Finding New Ways to Be Successful

Affirmation: I can do this

I spent the weekend looking at the areas I am failing in and why. I have come up with a plan that I think may ease some of the pressure for me and bring more successes too.

As my life has heated up and become more busy (NOT a complaint, I am enjoying the involvement and social life that I have lacked since coming to Rockford) I have had less time to cook and pack lunches and fix breakfasts. Actually I have lost interest in cooking...which is a real supprise to me...but as I am trying to shift my focus from food and eating in my life, the time I was spending on cooking and planning and thinking about food has been replaced by other things. Sooooo here is my plan.

Breakfasts

• grab a piece of fruit,
• a carton of low sugar yogurt (btw...any recommendations for brands? I am devistated to realise that the new yoplait low fat chocolate whips has 20 grams of sugar per serving! they are SO good)
• a muffin from natural ovens

Lunches

• a salad from somewhere...McD's, Dairy Queen, Arby's and occasionally Taco Bell are my choices near where I work

Suppers
If I am home:

• probably a soup of some kind
• easy cook: pastas, baked potatoes, rices, grains with veggies
• side salads with veggies
• veggies and healthy dips (I love to dip and crunch. Dips: healthy humous, healthy guac., salsas, healthy onion dip, healthy sun-dried tomato dip or various healthy bean dips)
• tuna or salamon with crackers and vegies
• basically anything that can be quickly and easily cooked. Pantry meals.
  

If I go straight to a meeting after work:

• salad or a veggie wrap from Arbies or veggie sandwich from subway or from the church cafe
  

Snacks will be fruit or veggies and dips.

I am just resisting spending lots of time planning, shopping, cooking and thinking about foods. Having the things in the pantry to make fast quick dinners and giving myself permission to eat out rather than cook will help I think. I figure that I would spend about $20 a week eating out (4 lunches and 1 or 2 wraps for supper). I have been so busy that I probably have been throwing away at lest $20 of bad produce that I don't get eaten anyhow.

Doing this will also allow me to sleep in about a half hour in the morning too!! Gotta love that! I just can't seem to get it together at night to make the lunch at night.

How does this sound to you guys?

jackie

Exercise and Choices

Affirmation: I exercise

Exercise! Oh how I hate it! But Oh how I love how I feel when I do it. I did it. I went and purchased a recumbent bike and it was delivered on Friday. I had gotten out of the routine of going to the Y and with my new job and other new things in my life, I was finding it hard to make the time to get to the Y to exercise. I knew that I could do it in less time at home, but for now walking was a challenge with my knee pain so I decided to get a bike. I found a great deal and mom says that she will use it as well...we will see on that one! But this morning I got up and rode for a whole 5 minutes. How discouraging was that!!! I had been up to 40 minutes on the treadmill with 15 minutes on each end of that on the bike. Well it will take working up to that, but I will.

I am still without my journal and am seeing what a huge accountability tool it is for me. I am almost finished with the revisions and hope to have it ready to print by the end of the week. I am just about at the point in my recovery that I am thinking that I might be ok with setting some goals. Goal setting usually doesn't do anything but trigger my rebelliousness in me and I end up self defeating. I know that this is a core issue that I want to work on...rebelliousness. It goes back so far to my childhood...food was the only thing I felt that I could control about my life. But that isn't true anymore. I am in control of my life now, well as far as I choose to be. Of course I am submitted to God, but that is something different than feeling that others are in control of my life and my choices. But then again maybe not. If I truly believe that God is in control, even when I feel I am not in control of the choices others make for me, I can find comfort in the fact that God can make everything work for the good.

But being in control...knowing that I am in control of my choices makes me responsible for those choices I make. I have no one now to blame on my weight. I have made all the choices that have brought me to this point. I understand that there are circumstances, explainations, reasons, but ultimately I have chosen to be this way. It is interesting that as I have allowed the truth of that to sink into my core being, instead of feeling guilt, despair, or anger I have felt hope. An incrediable amount of hope. Because if I made the choices that resulted in my being obese, then I also have the ability to make the choices to stop makeing choices that make me obese. Ok that is a mouthful. Let me see if I can say it better. They were my choices...the end result is obesity. I have the same power of choice to decide to make choices that the end result is health. Healthy eating, healthy exercising, healthy weight level, healthy life. Now I know that it isn't really as simple as that, but it is as simple as that. It is choice. One choice at a time. I didn't start out to choose to become 100 lbs obese...I made the choice to have that extra helping, I made the choice to not exercise, I made the choice to eat when I wasn't hungry, I made the choice to soothe myself with food rather than deal with a problem. I have the same power to make different choices. I am beginning to realise that it isn't about looking at the totallity of what has to be accomplished, but to look at it broken down into the simplest form. Choice. Specifically one choice at a time.

That being said, I had a weekend of bad choices. Not one meal was a good choice. Why? I didn't feel like cooking, I didn't feel like eating healthy, I didn't feel like going to the grocery store. There are always reasons. But the simple matter is that it is all about choice. Do I make the choice for life or death? Simple eh?