Doubts and Solutions

Okay, so I'm feeling a little panicked lately. Sure, it's been Christmas, and sure I'm expected to make mistakes once in awhile, but I'm starting to be afraid that I'm not doing good enough. For the last two months I've been averaging two pounds lost per month, and that's just not going to cut it. I'm teetering on a fence between being happy with results that I'm getting and just letting this whole thing fall by the wayside. I am not comfortable being on that fence. It's like when you're on a bike and you slow down too much... yeah, sure you're still moving, but you're right at that point where you're about to fall over because you're going so slow. I realize that I need to make some changes to get off of this fence, to pedal swiftly on the correct side of it.

First, I am re-assessing my daily calorie goals. My current goal has been 1500 calories consumed per day, and this was based on the fact that it was a big change for me to begin with. I had been eating upwards of 3 to 4 thousand calories per day, maybe more some days, and 1500 was a big step down from that. I've noticed that a lot of women lost weight eating around 1200 calories per day... I asked caloriecount.about.com today what my calories/day should be if I want to be 185 pounds by the beginning of August, and it told me 1358, so I'm going with that. I'm going to try hard to start actually meeting this goal more days than not. After all, every day cannot be a special occasion.

Second, I'm fully committing myself to weighing what I eat. I want to know that I am actually consuming the amount of food that I report on my calorie database to have consumed. None of this "that felt like about 400 calories" crap. Data like that is inherently biased, because I know how many calories I have left to consume for the day, and I really have no idea how many calories are in my husband's famous chicken pot pie, for example. I will at least weigh what I eat, and enter it in as generic "homemade pot pie," or whatever it was. To do this, I need to buy an additional scale... maybe one of those small ones to carry in my purse. I can afford this; it's important.

Third, I will continue to exercise regularly, and commit to doing it at least 3 times per week. I love exercising... I love the feeling of accomplishment, I love my muscles being sore, I love having the ability to actually hold my body together using my stomach, and I love the flexibility that comes with it. I will continue to do the elliptical trainer for cardio, the Bowflex and floor exercises for strength, and by Spring I will have bought myself an appropriate pair of running shoes, and will get out there and start training for my 5k this fall.

I know that this is an appropriate time of year to be making all these new promises to myself. Lots of people feel this way immediately following the holidays. It's tough, and I have no idea why we associate eating ridiculous amounts of foods with having a good time at Christmas, but we do. Maybe by next year I'll be changed enough that most of these foods will look kinda gross to me. After all, I do already know that they make me feel crappy. This year I tried to stick to the dishes and confections that I knew I loved, but there were a darn lot of those!