No More Stalling

Well three days ago I found the inspirational blog of "266", the woman who's journey with weight loss inspired me to start this blog of my own as a means of motivation and accountability.  I spent the entire first day configuring the blog to make it look the way I wanted it to look and then I spent most of yesterday writing the first post to give some background about me and my struggles with weight.

I had planned to make yesterday "Day 1" on my journey, tracking my food intake and ensuring that I did some form of exercise no matter what it was.  In the end I finished the post, then laid down and played games on pogo.com all night until bed time.  BUT, failure is temporary, only giving up makes it permanent.  So here we go, a brand new day and a brand new opportunity to succeed.

I did have a heart-to-heart with "Temptation" last night (see posting from 11/10/10 for information re: "Temptation") about how very badly I want this and I showed him "266's" video.  The problem here is that he harbors the belief that one can eat anything they want and that the key to weight loss is simply exercise.  What he fails to realize, however, is that his extremely active lifestyle and gigantic sweet tooth is not resulting in weight loss for him, it is merely preventing weight gain.  Where I already have the uphill battle of fighting my own hormones, a house full of junk food and processed dinners is not going to benefit my journey no matter how much exercise I do, especially considering that I both work and go to school online so I am in front of a computer for no less than 10-12 hours a day, mandatory.

I am done letting him hold me back though.  In addition to recognizing the flaws in his perceptions I am also prepared to recognize them in my own.  A good diet will be no more effective without exercise than exercise would be without a good diet.  They're a match made in heaven and it's time to accept that I need them both if I am to succeed.

That said I woke up early this morning, finished my school work and I am bound and determined to exercise today, in some form, even if it means doing crunches and leg lifts while watching TV on my lunch break.  In fact, I'm not going to wait until lunch to decide how I'm going to exercise, I'm going to decide that right here and now.  I will do 30 crunches and 30 leg-lifts on each leg.  I know that's not a lot but it's been a long, long time since I've done either of those things and I'm not really sure how taxing they're going to be so I don't want to over anticipate my abilities only to be setting myself up for failure.  If I get those done and still feel like I could do more, I will do more and I will report back here on how many I did but, no matter how much it burns, I will not do less than what is promised above.

There, that's one step in the right direction.  This is like running a marathon I think, with every step I take I make progress toward the finish line and all I have to do is make sure that I keep taking steps ... I'll get there eventually.  I don't have a wedding or high school reunion to anticipate so instead of trying to set a goal that may not be possible for me and looking forward to the giant picture, I will take this one step at a time.  If I look at 135 lbs as a finish line it's going to seem impossibly far away but if I look at each day one at a time I think I can do this.

Food:
3 glasses of water
1 cup of coffee with a small splash of creamer
1 whole onion bagel, toasted
2 Tbsps cream cheese
154 grams orange chicken
224 grams veggie chowmein
154 grams beef with broccoli
1 chicken egg roll
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Daily Caloric Intake: 1662

Exercise:
60 crunches
30 leg lifts per leg
30 minutes of leg kicking (I'll explain this in tomorrow's post)
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Daily Caloric Burn: 327