Goal-Setting

Between a slightly lower number on the scale this morning, and the fact that I'm hitting up the gym a lot this week, I felt motivated today to capitalize on these favorable conditions and recommit to keeping track of my calorie intake, with a goal of healthy weight loss. This will be coupled by trying to stick to a gym schedule that has me working out at least three times a week.

Basically, this past semester from about January to April I was very good at keeping track of what I ate (online at Self.com) and along with my gym routine, that caused me to lose somewhere in the range of 5-10 pounds. I put a couple of those back on in the celebratory and non-routine time span from graduation through the wedding and moving, but still kept an overall loss. The past few weeks I have been watching my weight and generally trying to eat pretty well (and work out more), but today I decided that it's time to really take action again, to lose 8 more pounds. These 8 pounds would be very meaningful - would put me in a healthy BMI range and would be the lightest I can remember being probably since high school at least. Mostly, I could prove to myself that I can achieve another goal. It definitely felt good this winter and spring to make a change, and have people complimenting me. I found that just tracking my food was great because it forced me to realize what a serving of things really was and kept me mindful, yet I didn't have to entirely eliminate any one food. (Case in point, tonight I measured out a small serving of chocolate chips to indulge a chocolate craving!)

So we'll see where this goes. If I lose one pound a week, I can reach my goal in about two months! It's really helpful to have so much control over what I eat - we rarely go out and I do all the dinner planning and most of the cooking, so I can definitely vet recipes ahead of time.

I feel like maybe a couple of disclaimers are in order:
1) This definitely comes from me, and is much more about health than my confidence in my own appearance. I generally think of myself as attractive, and my husband never makes me feel anything BUT attractive. Professional wedding photos are certainly an ego boost as well!

2) I don't know if you all (my readers) care about this in as much detail as I am posting, but it's just something about which I'm feeling chatty. I am putting it on here in the first place in an effort to keep myself accountable and sticking to my goal.

I've been doing well with exercise this week - I went to the gym Monday, did zumba again today, and I'm hitting up the ellipticals AND Pilates with Lola tomorrow! On the plus side of being unemployed, it sure leaves a lot of time to get to the gym...