It's the little things

That is what I have decided and that is how I am going to look at this whole process. Start out with the little things. I talked yesterday about how I was struggling to drink water. Well, today I had completed my 64 ounces by 4:30. Pretty good and it meant that I could have my diet coke with dinner tonight. I know it seems like a really small step but I also know that water is really good for me so I am trying...one step at a time.

I did discover today and yesterday that snacking on some sunflower seeds (the kind that are still in the shell did help a little bit with snacking. They take a lot time to eat and aren't many calories plus they have some of the good stuff in there for you. The only thing I didn't like was that they make your tongue hurt if you eat too many (salt), so I might try some nonsalted ones if I can find them. I will let you know as I go if I find any good secrets. Let me know what you guys have heard is good!

Another accomplishment was our Friday night pizza. Normally by the time we get it I am starving and will scarf down half of it (it is not that large) but today I knew it was coming and had an afternoon snack of carrots. I also ate a lot slower to try to eat less. It seemed to work because we still had pizza but I probably ate half of what I normally do. I am going to try really hard to not give up some of our weekend traditions like pizza and brunch. I sort of figure that if I am good all week and then splurge a little on the weekend it will still be better than eating crappy all week and then still splurging on the weekends.

I feel like every show I watched today was talking about healthy eating and dieting. I wonder if that was a coincidence or if I noticed it more because it was on my mind or what. Even Bill Mauer's guest tonight was a guy who wrote a book about food...apparently it is going to be a movie, and actually he seemed pretty cool so I may check the book out.

On to the weekend....hopefully it will go well and I will keep up with the water and it will be less of an effort soon.

I think that the title says it all

Recently I decided that I have sort of had enough of not being healthy. I weighed myself and I am at my highest weight that I can ever remember. Not a good feeling. Not at all. The first few thoughts that went through my head were, why do I have to worry about my weight? Why can other people just eat whatever they want? How come no one else seems to have this issue? Then I talked to my friends (or more likely confessed to them that I was worried about it) and they said that they worried about it too. Hmm, so I am not alone and people can't just eat whatever they want and do whatever they want and still look good? I should have known. If you ever see someone who is really in shape and then talk to them about what they do and eat, it is pretty strict. I guess there is no secret formula (not that I am looking for one) to getting healthy and looking good. I am looking to lose about 20lbs. Right now I sit just above (depending on what scale you look at) the "recommended" weight for someone my height. If I lost 20lbs then I would be right smack in the middle...middle is good, right? I am looking for a happy medium between working out, eating right most of the time, but still enjoying little treats that I like. I am not looking for a fad diet or a quick fix. I thought that blogging about it might help me to stay on track more than if I just did it silently. I think that I was pleasantly surprised by how my friends reacted when I said I needed to lose weight so maybe telling people isn't so bad.

I will consider this day 1. This is not some complicated formula and I don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. I know what I need to do..it is just a matter of actually doing it. Here are a couple of things that I can see right away that I need to do:
--drink more water. I used to drink 80-100 ounces a day. Yesterday I struggled to choke down 64 oz (and that involved me chugging the rest of my bottle of water right before bed).
--eat more vegetables. This also never used to be a problem but lately I find that I have eaten less and less of them.
--Find a healthy snack for during the day. I eat a late dinner so I need something to tide me over between lunch and dinner but something that is healthy.
--pick better options when I eat out. I travel a good bit for work and I don't always make the best choices because I get tired of yucky and boring salads and they seem to throw everything under the sun on every entree. I think that if I could get this part figured out it would be a huge step.
--exercise regularly. Again, something that I used to be good about...and I like. I also need to incorporate more weights into it.

So, there are my goals and what I need to do knowing and doing are two different things though....what do you need to do?