11:00.  I do not do well in any area if I do not do well here.
2. Walk at least 3 times a week, even if it is only for a few minutes.
3. Pack a lunch for work and work on eating cleaner - less sugar - no chocolate -. Plan an afternoon snack for my afternoon slump when all the sweets that float around the building don't look so inviting.
4. Drink more water.
5. Journal what I eat.

Life is crazy.  I had to buy bigger pants for work.  I am not pleased with myself.  I do not want to put back on the weight I have lost.  I have lost 85 lbs.  I still have 21 left to go to get to my goal.  That should be nothing - but I have been working on this last little bit of weight lose for ever!  I need to find new motivation.  Something to get me past the discouragement and complacency I feel.  Thank you for starting this back up again, ladies.  I am hoping that this will help.

Love,

Mom

September Check-in

So! It's another new month! I'm really liking having this blog active again, and I'm liking this monthly interval, too.

Here's how I did in August:

First of all, I'm down about 2 1/2 pounds for the month! Which is pretty exciting -- let's see if I can keep that rolling, rather than finding it again. That would be really nice. Given the stress that we've got at our house right now, I feel particularly good about a small loss: it's way too easy to stress eat and sabotage  yourself. I've done that plenty of times.

Checking in on my goals:

1. Find a whole wheat sourdough bread recipe: DONE. I blogged the whole saga, and the final recipe is here. The good news is, it's pretty easy to make with a stand mixer. Even better, when I want it to, the start will wait patiently in the fridge until I'm ready for it. And, if I'm not interested in going whole hog, then I can get a quick nutritional boost from something like zucchini bread or banana bread. Actually, just about any quick bread can be easily adapted to have some sourdough and wheat flour in it. If anyone wants some start, it's easy to mail.

2. Desserts no more than once a day: Doing pretty good, mostly. Even the chocolate chips.  We'll see if I can maintain it; I like chocolate.

3. At least 1/2 quart of water daily: Still need work here. I usually have water every day, but too often it's not enough.

4. Weekly bike rides: Still doing pretty well. We started school this week, so we'll see how well I'm able to maintain it, now that we're busier.

5. Notebook tracking: Only did this about half the month, which is less than useful. But I've started again. I need to streamline the process or something.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how things are going. But I'm worried about how well I'll be able to keep it up. Winter is harder than summer, and it's coming.

September is Here!

Alright! I guess summer's winding down. Ah well, bring on the jacket weather!

So, my check-in this month.. oi oi.

Eat veggies every day:
So, I totally fell off the wagon with this one. I think I might need to rearrange when I do my grocery shopping.. if I have time to chop up my broccoli and stuff as I'm unloading things, then it's a lot likelier that I do it, plus it's easier to get it cooked and eaten. But that didn't happen this month, and we kept running out of lettuce for salads (which at least means we were eating salads while we had the lettuce). So, I say C for this month.

Don't eat dessert every day:
Well, we did stop with the Costco sized everything, so that has helped. And I discovered a pretty tasty cake-in-a-mug recipe that is quite tasty and hits the spot (yay portion control). So, I still struggle to make good choices all the time, but I'm ok with this being an on-going process. Here, I give myself a C-.

Get up and move every day:
Along with my working to get outside more often for movement, I've been trying to work in incidental movement into my day as well. Stuff like chasing my boys around the living room more often, dancing while I'm making dinner (most often while holding Moon to keep him from following me around crying), stuff like that.
Also, just this week I've decided to do more exercising during our slow (read: grumpy) times of day.. Thus getting me moving a bit more and show the kids that exercises can be a fun activity. I just have to keep from squashing anyone while doing it - nothing more exciting to climb on (around, and under) than a mama doing leg lifts and planks!
So, I'll keep my C in this category and hopefully will have more progress to report next month!

However, I read this really great Confucius quote (from my September page of my zen calendar) that really resonates with me right now:
"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."