Back on Track with healthy choices

Six weeks ago when we moved from Goose Creek to Johns Island I determined that I would take advantage of having a safe place to walk and get more exercise. My goal was and still is to lose a minimum of 1 lb per week. As of today I have lost 5 lbs and while I have not kept my goal of 1 lb pe week I am going to be happy about the weight loss. I have discovered that as I increase my exercise levels the better I feel and I have more energy. I am also finding that the increased activity has helped me to manage stress during the week as well. As the hashtag in Twitter #backontrack suggests I am “back on track” with my health related goals and seeing some small but marked improvements. Every day I have a choice to “start over”. Every day I have to choose to make healthy choices when it comes to my body. I can eat garbage and not do those things that I know I need to do or I can educate myself about the things I do need to do and DO IT. You know the saying, “JUST DO IT!!!!”

One of the things I have been doing is going to www.calorie-count.com and logging all of my calories each day. Every time I eat a meal or snack I try to remember to go there and log what I am eating. If I forget to do it one day I go back and think about what I ate and add it to the list for the previous day. I also log my exercise and weight there as well. Keeping track of all my calories makes me aware of exactly what I am putting in my mouth and it keeps me from eating emotionally. I read the other day that my mindset about eating should not be that of entertainment but rather to think of eating as using food as fuel. I am eating because I am hungry and I am eating the right things so that I can give my body the fuels it needs to burn calories. One of the pitfalls of eating because it is entertaining is that I get into the habit of thinking “I am sitting in front of the TV so I must have a snack”.

I have found that it is too easy to use eating as a way to make me feel better when I find myself suffering from situational depression. I might be upset about this or that or a circumstance out of my control so I will go rummage around in the refrigerator and look for something to eat that I “like”. When I am doing this I am redirecting my attention away from that thing that has me depressed or angry and I am focusing on food instead. The only problem with emotional eating is that I am doing myself a disservice by packing in the calories and pounds when I do this. I am happy to say that my wife Katy has hopped on the #backontrack band wagon with me and she has the same goal as I do, to lose weight and be more healthy. I think that she realizes that I am serious about “JUST DO IT” and that her being a partner with me will give me the added encouragement that I need to keep on keeping on. We can encourage on another and have the same goals. There is nothing like having an accountability partner that can help you stay on track.

One of the struggles with losing weight is to change how I think about eating but also to change what I eat. One of the low country bloggers mentioned to me in a comment on my blog that we should not have junk food in the house. If you do not have it you will not eat it. There is a lot of wisdom in that thought process and thanks to our budget being as lean as it is we have not had a problem with having a bunch of junk around the house. We have found some low calorie ice cream that we like so we get some of that from time to time to share. We have been eating more salad and baked chicken and boiled eggs as well. I know that we need to get better about drinking more water. We have been drinking tea with splenda and diet Dr Pepper. Katy has actually slacked off of drinking regular Coke and I am proud of her choice to sacrifice the sugar and calories that comes with drinking that.

My goal this week is to walk each day for at least an hour and to eat less than 2200 calories per day. Thus far I am averaging around 1850 calories per day and I am burning somewhere around 450 to 650 calories with exercise. Hopefully if I can keep this up and not let anything discourage me from this then I can stay #backontrack with the rest of you good folks out there that are doing the same thing. We will only be better off and healthier because of good choices.

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Healthy choices

Good morning fellow calorie counters and friends.

I am happy to report that instead of buying a biscuit with sausage egg and cheese this morning I purchased Kellogs specia K individual container at the Hungry Cougar across from my work place this morning. I was so tempted to get the former but chose the later in an effort to make better choices. Instead of doing what I am used to doing I am chosing to retrain myself to realize that part of losing weight is losing bad thinking and renewing my mind with good information. Having information is useless if we do not put it to action.

I have been losing half a pound per day thus far this week. That means that the weight is coming off slowly but surely. I need to increase my exercise a bit but that should be easy to do. Monday was a pretty high energy day with two trips up the five flights of stairs and bowling for two hours so I took a break from the stairs yesterday and instead went for a 30 minute walk at lunch.

I am holding myself accountable to others by sharing my journey with folks in my life such as yourself and my extended family and friends on the Internet. I am doing this so that I can be transparent with myself, God and you. If I am transparent and honest then it will be easier for me to face facts and do what I need to do. One of the people that I shared this with agreed with me that I needed encouragement. In the very next sentence this friend told me that walking stairs at work was not going to cut it but if I wanted to lose weight that I need to walk 45 minutes continuously every day and that the secret to their success was to join weight watchers so that they could lose the 30 lbs they needed to lose.

Instead of encouraging me this person sort of drug me down for a few moments. Sometimes people do not realize or they forget how hard it is to actually motivate one self to make the life changes that are required. I reminded my friend that for me to carry all 365.6 lbs of me up five flights of stairs certainly is an aerobic exercise because it gets my heart rate up into an aerobic range. I get more of an aerobic workout by doing that than getting on the eliptical trainer for 15 minutes. The bottom line is this. I am doing SOMETHING different which is better for me and has added value that burns calories. No, I may not have a high octane work out that some other person that is in better shape than myself. The important thing is that instead of taking the elevator on the way up into the building every time I come into it I make the effort to take the stairs.

I figure that every good choice that I make , the less calories I eat and the more exercise I get the better off that I will be and those things put together will equate to slow permanent weight loss. Every day I chose to learn from the day before and make better choices and not make the same mistakes from the day before. If I can continue to do that I will reach my goal both in weight loss but in other areas of my life as well.

Have a great day folks!!







James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net