In a little over nine months, I will be forty-five years old. There is nothing magic about that number except for the coincidence that my goal weight for my entire adult life has been 145 pounds. For this reason I have decided that my new goal is to be 145 pounds by the time my birthday comes around in 2012.
One of the things I have learned through my journey is that I cannot become too fixated on a number. I need to remember other measures of success as well. Are my clothes fitting better? Are my runs getting easier? Am I making healthier food choices? While I am setting my goal at 145 because it is a concrete measure, if I feel I have reached the healthiest me at a heavier weight, I will be satisfied with that number as well.
In order to keep the scale from having too much power over me, I have also taken measures of most of my important body parts. This will enable me to see the change in my body shape that exercise is affecting. I learned this summer that while the scale did not budge, I had actually lost inches. I also took pictures of myself from the front, back, and side so I can visually compare how much closer I am getting to my ideal goal weight, whatever it might be. I am now a size 10 so my final indicator will be that my clothes fit better and that I am in a smaller size.
As stated in previous blogs, few goals are attainable without planning some steps to help you reach those goals. It is important to continue the strategies that are working, and utilize new resources when something is not. In my quest to break my plateau of 170 pounds by the time I turned 44, I drank more water, pumped up my exercise, and attempted to do a better job of tracking—well, two out of three ain’t bad (darn food log). I will continue to utilize these three strategies, but I have decided to tweak things a little bit.
First, we were looking for a way to eyeball good food portions and make healthier food choices when Sean saw someone on one of the morning talk shows sharing The Food Lovers Fat Loss System. So far, this system has really impressed me because they start right away by making sure you eat three meals and at least two snacks a day. Many people make the mistake of thinking that skipping meals will help them lose weight, but I have learned the hard way that the opposite is true. I used to skip breakfast, but I have actually lost weight by making sure to eat breakfast every morning even if I feel I am not hungry. It sounds counterintuitive, but it actually works because your body does not go into starvation mode where it begins to store anything you eat as fat. The other thing this plan does is make sure you are eating balanced meals—a third protein, a third slow carbs (fibrous vegetables, beans, berries), and the final third fast carbs (processed grains, pasta, even alcohol). Any food plan that prohibits certain foods is not one that will work for me, so I love that there are no taboo foods. The final thing I love is that they teach you how to identify the right portion size by using some tools you always have with you—your hands. One suggestion they give is that a good portion of lean protein should be as big as your palm to your first knuckle and as thick as your hand (not your husband’s hand). I really feel like all this will just help us make more educated food choices.
The last thing I will continue to do, although it has always been my weakness, is to track more consistently. I am hoping to use the iPhone I will be getting for Christmas (please Santa, please) to make it easier and a lot more convenient. In the meantime Sean has created a Google doc for me to quickly keep track of my meals and snacks. Since there is no real measuring or keeping a tally of points, this should be easy enough, even for me.
So on June 10, 2012, I am hoping to share with you that I have finally, after thirty years of trying, reached my goal of being the most flabulous me ever. I have my goal, I have my steps to meeting that goal, and I have all my family and friends to support me…how I can I not be successful with all these things on my side?
One of the things I have learned through my journey is that I cannot become too fixated on a number. I need to remember other measures of success as well. Are my clothes fitting better? Are my runs getting easier? Am I making healthier food choices? While I am setting my goal at 145 because it is a concrete measure, if I feel I have reached the healthiest me at a heavier weight, I will be satisfied with that number as well.
In order to keep the scale from having too much power over me, I have also taken measures of most of my important body parts. This will enable me to see the change in my body shape that exercise is affecting. I learned this summer that while the scale did not budge, I had actually lost inches. I also took pictures of myself from the front, back, and side so I can visually compare how much closer I am getting to my ideal goal weight, whatever it might be. I am now a size 10 so my final indicator will be that my clothes fit better and that I am in a smaller size.
As stated in previous blogs, few goals are attainable without planning some steps to help you reach those goals. It is important to continue the strategies that are working, and utilize new resources when something is not. In my quest to break my plateau of 170 pounds by the time I turned 44, I drank more water, pumped up my exercise, and attempted to do a better job of tracking—well, two out of three ain’t bad (darn food log). I will continue to utilize these three strategies, but I have decided to tweak things a little bit.
First, we were looking for a way to eyeball good food portions and make healthier food choices when Sean saw someone on one of the morning talk shows sharing The Food Lovers Fat Loss System. So far, this system has really impressed me because they start right away by making sure you eat three meals and at least two snacks a day. Many people make the mistake of thinking that skipping meals will help them lose weight, but I have learned the hard way that the opposite is true. I used to skip breakfast, but I have actually lost weight by making sure to eat breakfast every morning even if I feel I am not hungry. It sounds counterintuitive, but it actually works because your body does not go into starvation mode where it begins to store anything you eat as fat. The other thing this plan does is make sure you are eating balanced meals—a third protein, a third slow carbs (fibrous vegetables, beans, berries), and the final third fast carbs (processed grains, pasta, even alcohol). Any food plan that prohibits certain foods is not one that will work for me, so I love that there are no taboo foods. The final thing I love is that they teach you how to identify the right portion size by using some tools you always have with you—your hands. One suggestion they give is that a good portion of lean protein should be as big as your palm to your first knuckle and as thick as your hand (not your husband’s hand). I really feel like all this will just help us make more educated food choices.
The last thing I will continue to do, although it has always been my weakness, is to track more consistently. I am hoping to use the iPhone I will be getting for Christmas (please Santa, please) to make it easier and a lot more convenient. In the meantime Sean has created a Google doc for me to quickly keep track of my meals and snacks. Since there is no real measuring or keeping a tally of points, this should be easy enough, even for me.
So on June 10, 2012, I am hoping to share with you that I have finally, after thirty years of trying, reached my goal of being the most flabulous me ever. I have my goal, I have my steps to meeting that goal, and I have all my family and friends to support me…how I can I not be successful with all these things on my side?
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