works for me wednesday

When Alexey was about 2 months old I noticed that though I had lost a bunch of baby weight and could squeeze back into a lot of my clothes, I was no longer dropping the pounds or size. I know for some it is a matter of 9 months on and then 9 months off before being back into regular clothes but I also knew that for me it wasn't going to just fall off if I didn't back off the sweets! Not wanting to have to resort to an actual diet or large lifestyle change I came up with a simple plan so that I could cut out some calories in a sensible and non-drastic way and keep it up for the rest of my life if I want to. I didn't want to have to cook or eat anything other than what my family is eating.

Here are the rules:

# 1 (and really this could stand alone for me as the way to drop a few pounds, the others are more long term life goals). no junk during the week (for me this means no sweets Mon-Th. i have run across people with a similar rule who don't eat junk such as pizza and hot dogs during the week but for me it's just no sweets. I have considered moving my week to friday so that I can only have junk on sat and sun.) This is the main thing for me. For the first month or so I had to keep NOTHING good in the house. No ice cream, no chocolate chips, NOTHING that would tempt me. I ate all the good food in the house :) and then bought no more. I threw away all junk that came in by other means (friends, etc.) Dave was not happy about this at all b/c he loves his sweets but this is what I had to do to quit eating treats every day. After a while I got un-addicted to sugar. then for a while I could have treats in the house and just not eat them. This is a good stage and a good feeling. Here is my motto: "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." I believe it. In just a few weeks I lost all the baby weight. It felt great. I still had baby flab on my tummy but overall it was good.

2. drink only water and lots of it. How often do you go to the kitchen thirsty and then grab a cookie instead? (rhetorical question) I would do this all the time if there were cookies in the kitchen. I have read many places that your body is often more hungry than thirsty. Also, it is well known that most of us do not get enough water in a day. Plus, if you drink lots of water your tummy is not as empty all the time and it helps not be starving. That is the water soapbox. Here is my water ONLY soapbox. Juice is high in sugar and calories. Soda is terrible for you (I gave it up in high school with only my occasional coke that I crave every 6 months). Basically, water is the only drink you actaully need so all other drinks are extra calories.

3. No seconds. Portion control is a huge (pun definitely intended) problem. When you go out to eat, you're served what a 250 lb. man should eat. Also, being pregnant it's easy to get used to eating as much as you feel like, but really we don't need that much food to keep us going. if something is super delicious then make it again tomorrow instead of eating it all tonight! My mom taught me that "you can eat anything and everything you want, but just don't do it all today." There are plenty of days in our life to eat lots of good things and plenty of it!

4. exercise. This is a hard one for me even though I love to be in shape. I've started playing soccer, swam every day in the summer, even resorted to running up and down our driveway while the kids play outside. It's hard to find the time and means with three kids.

5. incorporate some healthier meals into our menu. It would be unrealistic (for me) to change our entire diet so that it's all low fat or all low sodium or vegetarian or whatever, but it is possible to add a new, very healthy meal into our menu every so often.

I have been quite a slacker the last few weeks and feel a little more lazy, less energetic, more flabby. Part of it is because my house is a wreck and I have been stress eating, not cooking anything decent; part of it is because I decided I was doing pretty good and could let up for a while to see what happens. I think I need to get back into it because for me it is all or none. I have a hard time having 1 cookie on Monday, which would probably be fine. If cookies are in the house I tend to have 4 on Monday and 4 on Tuesday and 10 on Wednesday until they are all gone. On the other hand, if I KNOW I'm not having any, then I am okay to skip out.

PS. hopefully this doesn't come across as a lecture. I was just trying to write my thoughts and it is a little haphazard! And hopefully nobody will be offended. everyone has different ides, goals, abilities, etc.

That being said, if anyone wants to join me and give up the junk, please do! i'm starting again on Monday!

PS part 2. house update. Tomorrow we start the floor installation. It'll take a full week. (no cooking for me!) then the fumigation in the first week of oct.(no cooking again). this is sort of our vacaion for the year, except it cost about 2 or 3 times what we would have paid for a vacation, in reality. Lets just say that we could have gone on a nice cruise AND paid a babysitter to watch the kids instead of getting fumigated. I try not to think about that.