More on Losing Weight

As if it needs to be said, I think this will definitely be the most challenging of my three goals to achieve.  It is so hard (especially in America) to start eating healthier and living healthier.  There are fast food restaurants EVERYWHERE.  Plus, drinking soda is the norm and when it's so easy to get already made food, it is really hard to find the motivation to cook something healthy and delicious.  Beyond that, finding the time and motivation to work out (especially when my body is already furious with me from my previous day's workout) isn't easy either.

I've tried dieting and losing weight time and again and it's never really worked because I've never held myself accountable.  75% of the purpose of this blog is to be accountable to someone in this regard and knowing that people are reading is already motivating me - because I am excited to share my successes.  It also helps to know that when I (inevitably) screw up somehow there might be someone there to say, "Look, it happens.  Just keep going."

Anyway, here are my plans/goals for losing weight:

1. Stop going out to eat (especially fast food) and stop drinking soda
• Eating unhealthy food and drinking soda are a huge roadblock for anyone trying to lose weight.  The number of calories in a single hamburger is mind boggling.  Matt and I regularly eat at Steak N Shake and I always get a Cheesy Cheddar Steakburger.  The burger is 480 calories, plus 440 for the fries, and another 170 for one glass of Dr. Pepper.  The entire meal is 1090 calories (assuming I don't get a refill on the soda), and I'm usually hungry a couple of hours later.  The really crazy part about it is that's LOW for a fast food meal.
• So the goal is to cut out the fast food (which will save additional money that can definitely be put to better use!) and the soda.  I regularly drink a 32 oz. soda at work, but I can get water for free and with the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season almost upon us, I think it will definitely be better to stay hydrated this way!  I surely won't need the caffeine with the adrenaline kick that is working retail during the holiday.
2. Limit daily calories to 1600
• With cutting out fast food and soda and replacing them with well-balanced meals and healthier drink options (water/skim milk), the 1600 calorie limit is very doable.  If I want to have a higher calorie day, I will have to earn it by working out and losing the extra calories.
3. Eat 4-5 small meals daily/ALWAYS eat breakfast
• Eating more frequently is hugely beneficial in that it helps to curb hunger and keeps your metabolism working.  This will definitely be challenging during the Christmas season at work, but I should be able to find a bit of time to run in the back in addition to my lunch break every shift.
• Eating breakfast is huge and something I often neglect.  I'm going to try to make sure I eat a reasonable breakfast every morning (oatmeal and eggs or something similar) to get my body going and make sure I don't get hungry an hour into work with no time to eat until several hours later.
4. Drink water consistently
• My goal is to never go so long without water that I get thirsty.  If you're thirsty, your body is already beginning to become dehydrated.  I also want to make sure that I am not confusing thirst with hunger (something that is surprisingly easy to do).
5. Do a multi-faceted daily workout
• I have several resources available for my workouts and I am utilizing all of them already.  
1. I own Wii Fit Plus which sounds a bit silly, but I've found that it can really provide an awesome workout - partially because I've spent 2 hours working out with it before I realized how long I'd spent.  It has a lot of yoga poses which I love to do, and a lot of really fun cardio games.  It also has some games that focus on posture and balance which probably won't help with the weight loss but are still very important!
2. I also have Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred video which I plan to use bits and pieces of every day.  Because it is a full body workout, there's no way you can do it every day without putting too much strain on your muscles.  She has an excellent warm up and lots of great exercises that I will use on different days so that each muscle group gets a targeted workout without being over-worked.
3. Matt bought a book awhile back called You Are Your Own Gym which details how to do strength training exercises without any extra equipment and divides the muscles into 8 sections that you can group up as you like.  I'm going to use this book to plan which muscle groups I'll use on which days.  I'll also use it for more creative exercise ideas and for varying difficulties of exercises.  I especially like that it takes the standard push-up (and a lot of other exercises) and makes it very, very easy to very, very difficult just by changing the body position.
• My goal in working out every day is to prevent myself from having days where I don't work out and then not being motivated to work out the next day.  If I work out 1-2 muscle groups every day, I'll always be doing something different but I'll always be doing something.  It's easier to start once and keep going than it is to start and stop.

So that's the plan.  Definitely more complicated than the learning German part, but it was always going to be more difficult.  It's not that I want one or the other more, it's just that this one is going to take a lot more hard work than German.  I think the biggest difference between the two is that when my brain is ready to call it quits, it's beneficial to stop studying German because after that point I really won't remember much.  With exercising, when my body is ready to call it quits I have to keep pushing until I can't do anymore or I won't ever get better.

Hopefully this will all pay off in the end.  Until then, I'll keep boring you to tears with my ridiculously long blog entries. :)

Tschüss!