30sumthin

         I will start off by saying that I shall get to everyone’s blog and give a boost and some support after I rant and rave about my situation and thanks for the comments guys , keep them comming:)…Now to business. I don’t know if I ever broke down how I wish to do this healthy thing but, this was the original goal :

1. January - Quit smoking
2. February- Nutrition
3. March- Cardio
4. April - Weight Training
5. May- Hobby  

                I  really believed that I would follow these goals and I will lose 10 lbs a month starting from February and I will live happily ever after…ummm…not. It’s good to be optimistic but as my boyfriend has just recently told me, my goals are a bit “unresonable”. I accomplish the quit smoking but nutrition…it’s been extremely hard.

       Now, I’ve gotten the various advice about diet plans and I do appreciate it, but, I’ve tried everything, had some success and then fallen off the wagon. I’ve decided no more of this, in addition , I’m a full time nursing student, so $$ is  tight right now, so I can’t join anything right now. What, I’m trying to do is incorporate all the things I’ve learnt from the different “diets” that I’ve been on  and see if I can come up with a plan of my own that will suit my “lifestyle change”. My goal, is to monitor what I eat, but, not to become obsessed with it.

     I thought by the end of this month that I would have come up with a definite plan and would have lost some weight, so imagine my horror when I got on the scale and notice I’ve gained 1.8 lbs!!! ( BTW: my weigh day is Thursday, so I’m hoping I will lose it in a day, yeah right!)…Bloody hell, I wanted to take that scale and throw it, and usually I would just give up and continue on my bad habits, convince that I’m meant to be fat…but, not this time, I promised my self I’m going to live my life healthy and if it takes me 3 years, I will accomplish this ..damnit!!!

    Okay, that felt good , but what now. Well, I know what my issues are:

1. Calorie intake
2. Portion size
3. Late night eating
4. Eating out too frequently
5. Cookies, cookies, cookies
6. Lack of physical activites
7. Lots of empty calories.

I know what you are thinking, if you know what your problems are, deal with it and there you go…yeah that’s the problem…dealing with it.  So, as my March Break approaches, I need to come up with solutions to my disastrous eating habits, while I incorporate my cardio…..shall finish this rant on Friday …I think this is enough raving for one day.

           I bought a lot of health magazines last month and I’m painstakingly going through them to get some ideas on what I need to do to get a healthy lifestyle and maintain it. I read on someone’s blog how hard it is to deal with a food addiction, since you can’t give up on food and I’m starting to realize that this is true. I love to eat.  I use food for celebration, issues, everything and now that I’ve quit smoking, my dependance has intensified. In addition comming from a family that loves to cook does not help the situation …forget about telling others “no”, how do I say “no” to myself?  So, it was with great interest when I read this article on “cheat days” .

          The article stated that you should have a cheat day at least once a week. Now here’s my question, on this “cheat day” ..do you cheat all day or just at one meal? It sounds silly but the article based the cheat days on a person who is either on low fat or low carb, but I’m on neither. I’m still trying to figure out what will work for me. I like the idea of a cheat day, since , I believe that it may help me to stick to whatever program works for me, but I need to understand the logistics of it, any advice? Maybe I should give a little feedback about my plan.

               With nutrition, I would like to follow the New Food  Pyramid Guide initally and then make adjustments. The long term goal, will eventually be eliminating processed , sugar and yeast and going organic, whole grains , etc. However, right now I’m just trying to get a diverse meals per day, teaching myself about portion control, reading labels and recording what I eat. o any pointers on how you work a cheat day, will greatly be appreciated.

         Now, the title says “Bad Day”, but the truth is that I give myself a pass, since today is the day that I get a year older. I’m officially a 30 sumthin, 31, actually and putting all jokes aside, I love being in my 30’s. Now, my friends know how much I love chocolate chip cookies and cake and one girlfriend baked me a chocolate chip orange cake with chocolate sauce and my male friend made me chocolate chip cookies with white chocolate. I had two slices of cake and a few cookies, italian for lunch and mexican for dinner…naughty, naughty, naughty. So, as  I sit here trying to record the food I ate, I’m feeling a bit gulity about what I did, even though I did give myself a free pass. Okay, enough of good, gulity feelings, time to move on.

