A's first post

Okay - so this is me trying to be realistic about getting healthy. The goal is 20-25 lbs by summer. That gives me a wide margin, but I'd like to see a loss of 1-2 lbs a week. The means are a hodge-podge combination of many of the methods I've tried over the past four years to shrink, arranged in a fashion that I think is realistic, and with lots of forgiveness room.

Exercise: The current goal is this: 30 minutes daily. Right now the hubs and I are doing a dvd called Power 1/2 hour that has five different 1/2 hour segments focused on different body parts: abs, buns, thighs, arms, stretch. Well, stretch isn't a body part but you get it. You can arrange the five segments in different ways - to focus on lower body, or to focus on core, or two a day to focus on slimming down. I am doing one a day now - hope to add more later. In the past whenever I've tried doing the slim training 2 a day I've burned out a quit. This is my number one priority activity for these 18 weeks. Food can be forgiven - missing a workout cannot.

Food: I want to normalize my daily food intake, keeping fruits and veggies high and lowering bread and sugars. This is based on the raw foods thing to some extent, but not married to it. Over the summer we did raw foods, and loved it, but it's too spendy to keep up full time. Now each morning will start with a green juice for energy and nutrition. Lunches can be either juice again, or a soup or healthy crockpot concoction that is heavy on the veggies or a big fat salad. Dinner is also either salad or healthy crockpot concoction. Healthy means no butter, no white rice or white pasta, and heavy on the veggies. But dinner should also have protein components, meat or tofu. Snacks we'll do on the WW principle - portion control! Last night after a nummy dinner of salad and beet/carrot/cucumber juice we needed a treat. So we had a SmartOnes peanut butter cup sundae each. They come portioned, so after 200 calories, all done! Also, I plan to drink lots of healthy, decaf teas to promote digestion, health, and appetite control between meals.

Key: food is the trickiest part for me. Next Monday is pie day at work, tonight is a big fancy veggie party put on by a doctor I work for. This weekend I'm facilitating a leadership conference where the food is provided and out of my control. So I'm going to go easy on myself in situations that are out of my control, and be strict on stuff that I can control, like what I have for lunch every day, and choosing veggies over other stuff. I tend to be a person who goes full bore one way or the other - I'm either logging everything I eat or I'm not, and eating everything I can get my hands on. I want to be balanced this time, focus on moderation, and try not to miss a workout.