So I actually meant to include this in my last post, but I got side-tracked and didn’t want to make it too long…
Yes, that is what she said…
Anyways, like I said, my plan for the month of January is to just sort of get in the swing of things and try to establish a routine that’s healthier for me than the lying around, eating junk food, and never leaving the computer chair that’s gotten me into this mess, so here’s what I’m focusing on so far…
Drink more water.
So far I actually think that I’m doing pretty good with this one – I’ve been refilling a 16 oz bottle throughout the day and on average have been going through two or three a day. More significantly, while I could never give it up completely, I’ve made a huge dent in the amount of (diet) soda that I drink each day, in that I used to go through two or three cans at work, and then more when I got home, whereas now I’ve been barely drinking a can a day.Be conscious of what I’m eating.
This one is hard, so I’m trying to do little things over time – less snacking, more fruits & vegetables, less late night meals, avoid getting up to snack in the middle of the night. I also eventually want to start planning meals a week in advance so there’s less temptation for splurging and eating out, but for now I’m trying not to go too crazy here because this is also a very easy one to fail if I get carried away.Start exercising.
Nothing too intensive yet, but we got a WiiFit for Christmas and so far Sara & I have both been having fun doing that. I can, and probably will, write up a whole separate post on WiiFit later, but in the meantime I’m enjoying the instruction for how to do exercises that I didn’t know … plus, tracking it like a video game tends to help me. Eventually I think I want to alternate between WiiFit and some more intensive use of our elliptical, but I’m not ready for that yet.Get more sleep.
Although the food one is tough, too, arguably this could actually be my most challenging focal point simply because I always have so much that I want to do … it’s really hard to force myself to go to bed sometimes, even when I know that it’ll come back to bite me the next day when I don’t get a damn thing done because all I want to do is sleep to catch up! It’s a huge struggle vs. my creative process, but I know that consistency is important.
Obviously, the goal is that by the end of the month, I’ll be doing reasonably good enough in each of these individually that I can start ramping up the stuff like exercise and possibly dieting to really push the actual weight loss forward. There are definitely some that I’m doing better at than others, as you would expect, but I’ve still got three weeks left this month, so let’s see where this new approach takes us!