      So some of my issues with food are :

1. Late night eating
2. Not enough water
3. Not enough fruits and vegetables.

So, I’m going to focus on Late night eating and water for this week. I shall also keep up with the recording. Btw- I haven’t lost any weight but I haven’t gain any, which is a good thing so far.

    I was very surprise to see the positive feedback so soon after my post, Thank you and I will return the favor …it’s great having a support system where people undersatand where you are. Today, I recorded everything I ate, even down to the mayonnaise and the 4 cookies that I ate. It turns out that I went over my caloric amount by 100 calories. Wow…recording might be annoying but it sure was an eye opener! I realized after lunch, that I tend to crave sweets. I will try to subsitute my cookie cravings with dried fruits, and then when my will power is greater eliminate sugar….okay, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

    I did the most craiziest thing today, I told my boyfriend how much I weigh. I’m usually secretive about my weight and size, but I told him and he was great about it. So, now that I’ve had an idea of what my eating habits are, I need to keep recording until I get a good grasp on what I need to do to improve my nutrition.

    Thanks again everyone for your help and I look forward to reading your blogs and returning the support…BTW- is there a way I can read a peroson blog’s from their profile ?

    Last year, I decided that  I was going to take charge of my health. I joined Jenny Craig, began a workout regime, found some online friends and I lasted 6 months going from 250 lbs to 220 lbs and then the holidays, a new relationship, exams and I fell off the wagon hard. I gained 15 lbs  and struggling not to put on any more. However, this time it shall be different, why? This year for the first time I kick the habit and became a non-smoker. I’ve been smoke- free for 3 weeks now and I do not have the urge or need to smoke. I would like to say that my will power got me there but the truth is I was prescribed a pill and it worked so well, that when I smell cigarette smoke I get physically sick….that’s me, one extreme to the next, but, this has been a blessing in disguise. Now, I have no excuse to stop me from returning to my first love, running. One of the things I noticed when I used to workout was that I was constantly out of breath, I used to smoke a pack, every 1 1/2 days. I couldn’t push myself, since I needed that cigarette before I worked out and after I worked..some people craved protein, I craved nicotine…and now I’m a non-smoker…fear.

My goals for this year is to get healthy. My goal weight is 160 -170 lbs. My mini goals shall be in increments of 10 lbs, I have no reward system in place but, I plan to have a new wardrobe for the end of the year. That’s my motivation. This is how my health goals are broken down.

1. Quit smoking
2. Nutrition
3. Cardio
4. Weight Training
5. Hobby 

As you can see, I striked off  #1 since that mission has been accomplished. I’m currently working on Nutrtion, which has been my increasing problem since I quit smoking. Cookies, have become my addiction. Actually anything sweet will send me on a high. So what I started doing on the beginning of the month was trying to have a glass of freshly juiced vegetables or fruit smoothiee every day. It has not been every day , but I’m including more water, milk etc into my diet. I’ve even disovered dried fruits, which unfortunately  they do have sugar added …but I reason it that it is better eating these than a chocolate bar or Joe Lewis. Now, that I ‘ve joined this sight I will keep a food log, so I can follow my caloric intake on a dialy basis. When I was on Jeeny Craig, they advised to keep my caloric level between 1200 -1500, so I will try to do the same. Portion and night eating are two other large problems that I need to tackle, in addition adding more fruits and vegetables to my diet.  For the next week, my goal is to not eat after 7:30 pm and having at least one fruit and vegetable serving per day. I think it will take me another month before I have my eating down but, that okay. I did not learn these bad habits over night and will take ore than a month to break them.

    As for my cardio, I have an excercise schedule for my spring break. My goal for Feburary was to lose 10 lbs but I do not think that will be possible but it can be a possiblity in March. “Stay positive, roman wasn’t built in a day”