Back to School

It is interesting being a teacher. You kind of get two “New Years”. You get the traditional January 1^st, but then you also get the first day of the school year. Today is my last day of summer vacation, and as I think about what is about to happen, I realize it is all about habits. I want to focus this week on not falling into old bad habits and setting new good habits. The first major habit I want to not get in this year is buying pop at work. Tomorrow I am going to pack one of my old lunch boxes with frozen water bottles. I always get headaches at work. It never fails, and when this happens, or when I just need a little boost of energy to help make it to the end, I always head to the pop machine or the snack cabinet we have downstairs. This never helps, so why do I do it? If I keep hydrated throughout the day this will hopefully cut that desire and may even prevent some headaches. I also want to keep some sort of low-fat snack in my desk in case I do get hungry, but I'm not sure what yet.

I want to get in the habit of bringing my lunch everyday. The past two years I told myself I was going to allow myself to go out to lunch once a week, but that slowly turned into whenever I felt like it and before I knew it I was going out more than I was eating in. Think of all the time, money, and calories I would save by not starting this habit up again.

Being a teacher, I can't really control when I eat breakfast and lunch. The one thing I can control is dinner. My biggest downfall area is between when I get home from school and when I eat dinner. It feels like all I do is eat during this time. What I need to do is start making dinner earlier. I often wait for my boyfriend to get home from work to eat, but if I start eating earlier, not only will it cut down on snaking, but it will prevent me from eating dinner right before bed. I will just have to make a plate for my boyfriend and re-heat it when he gets home. He is very understanding and knows what I am trying to do so I am sure this wouldn't be a problem for him.

The final habit I want to focus on is exercise. My boyfriend and I go to the gym for one hour three times a week. I want to get in the habit of bringing my gym clothes with me to school, and on our off days from the gym I want to go for a half hour walk around the school or go to the gym for a light workout.

One of the many great things about getting 2 and a half months off in the middle of the year, is you have time to get out of your habits. For a person like me who has always had bad habits, this is a very good chance to start fresh. The best way to break a habit is to never start it in the first place. So good bye summer. I am sad to see you go, but excited to see what I can do with the new opportunity fall brings me.

Week= -0 Total= -9

Happy Running!

Sally

I Rocked That Failure

Well, I rocked, then I sucked, then I rocked again :) I started off the week strong. I was doing a good job without snacking, but halfway through the week I started to lose focus. Yesterday I completely lost focus. I went out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then we ordered pizza last night. I need to learn self control when I go out with family or friends. I don't want this to be a temporary diet. I want this to be a change that I can keep up the rest of my life. Let's face it, I'm not going to stop going out to eat with family and friends. Usually when people want to get together that's what they do around here. What I need to do is learn to order better. There is no reason why I should still be ordering pop. I need to stick to unsweetened tea or ice water. These both do the trick, even better than pop because pop often leaves me still feeling thirsty, so why do I still do this? Going out to eat is horrible, but most restaurants offer low fat options. Whether I go for a low fat option or not, I need to make friends with the good old classic doggie bag because we all know restaurant portions are out of control. I would have probably been OK with the pizza last night if I would have stuck to two or three pieces (they were the small square types of pieces). Something, I have heard of people doing before and maybe I should start doing is asking for a doggie bag at the beginning of the meal to stop me from over eating. Fancier restaurants sometimes take your food from you to bag it for you, but most restaurants around here just hand you a box, so if I put some of it in a box before I start eating and only leave on my plate what looks like a reasonable amount to eat, I would be less likely to over eat while going out. I may look funny doing it, but people who know me and love me will understand why I am doing it.

The reason why I said I rocked after I sucked was because of my workouts. I did meet my goal of working out three times this week. This morning I stepped on the scale to see that I had gained two pounds, instead of letting it ruin my day and maybe pig out at breakfast like I have done in the past, I took a step back, refocused, and continued with my day. I started off by making a list of reasons I want to lose weight. There are 31 reasons :) With that list in mind I headed to the gym, and ended up doing two hours! I did one hour on the tread mill, thirty minutes on a bike, and thirty minutes on the elliptical. I am still not running, but I am headed in the direction. I tried running on Wednesday and I literally got the tread mill up to speed for a split second and a pain shot up my back, but yesterday I was able to run for two minutes with no pain. I guess the best way to sum up the week is that I hit a little speed bump but I have sense recovered nicely. 

 Week= +2 Total= -9

Happy Running!

Sally

A Slow Start, but It's a Start

Week one of my "comeback" is over.  I did pretty good.  The goal was to drink more water, cut back on snacking, and to workout at least three times.  I found myself drinking more water, but that was because of the exercise.  I tried to have no snackage going on this week.  I did this for the most part, but had a few minor slip ups.  The best part of the week was that instead of getting in three workouts, I got in five!!!  Each one of these was a walk, the shortest being a mile and a half and the longest being three miles.  I did try to run one day, but only could do one minute because the pounding was too much for my back that is still not 100% healed.  I lost three pounds this week.

Most of this week was a success, but today has been rough.  This morning I went to Menard's and instead of eating breakfast at home before I left, I went to McDonald's and then at Menard's I bought a bag of Brach's candy (a Menard's tradition in my family).  Since part of me being able to lose weight and keep it off is mental I have to ask myself why after a good week am I messing up so bad today.  I really don't know for sure why I can't get my head to click today, but there are two reasons I can think of.  First of all it's been an emotional morning.  I said something that I shouldn't have yesterday, and I am feeling really bad about it today.  Maybe it has something to do with self-worth and I don't feel worth it today.  The other, less complicated reason, could be that I know that tomorrow I will be going to my favorite hot dog place in Chicago.  I have done this before where I think, "Well, screw it.  I'm already going to eat an unhealthy meal this weekend so I will just blow off the entire weekend."  Instead of thinking what I should be doing is, "OK you are going to this place this weekend and you know you are going to want to eat, so you need to be extra strict the rest of the weekend."  I need to get my mind there.

Anyway, my goals for week two are the same as week one except to be a little more strict with these rules.  I am going to try NO snacking between meals.  I had problems with this last week when I was at other people's houses.  I need to learn to tell people no thank you.  My goal is still to work out at least three times this week with the hopes of being able to run a little bit towards the end of the week if my back will let me.  As far as the more water, most of the water I drank this week was between meals, which I will continue to do, but I will also replace my beverage (which is usually lemon aide at home) with water for at least one meal a day.  See you next Saturday!

Happy Walking!
Sally