Diet blog up and running

Well I finally did it - I built that diet blog I've been wanting to write. If you want to follow this chubby chick getting skinny, then you can hop out to My Diet, Health and Fitness Blog for my thoughts, progress, etc. Why Chris-diet.com? Because this diet plan originates with him, and he and I are jointly working on exercising and losing the weight. But the blog posts are all me :)

Hopefully as I get healthier my attitude will improve - and isn't that important? It's easier to handle life's curve balls when you feel well.

Back to basics

I've been trying to flutter with Flylady for a couple years now. The last two months I've been SO busy trying to build my business (this month I did a ton of invoicing, so something is going well!) that my house just fell apart.

It isn't that I don't try, it's that I try too hard at the wrong things. I end up at my computer at the oddest hours doing just one more blog post (STOP looking at the timestamp on this post - yes I mean YOU - stop it! I'm SERIOUS!) so yesterday I decided to just stop, take a deep breath and jump right back in where I was doing baby steps.

And after only two days, I've got the dishes caught up, the living room rescued - I'm so pleased, my house is starting to recover and feel like a home! BTW, I'm a big fan of FlyLady and if you haven't been able to find peace in your home because you're a victim of the clutter monster (like me) then I do really recommend her. It's all about learning to love yourself, really. And that's something I need a lot of help with, constantly.

Mom will be coming up Monday, and then on Wednesday at 7am we're flying to Disney World - just the two of us. I can't wait - we both need a break so desperately. Mom works with my kid brother at his store and her health has been not the greatest - a few decades of smoking has taken it's toll and she's having trouble walking now, so we're going to get ourselves a limousine (actually, a wheelchair for mom) and I figure the exercise pushing her will be a blessing for me. I'm really glad I quit smoking years ago - I may never have been able to stay on a diet consistently but I can feel good about that. It was a struggle but definitely worth it - I quit about seven years ago and have never smoked since - not once. Basically because, like an alcoholic, if I smoke just one I'll be right back on the pony. So no cigarettes for me :)

If only it was that easy to diet! The problem is I have to eat every day... if I could go cold turkey on food I'd have licked this thing years ago. I just have a hard time with moderation - and sugar and caffeine are how I regulate my moods. Well, I'll just keep trying... one thing I am proud of is that I've learned how to eat meals and since March 1 I've done just that.

Yeah I guess that made no sense... see as a kid generally we didn't get "meals" - money was tight, and my kid brother had a lot of allergies so a meal was meat and maybe potatoes and corn. Maybe. Salad? not a chance. Milk? Didn't have it. We had coke. No I'm not kidding - no milk or juice, we were a coffee and pop only household LOL. But I've been working on balancing my meals first, and once I've got the knack of that, then reducing portions. So tonight for example I had a biscuit (ok, two) a caesar salad, broccoli and cauliflower, roast chicken and rice. See? A meal, with side dishes and everything. Even a salad! I've been doing this for weeks now and the other day I got mad because we were out of salad and dinner just didn't seem right without one!

Yay ME! Could I eat less? Yeah, but it's hard overcoming 40 years of really AWFUL food habits all at once. I've tried that before and failed. So this time I'm going to take baby steps and see how I do. For May I'm going to start slowly reducing portions... hopefully by fall I will see an improvement. Oh, and I'm walking two or three times a week now - a mile at a brisk pace. (It wasn't real brisk at first but now I can chug right along) so I'm all ready to go see Disney World! Maybe next year I can go back and be thin enough to actually ride the rides... wouldn't that be something.

Oh, and for those of you wondering why I didn't write about the results of this week's American Idol - well it's because, in my mind, there weren't any. "Postponing" voting someone off is just that - postponing it. To be truthful I thought it was silly and disingenuous. Has American Idol just jumped the shark? Well, only time will tell.

Well that's MORE than enough for one night - my mouth runneth over :) I'm going t try this sleeping thing I've heard so much about - chat with you later!

Why no avatar?

Yes, it's true; I don't use an 'real' picture as an avatar.
Am I hiding? not exactly... if I'm really honest with myself I'm not using an avatar because I don't like how I look. To be blunt, I'm overweight... and not a little overweight either, but what a doctor would call 'Morbidly obese' - in the 250 pound range or so. And after the close call I had with my kitty's health, I've taken a closer look at my own.

I don't like what I'm seeing.

It's not that I'm a big eater... the weight crept up over the last 10 years or so. It's that I eat the wrong things, at the wrong times, for the wrong reasons. I eat almost exclusively starches and sugars (mashed potatoes, YUM), and I don't eat on a schedule - my dinner is often at 10pm and after engorging myself (since I didn't eat much all day, choosing rather to sit in front of my computer and work) I fall asleep. Thus ensuring that my body turns every bit of what I ate, healthy or not, into nice big rolls of fat.

Lets face it, eating feels GOOD. I feel happy when I eat (one of the few times I actually feel good) so it's easy to have one more serving. Potatoes, stuffing AND rice? Sure, why not?

A year ago I picked up a really good book - at the time it was only available at the author's website, self-published, but it's now available on Amazon. Body Clutter is a great book which I'm going to recommit myself to reading AND following, and you faithful reader, are going to be stuck going along for the ride. I'm going to try writing my assignments right into the blog, with the hope that between understanding WHY I eat, and watching WHAT I eat (with a generous dollop of exercise thrown in) I can start to peel off some of these pounds. If I can get rid of, say 20 pounds, I'll pledge to take a picture of myself and use it for my avatar. How's that for motivation?

Health and fitness is on my mind

With everything that's been happening it might not surprise you to know that health has been on my mind lately. Since I spend a lot of my time sitting, I've gained some weight - and with all the things I'm trying to juggle I eat far more fast food than I'd like. Well with the New Year fast approaching I'm beginning to think about fitness - specifically fitness women, and any advice they might be able to give. So I was glad to run into this blog from a woman's point of view discussing fitness, diet and exercise. Marcela is a certified personal trainer with a Master's degree in physical education , so she really speaks from experience when it comes to helping people get (and stay) fit.

One post I found really helpful was 10 Tips to Starting a Fitness Program in 2007. I always seem to self destruct when it comes to getting started (guess I'm only a self starter when it comes to technology!) so the advice she gives in this post really hits home. The most useful tip I took from her site is not to set my standards based on others. In other words, my family tends to be heavy, so trying to look like a supermodel isn't very realistic! Instead I should set a realistic goal, and then work slowly and steadily towards it. I think that's pretty good advice! With a bit of planning and some determination, I bet this year I can hit my new, more realistic goal of losing 40 pounds :)