I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday (late) afternoon. Thanks to all of the kind people who wrote to tell me that they understood my rantings from the last post. I don't know, I guess it's just that I've been struggling with my weight for all but six months out of the last 19 years and I'm just fed up. I know that it's my useless "all or nothing" attitude and that's got to stop because even a little bit of something good is better than uninterupted junk.
On the other hand, Tracy pointed out to me, several times, on our trip that I really shouldn't be giving myself what, essentially, amounts to permission not to do what I know I ought to by setting incredibly easy goals, either.
So, my current thinking is that I need to tweak the Ten Percent Challenge a little, give it a little more back bone, in essence, and that the basic concept is still valid. To that end, I bring you the new and (hopefully) improved Ten Percent Challenge:
Starting today, Saturday, June 5, 2004, I will do the following things consistently -
1. Eat my healthy gourmet prepared meals for all but one meal a week. The meal that I eat outside of my prepared meals will be calorically consistent with my recommended daily limit and will include vegetables of some sort. In order to facilitate this, I will start leaving all money and credit cards at home so that the prepared meals are all that is available to me. My daily latte fix will be taken care of at home, either before work or just before bed (they're decaf), so that I'm not tempted to buy something else with my latte and so that I don't have to break my "no money in the purse" pledge for any reason. As a side bonus, this should help with my budgeting, too, because eating out is expensive!
2. Start with 20 minutes of exercise six days a week at an intensity of between 65 and 75% of my maximum heart rate and build to 60 minutes, six days a week in this manner:
3. Consistently drink at least 100 ounces of water every day. My motivation for this one will be not allowing myself diet soda until after the 100 ounces are done for the day. This will either guarantee that I won't have any caffeine (which is good) and/or that I'll at least get my minimum water in before taking in caffeine for the day.
4. Find something to celebrate every day and share it here.
5. Focus on the positive changes that I'll be making in my life and the loving way that I'll be treating my body. Mirror that attitude in the way that I talk and think about myself. I'm a good person with a lot to offer and I need to stop running myself down just because I'm afraid that if I don't do it first, someone else will.
My goal is to see a 10% loss by my 37th birthday in October. I believe that, by following the program above, this is very do-able. Most important of all is that, for the first time in a long while, I feel determined and ready to take this thing on. As I sit here now, I'm mildly hungry - not starved - and 100% on program for the day. I need to get my 20 minutes in before I eat dinner, which is no problem, plus two more 32 ounce bottles of water, and I'm done. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.
Nothing much to say and plenty of time to say it in
Thursday evening. It's amazing, you know, how quickly the vacation glow goes away. Sigh. I'm already back into the "stressed out, I know I'm forgetting something" mode, although not nearly as bad as before I left. It's just a function of too many things on my plate, terrible organizational skills, terminal procrastination, and really bad karma (at least, that's what I'm blaming it on).
I'm still planning to put all of my hand written notes from my trip into an entry here, but it might be this weekend before it actually happens. I know, yet another procrastination opportunity!
Weight loss and health - what to say? I ate what I wanted while I was gone, but I never binged, and that's a good thing. I also drank plenty of water and, while I only hit the workout center once, I did get a lot of natural activity in with all of the walking we did. I am, however, highly motivated to get this thing on the road again because being this big just sucks. No, I didn't have to endure the humiliation of asking for the seat belt extender (thank you God!), but I felt uncomfortable in some of the seats in the baseball stadiums, which is odd because I'm not that big side to side. Mostly, though, I'm just fed up with thinking about it. I don't want to have this be an issue for me any more. I don't hate myself, I don't hate that I have to do this, I don't hate anything or anyone...I just want it out of my life so that I can make room for better, more interesting things.
I've got my healthy meals ordered for tomorrow, so I just have to get through tonight and tomorrow afternoon and I'll be home free. I'm going to stop at the grocery store to pick up water and some skim milk so that I can make my lattes at home from now on, which will save me money - always a good thing.
Speaking of money, I've put together a tentative monthly budget because I'm sick of always scraping by from paycheck to paycheck. I make a good amount of money but it just dribbles away like water because I'm so bad about my spending habits. With food taken care of and no more eating out, I should be able to really focus on getting things taken care of financially, which will reduce my stress immensely, too.
Is this the most boring entry I've ever written, or what??? It's just the post-vacation doldrums, so don't give up on me yet!
Tuesday evening. Don't let the headline throw you, I'm just here on a layover. I thought I'd check in and see how everything in the real (non-vacation) world was going, so I'm renting an Internet connection for a few.
The trip was good, relaxing for the most part, and I'm very glad to (nearly) be home. I'll go into detail tomorrow, let me just give you a few highlights:
* Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - fabulous! * Walking through nasty part of Columbus - scary * Cicadas in Kentucky - bleah! * Ann Arbor, Michigan - what a neat campus * Comerica Park in Detroit - best ballpark I've seen ever * Intercontinental Hotel in Chicago - over the top opulence at its finest! * Thank God for the convertible roof at Miller Park in Milwaukee - who knew there were places that got that kind of rain in May??? * Chris (the former fiance - remember him?) had a bit part in the drama that was the last nine days, too
OK, with that, I'm off. I've got a short walk to the gate for my connection to San Diego and then (God willing) I'll be sleeping in my own bed tonight. Heaven!
