My New Year’s Resolution — I’ve Made a lot of Progress

On Tuesday I sent a simple tweet as I was pretty pumped about an accomplishment. I said “Hit another weight loss goal today! Means its time to set the next one so I can keep up the progress! #fitness #health”

Hit another weight loss goal today! Means its time to set the next one so I can keep up the progress! #fitness #health

— Janice Person (@JPlovesCOTTON) July 31, 2012

The tweet was greeted with congratulations and a few questions. One asked if I was blogging about what I was doing as she was interested in learning from others what seems to work. The only thing I’ve really written on it was at the first of the year as I wrote about my rare new year’s resolution. That’s one of the few times I really have talked publicly about the fact I’m working on my health with diet, weight & exercise all being focal areas.

There are a lot of diet programs out there and a huge number of them thrive on negativity in my opinion (that sadly seems to be the name of the game in other areas too). And it seems this blogger puts it all into words nicely — everything will kill you but kale until you find its problem. You can’t have this or that causes this problem. It may be why I have never been much for diets, I don’t welcome negativity into my life and I damn sure don’t want it tainting my food.

I am trying to make this a life-long change really dealing with the causes of the weight gain, etc by changing habits more than dieting. That’s code for I’m trying to lose a good bit of weight over time, the way all the experts say is most likely to help you keep it off. I chose to try WeightWatchers for a year because it was working for family and they seemed healthier and happier. And they didn’t become “those ‘people” who judge everyone else for eating something different than them. Besides, I like Jennifer Hudson and her thoughts on believing in yourself.

I’m doing pretty good with the weight loss goals even if progress doesn’t always come my way. Don’t forget, I have really enjoyed a good bit of travel and food since the first of the year! I feel a lot better and I have to think I’m looking better too! Out of the previous things I noted, these seem to still apply and I need to add to them (italics seemed like a good idea LOL):

• I joined a WeightWatchers group that meets at our office and have started tracking what I eat through the system they have online. I have several WW apps on my smartphone now. Sure I already had the tracking app, but my move to an iPhone lets me scan barcodes in the grocery store so I have ideas of points before I buy stuff. I have an app that lets me search nutritional info from restaurants to plan what I’ll have knowing its nutritional profile better, etc. (Dotti’s has a website as well as the app.)
• I’ve identified a couple of key things that need to change in my habits and started making changes.
  • I’m eating breakfast first thing every day and they tended at first to be of yogurt and/or whole grains and fruit. The fruit is still there, but sometimes it is a whole grain bread, some bacon, oatmeal or eggs. I do try to have protein early in the day no matter what. 
  • Water is becoming my go to drink and I’m seeing a lot less Coke in my cup. One of the specific changes has been to virtually stop drinking Cokes with meals. (Yeah, I still do this on occasion, but not nearly as often.)  I have Tervis tumblers that are always at hand with ice water in them. I rarely have more than one soda in a day now whereas before I was chugging far too many Cokes. 
  • The size portions I’m eating…. well I’ve been working on those a lot. Little things like when I grab the chips to go with my sandwich, the bag stays in the kitchen rather than tempting me to keep eating them til I’m stuffed.
  • Thinking about what I eat at a given meal, on a given day and in a given week has me thinking a lot more about vegetables. I have actually become that person who even when she throws the towel in on healthy eating and order from Domino’s eats vegetables as the pie is on its way. That way I will eat less pizza and will make sure I’ve gotten my vegetables in. 
• Fruit is being delivered to the office to be sure I have good, healthy snacks handy which helps me not turn to the easy choice of a candy bar in the machine. Monday afternoon cherries and grapes were delivered — that’s got me great snacks for this week. I have a drawer full of other snacks too that are healthier than what I was grabbing before. This helps me get something sweet or salty if that’s what strikes me. Sometimes I buy vegetables for delivery too and I pick up more fruit each time I get near a store. I just posted this on my secrets to cutting up watermelon. 
• Another fun part about doing this at work is there are several other folks who are doing WeightWatchers. And since my nieces and sisters have also been changing the way they eat, I’ve got some great support networks coming together. I created another one shortly after new year’s resolutions were made. Its a private group on Facebook for friends and family in various parts of the US who are taking similar action. They are a great source of ideas, positive thinking and its great for others to help you regain perspective. 
• The move to St. Louis gave me a perfect opportunity to change habits. I realized creating new habits would be easier in a new place and started planning on this before I moved. It’s really different in Memphis as I have family traditions (many of my doing) that involve food without great nutritional impact. I do moderate with those, but I don’t deny myself those things either. In St. Louis, I am really glad I don’t have a set of expectations around a Huey’s or Broadway. I still have great meals in St. Louis, I just have been ordering from a place of balance instead of habit.

So, this week, I celebrated losing 10 percent of my body weight since I started. That’s pretty great in my opinion. But I also need to focus on how I’m going to get the next 5 percent off. One area I still need to improve in is exercise. I’ve been more active than before but I still have lots of room for improvement. I’ve gotten myself the X-Box 360 with the Kinect bar but I’m not using it enough. I need to stop on the way home more often to work out. I have some other things I need to do more often too. There are a few options with folks from the office, I just need to decide what works best for me and get that moving forward more frequently. I’ve been letting the weather, my travel schedule and other things be used as excuses. I need to prioritize exercise because by the time its Thanksgiving, I want to have a lot more to be thankful for.

And I should note, since I’m holding myself accountable to getting to that next goal and I have friends giving me a shout out or two to help me along the way. Yep, for me, positive mindset and some sense of balance is definitely a must. No negativity and no extremes.

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