My goals for this week

Ok, I was going to make goals this week, but after being sick Monday, they are now just to make it through the rest of the week and try to get some exercise in. I'm doing ok eating, but the extras have been pushed to the side the past 3 days.

I'm still caffeine free and sugar free for the most part. I did sneak a few french fries out of Jackson's happy meal last night after gymnastics, but I haven't had them in weeks! Other than that I'm doing pretty good on the no fried foods thing. I guess right now, my hardest thing is to get movitivated to work out. If I don't start doing it soon, though, I'm going to be the only reason for my surgery to be post poned and I don't want that.

So I'm going to make my goal to be to take the stairs the rest of the week at work and to get my pilates DVD out of the box (that I bought 6 months ago) and use it. Please say a prayer!:)

Goal Changes

Last night I decided that one of my previously stated goals was a little vague for me and not really going to be possible for meyet (3 planned meals/day). So, I decided to drop that one and make some that I could probably keep - limiting my at home computer time and getting more sleep daily.

For the tracking grid, everything will be in the same measurements - ounces for beverage intake, minutes/hours for time items. This way, at the end, I can also graphical represent my trends. Over a few months, I should be able to see where my weak days maybe (I assume it's all weekends, but I'd like to prove that to myself). I also realized that I need to add my daily weight to the grid.

Here's my revised goals:

1. Soda (oz.) - none allowed.
2. Coffee (oz.) - no more than 20oz/day (size of my regular cup at work)
3. Water (oz.) - at least 40oz/day (two large bottles)
4. Sweets(#) - no more than 1 "serving" per day (this one will be harder to track, but I'll get it figured out - maybe just a simple boolean - 0 for passed, 1 for failed)
5. Workout (min.) - at least 15 to 30 minutes/day
6. Screen Time (min.) - no more than 60 minutes/day on non-work/non-church activities - wouldn't it be nice if I could limit it to 60 minutes AT ALL - hard to do when you work for an Internet Consultancy though! ;)
7. Sleep (hours - prev. night) - at least 7 hours per night, 8 would be sublime.
8. Weight (in A.M.) - to be recorded in lbs, of course. :)

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Although I probably won't do this every day, here's my results from today (not encouraging in many regards!)

1. Soda(oz.) - Had a 16oz soda at the movies - seemed weird to have water with popcorn!
2. Coffee(oz.) - 20oz Starbucks White Raspberry Mocha with whip - had to get through the morning manager meeting today (which is the ONLY day I have a Starbucks anymore!)
3. Water(oz.) - 40oz (+ 16oz hot tea)
4. Sweets(#) - 1/2 small movie theatre popcorn
5. Workout (min.) - not yet, but it's only 8pm. I think 1 hip-hop dance routine or some yoga can still be put in tonight
6. Screen Time (min.) - So far, only 15 minutes. But, Emily wants to play RCT3 with me, so it will probably be longer tonight - but, it's kid time, so maybe it shouldn't count?? =)
7. Sleep (hours - prev. night) - only 5 hours - 2am utnil 7am.
8. Weight (in A.M.) - 170.4 this morning

You can still check out the grid here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p-mJfOClu-kA7ktPEOswNPQ

Things I'm learning along the way. . .

So now I’m a month or so into my journey. I have LOST 5 pounds! Woohoo!!! I have to admit, I thought it would be more, but I'll take what I can get. This is all thanks to a daily food diary I keep that has to be checked by the dietician once a month. I have to learn to only drink small sips of water and sugar free drinks (no carbonated beverages EVER again!) throughout the day and no drinks with meals.

I also have to learn how to take at least 30 minutes to eat each meal. That part is really hard when you're at your in-laws house and 4 minutes into your meal, everyone else is already on seconds. By the time you get 25 minutes in, they've had third helpings and dessert! Not to mention everything in that house is a carb. That house is a whole nother story . . .

Anyways, it must be working. I have more energy now than I did a month or so ago and I'm sleeping better than I have in months. My next set of goals that my dietician gave me are:

• to be sugar free
• fried foods free
• and caffeine free

all by next month. I also need to eat more fruits. She said that will help satisfy my sweet tooth. So with each meal I need to add a fruit since I seem to be concentrating on veggies too much (can you imagine that?). My hubby's trying to figure out how I'm going to be fried food free, but he's trying. I came home the next night after this appointment and he had bake pork chops for me instead of frying. It just blew me away! This is a man who hates to cook and would eat McDonald's every day all day if he could. So maybe my good changes may trickle down more than I think.

Goal Tending

OK - so my biggest motivator is someone who sits beside me every day at work, yet I see maybe 2 minutes out of the day (gotta love cube-world). She's athletic, motivated and she knows the right things to push my buttons in this fitness push of mine. Even her blog has helped me reach a decision!

She does this great thing called "Nutritionathon" and tracks it through her blog. Updates us on 7 or 8 specific goals she has set for herself. Nothing loosey-goosey about the goals either, like "lose weight" or "exercise more" with this girl. she's got it down to a T - specifically how many sodas, sweets, etc. she's going for and how well she met said goal each day.

I like this idea. No, strike that. I LOVE this idea. I'm a planner and the more details I have, the better i can follow it. But, I can't right a blog post every day with the details either. But, I am the queen of spreadsheets, so that's what I setup!

Starting on Friday, 01 February, you can keep track of my goals through this link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p-mJfOClu-kA7ktPEOswNPQ or through an RSS feed at http://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/list/p-mJfOClu-kA7ktPEOswNPQ/od6/public/basic.

Why Feb. 1? Well, I figure start with a whole month and see from there. that gives me two "free" days, one of which includes our office holiday party (office holiday party on Jan 31 - that's a whole different story!).

Here's the details of the goals I set for myself:

1. Absolutely No Soda
2. Only 1 Cup of Coffee
3. At Least 40 oz water
4. 3 full, planned meals, rather than waiting until I'm hungry to eat and then eating what's on hand. (This is where I might change the rules, if I find I'm eating more just because I planned to eat a certain thing at a certain time)
5. Only 1 sweet, if even that much. I know I have the willpower here, I just have to stop using these as an escape.
6. At least 1 15 - 30 min. workout - yoga, hip-hop dance, even a KidStuf rehearsal - as long as it gets my heart pumping and body moving!

So, that's my starting plan. Check in starting Friday to see where I go from here! Oh - and thanks Amanda! You ROCK!