Tag: lean meat

Fat Fridays: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Well, here we are, the last day of the year. The typical time that we reflect on the past and get excited about the future. 

Looking back I feel like I had a lot of good accomplishments. I started off the year a size 22 and now I am a size 16. I started off the year getting out of breath walking up stairs and I ended the year running a 5k. I started off the year with no exercise habits and ended the year with a desire to get myself moving every day. It is now a rare week that I don’t get in six workouts. I have plans to go running tomorrow and that is something I am looking forward to. 

This past year I changed my diet significantly and managed to move my A1C down out of the range where I needed to be on medicine and was able to quit taking metformin. I am not as happy with my diet though. I did not find a diet that was easy to share with my family and that was satisfying enough that I wanted to stick to it. I kind of abandoned my diet over the holidays and now I am needing to start all over again in this area. 

In all, a lot of good things happened this year. 

I am looking forward to next year. I’ve set some new goals. 

For exercise I’ve told my trainer that I want to focus on running and weight training. I plan to sign up for a 5k every two or three months so I have something that I’m working towards. I would like to get a lot faster. My end of the year goal is to run a 5k in 30 minutes. This December I ran one in 37 minutes. I don’t know if I’ll make my goal or not, but we’ll see how close I get. 

For weight loss I am hoping to get down to a size 14 by the beginning of summer and a size 12 by next Thanksgiving. In high school, at my skinniest and fittest I was a size 10. I don’t anticipate ever getting my high school body back. I’ve given birth 10 times and nursed 10 babies. Some things will never be the same and that’s ok. So, we’ll see how it goes. I’ve decided to not attach my goals to a number on the scale. I don’t really care what number it says as long as I’m fitting into smaller clothing. I’ll probably end up weighing myself just out of curiosity, but I don’t want to be focused on reaching a certain number. 

As far as diet is concerned I’m feeling a lot more motivated to drag my family along on my health journey. Poor family. 🙂  I want to focus on whole grains, lots of fruits and veggies, lean meats, and as little processed food as possible. I think it will be easier for me if we are all eating the same things. We’ll see how that goes. 

I am hopeful about this coming year. Not really hopeful that it’s going to be a peaceful, easy year. But, hopeful that I will be able to cling to a healthy diet and exercise as a much-needed tool in my survival skills toolbelt so I can handle whatever the next year throws at me. 

Happy New Year Everyone!

Fat Fridays: I really don’t want to mess this up.

Hey All. (Short for the Southern: All a y’all or all of you all or everybody.) Hope you have had a good week. Mine has been busy. As usual. In fact, it would be really weird to say that my week has not been busy. You would think by now I wouldn’t be surprised that I had a busy week. But here I am, still looking back in wonder, Wow, that was a busy week! Like it’s a surprise or something. 

This week of diet and exercise has been up and down. I’ve stayed consistent with the exercise, and most days I’ve done more than my trainer assigned me. Food, on the other hand, has been a bit more difficult. There have been days when I have breezed through the day eating salads and berries and lean meat and I haven’t had a single urge to eat anything else. And then there have been days when I’ve been stuffing the Chocolate Brioche into my mouth which my mom bought for the kids. And days like yesterday where I have stayed healthy all day, and then my teenage daughter asked if she could make pancakes for supper and I said sure, and I went off and ate a salad on my own. But then my four year old needed help serving his pancakes, and I got called, and so I ended up preparing these beautiful homemade pancakes with butter and syrup, cutting them up for him so he could eat and then running from the room because all I wanted to do was grab his plate from him and stuff my face with pancakes. And then I sat in my room trying to not think about pancakes, and I was about to sneak out and just grab one when I remembered something I’ve said to myself a lot. “If you’re going to cheat, cheat smart.” So I went and got the last of my skinny pop kettle corn popcorn. And ate one serving which was only 140 calories and which satisfied my sweet tooth. And then I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth so I’d stop eating. 

In other words, it’s been a pretty normal week. Small victories and lots of challenges. 

To tell you the truth, I’m getting nervous about this weight loss journey. About four years ago I tried to lose weight and I got right around the weight I am now before lots of stuff came up that derailed me and I ended up gaining all the weight back plus some more. I have a tendency to do well for about six months and then start petering out. 

I really don’t want that to happen again. And I don’t trust myself to not mess it up. So I’m feeling a bit on edge. I just want to get past this weight zone and into a lower level so I can assure myself that I’m not going to repeat old history. 

I don’t know what to do about it except make myself self-aware so that my “falling off the wagon” doesn’t happen so slowly and gradually that I don’t really notice. So, right now I am on High Alert as I try to keep this weight coming off. I really don’t want to mess this up.