1/22/2014

I learned another AWESOME LESSON about not telling people about my goal. I would USE "my goal" to explain why I can't/won't do certain things that people ask me to do. But now that tool is taken away because I can't say: "sorry, I really want to go to your party because it will hurt my goal."  Nope. Now I have to say no and not really explain. And deal with the consequences. 

AND IT IS AWESOME. 

I discovered that all along, while I was doing that, I was desperately hoping that the other person would VALUE MY GOAL enough to let me off the hook. But NOW, I have to VALUE MY OWN GOAL enough to make decisions that serve it WITHOUT getting approval from other people. 

And you know, it's not that much harder, but it is SO MUCH BETTER. I really feel like this thing is MINE. Nobody else can make or break this for me. 

1/14/2014

It's 7:50pm and I am in bed! Which is great because for two nights now, I've gotten six hours of sleep. So tonight I'm going to try to make up for that. 

I am SUPER tired-my job was pretty taxing today, and I really worked my back this morning. So, I am both physically and mentally tired. 

I am awfully proud of myself though. I ate according to plan today, although I only had four meals on account of going to bed so early and eating my first meal at 7:30am. 

I intended to look at my meal plan tonight but I simply do not have the energy. I will look at it tomorrow and also add it to myfitnesspal.com. 

Also tomorrow I plan on taking before pics and entering the transformation contest on bb.com. At first I only wanted to enter to try and win. But now I want to enter just to be surrounded by people who are doing the same thing I'm doing. Also, I want to enter to transform MYSELF. That's the real prize, regardless of if you win anything. 

1/13/2014

I had a very well-disciplined day today. I ate my meals practically on time. 

That's all fine and great, but I STILL haven't sat down and counted calories to make a plan. That's important because I find that when I don't have concrete, measurable goals, I find it's ok to have a bowl of cereal at 7:30pm because there are not clear indicators of whether that is going to derail my efforts or not. 

I've been struggling with if I should eat clean or if I should simply stay in my calorie range while still allowing myself treats. That's something that Lean Bodies Consulting does. They allow for a post-workout treat. 

I have been allowing for two or three treats during the day and I'm not measuring if it's making any change. 

So I'm thinking I need to bring it down to ONE treat, once a day. 

Then I can start really measuring whether or not I'm making progress. 

Chances are, right now I'm not. 

I do need to celebrate that yesterday after work I REALLY wanted something that would hurt my goals. I wanted Chick-Fil-A or a soup from Wegmans. However, I made the decision to drive home and have chicken with salad and a sweet potato. It worked! It did the trick. 

Now I can build on that success!

1/8/2014

I am TIRED. Every day I've been so tired. Today I didn't even get up until 6:45. Meant to get up at 6!

Anyway, I did half of my leg workout, but I'm ok with that. I was running late. 

I ate GREAT today. The big win is that I went to bed at 7:30. My goal this week was to be in bed by 8 and tonight was the first night I did it. Hooray for me. 

I'm going to read until I'm ready to sleep. 

1/7/2014

It is 9:23pm and I just got into bed. I missed my bedtime by a long shot because I didn't do my food prep on Sunday. 

I am super proud of myself for getting lots of food prepped for tomorrow though. 

Tomorrow night will also be a night for food prep...probably for the rest of the week. 

Maybe tomorrow will be the night I get to bed in time. 

In other news, I really WANTED to get to bed on time because I did back today And it has totally wiped me out. I added assisted pull ups to Jamie Eason's 12 week trainer because by the end of the month I want to see a major improvement in my pull-ups. 

Alright. Lights out. 

1/6/2014

All in all, I'd have to say, I've had a successful first day!  Things weren't perfect, and I definitely didn't hit all my goals, but I feel really good about today. 

I was underprepared for food today because I was having too much fun on Sunday. Tomorrow I'm in practically the same boat except I don't have any cottage cheese. 

Today I ate:

Meal 1-3/4 cup egg whites

Meal 2-3/4 cup egg whites, 1/2 cup oatmeal (measured dry) 1/2 cup strawberries, 1/2 serving almonds. 

Meal 3-3.5 oz chicken, 1+cup Wegmans spring mix, 2T salad dressing, 1/2 yam, 1/2 pat butter 

Meal 4-1 cup cottage cheese, 1 apple, 1/2 serving almonds 

Meal 5-repeat meal 3

Meal 6- 6oz cod 8 asparagus stalks (pan fried in olive oil (not the best way to prepare cod. However, it was nothing short of delicious.)

