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Monday, December 5, 2011

Time to Recommit...again.

It is hard not to get frustrated.  Yet, I have no one to blame but myself.  I started Nov 30th, 2009 on my journey to get healthy and to FINALLY lose this excess weight and keep it off.  When I started, my weight was a sobering 185...the highest non-pregnancy weight I had ever had.  I read Chantel Hobb's book, Never Say Diet, and it changed the way I looked at weight loss.  She suggested moving your body for a minimum of 30 mins each day (or maybe it was only 5 times a week...can't remember), but the point was to get your body moving.  So I started walking.  And eventually started running.  By fall of 2010 I had lost 15 lbs.  Then the winter came and I slacked off with my exercising...and since it was a winter that just wouldn't let up, I didn't get back into the swing of things until around April.  I think at that point I was 175 lbs.  Long story short, I started training for a half-marathon thinking I would definately lose the extra weight through the increased weight loss.  I ran the half-marathon at 175 lbs.  Net Loss = ZERO.  Since then of course, I have been training less and cold weather is setting in again so I try to think up any excuse NOT to go out in the cold.  lol  Since the half-marathon in October, I actually saw 180 lbs on the scale.  So it's time for some self-intervention.  And the excuses have to stop.  TODAY.

So, I'm recommitting to losing this weight once and for all.  I get so discouraged thinking back over the past 2 years of this journey and think, "you know, if I had just buckled down and really watched what I ate better in addition to the intense training I was doing, the weight would be gone already."  But here I am...still at 175.4 (per this morning's weigh-in).  It's time for a change...a lasting one. 

How am I gonig to do this, you ask?  I'm not really sure.  lol  I guess I am going to just focus on making good (or even GREAT) decisions each day concerning what I eat and how much exercise I do, and hope and pray this strategy works to my advantage.  I know once I start to see the number on the scale start to decrease once again, I will begin to feel encouraged to continue on.  Until then, I just need to behave myself.  I am also going to set some short-term goals so I can experience some "mini-successes" along the way to my ultimate goal of reach my goal weight. 

One thing I started recently over the past couple of weeks was to track my calories on http://www.livestrong.com/.  I really like their website.   You tell it your weight loss goal and it will give you a calorie guideline to stick to each day.  As you eat something, you enter the calories of the food you ate and it will automatically deduct the calories from your calorie "budget".  Sounds depressing to watch that number go down, right?  There's good news though!  Each time you work out, you get to add the calories you burned back into your budget!  It's like getting a calorie bonus each day!  But...you have to do the work.  I have one problem with this whole calorie-counting thing...consistency.  I do great for a day, then slack off, then get back on track, then slack off.  So one of my goals with my recommittment is to faithfully track my calories.  One reason that it is important for me to do so is because I have no idea if the guideline they set for me is what my intake really should be.  So if I haphazardly track my cals, I'll never know if that guideline needs tweaked or not. 

Oh yeah...another cool thing about livestrong.com is that you can enter in your weight whenever you weigh in too.  You enter it in and it produces a line graph for you of your gains or losses.  If you lose, the line plummets down making it look as though your 1 lb weight loss was a 50 lb one.  On the flip side, if you gain, it will make your 1 lb gain look like a 50 lb gain on that chart.  So if I'm losing, I love LOVE that chart, but if I'm losing, I want to rip that chart to shreds  very much dislike that chart! 

So, why am I telling you all of this?  I need your help.  I need some accountiblity.  I need to know that you are keeping an eye on me.  Accountiblity is an amazing thing.  It's both encouraging and humbing.  So with your new title as "Jen's Accountiblity Partner", comes permission to yell at me strongly encourage me to stay on track and to ask me how I'm doing with my goals.  And I'm going to hold YOU accountable to do it!  lol

My hope is to keep you updated weekly on my weight, how I did with reaching my goals, and any new goals I set for myself.  So here are my current goals:

Weekly Goals:
1.  Workout for at least 30 mins each day (giving myself one day off each week)
2.  Track my calories FAITHFULLY each day
3.  Weigh in each Monday morning.

Short-Term Goals:
1.  See 170 lbs on the scale again (which means losing 5 lbs and getting back to my lowest weight over the past 2 years)
2.  Increase my workouts to 40 mins a day
3.  Set a definite goal weight.  (Although I feel like I won't truly know until I get there)

Long-Term Goals:
1. Run the Cap City Half-Marathon in May 2012 and beat this year's half-marathon time of 2:24:29
2.  Reach my goal weight...which I think right now is around 150 lbs.
3.  Actually like and want to eat fruits and veggies. lol
4.  Become more knowledgeable about how to cook those veggies so I want to eat them.  lol 

So...wish me luck! :)

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