I didn't have any treats today. I am currently drinking my glutamine, which became a nice bedtime routine for me awhile back. 

I didn't get to the gym as early as I would have liked today, but I got my whole workout in, so that makes me very happy. 

My successes today were being in bed by 8:30 even though I didn't get home until 7:45pm and still did the dishes and cooked cod. Also, it's a success that I went the whole day without having one of my designated treats!

Tomorrow, my goals will be the same: stick to my routine. Get up at 5, get to work by 8, get to bed by 8. 

1/5/2014

I crossed a new hurdle today. In the vein of making a change, I decided to eat something within the limits of my plan when I went out to eat. 

It was hard, but I did it. I had a grilled chicken salad with oil and vinegar. Granted, there was cheese and fries on the salad, but for the first week, I am allowing some wiggle room. 

As I go along the program I will make adjustments. The plan is to build on small successes. Tonight's dinner was definitely a success. 

Tomorrow's meals are ready. At least, the ones that require some prep. I still need to do some food prep tomorrow night. Like hard boiled eggs, turkey muffins, kale shakes. Although I feel like the kale does better things for me when I don't drink it like a shake. But sometimes you've just got to do a liquid meal for time. I certainly don't have time to chew on kale 4 times a day. 

My goal this week is to be in bed by 8pm, lights out by 9pm. Tonight I made it in bed by 8:13pm. That's pretty good. Now I need to read and go to sleep. 

1/4/2014

It's Saturday night at 8:47pm and I am happily in bed. I've been gearing up to commit to a lifestyle change. I had been calling it a 12 week plan or even a six month plan, but I'm finding that one of my problems is calling it a plan. In my brain, a plan sounds like a temporary thing, a commitment that you will put a lot of energy into for the duration of time that you are on it, and then after awhile you can take a deep breath and relax while you dive head first OFF your plan and eat everything you've wished you could have had for six months. 

But that's exactly the type of thinking that has failed me. 

That's the kind of strategy that has failed me. 

I'm looking forward to the process of changing my habits. I've yet to achieve my goal of seeing my belly muscles because I've taken on the behaviors of a serial dieter...on plan off plan on plan off plan. And things stay pretty much the same. 

 

In order to break this pattern, I am going to follow Martha Beck's advice and create small successes and build from there. 

The first week my goal will be to be in bed by 8pm every night. 

What I learned from a site called Lean Bodies Consulting is to pick the thing you keep struggling with and choose a week to conquer it. I suppose Chalene Johnson says the same thing with her PUSH goals. 

At any rate, I am very happy to report that tonight I got home much earlier than expected, so I plan on catching up on some sleep tonight. Tomorrow is a big food prep, laundry and "before" pics day. 

My big challenge is to RECOGNIZE AND REJECT my urges to sabotage or otherwise fail myself. I changed my habit of smoking by doing that. 

In order to do this, I must have a clear plan of what meals to eat at what time. And when I have an urge to eat something that is not on that plan, I can watch the urge. It should peak, drop, and disappear. 

The first week, I'm not going to go completely cold turkey clean. I'm building in treats. I'm not sure if that's the BEST thing to do, but I wanted to start with a week that I could easily meet with success. 

I've also got to figure out what my rewards will be for completing my first week successfully. 

And I suppose I should create rules for myself along the way, such as "I plan meals ahead of time". And along with that build an identity that says: this is who I am. 

Speaking of which, my motto is: Show Don't Tell. 

I learned from a friend that when you share your goals (especially difficult goals) with people, you get a reward when they praise you that is so similar to the feeling you might feel from ACTUALLY ACHIEVING your goal that it's enough. And your drive to accomplish the goal is significantly reduced, which is why lots of people do not follow thru. 

So I know that I'm blogging about my process and my journey, but only a few friends read this, and it's really for my own accountability.  All that said, I think it will be ok. Blogging has been a very effective way of holding myself accountable in the past and I'm looking forward to using it as a tool again. 

The idea is to SHOW people what I'm doing instead of telling them what I'm going to do. Some things will have to be kept under wraps. 

Finally, since it is 9:08pm, my parting thought is that I started to wonder if maybe I didn't really want to achieve this goal. Maybe I was doing it for external praise or recognition. And, while I think the external praise and recognition plays a role, no matter what happens I always come back to this. I want to master my fitness. I do not want to be a slave to my cravings. 

Day 1 starts Monday!

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