Week One Results: On My Way!

Well, I made it through Week One and I’m still alive…and three pounds lighter! Go me! Thanks to all of you for your words of encouragement – they really do mean the world to me.

The first few days didn’t really feel much different than usual, except for the notable absence of two of my best friends, Ben and Jerry. (I expect they’re probably holed up somewhere in Vermont, loudly lamenting their loss of revenue.) I have been eating Greek yogurt for breakfast and grilled chicken salad for lunch for weeks now, so I made no adjustments to those meals. This past week I was more cognizant, however, of what I ate for dinner; I’ve been sticking to mostly grilled chicken with either steamed vegetables or sautéed in just a drizzle of EVOO. (For those of you unfamiliar with Rachael Ray, that’s extra virgin olive oil.) I threw in some broiled tilapia one night, just to mix things up. I also love a good grilled salmon steak, but seeing as how it is more expensive than prime rib now, I can only look at it sitting there in the grocer’s meat case and sigh.

I can hear all of you asking yourselves, and yes, I do eat LOTS of chicken. I buy the boneless, skinless variety and dress it up lots of different ways. You can use dozens of different seasonings: garlic, sage, rosemary, citrus…the meat may be the same, but the flavor possibilities are endless. I also have an herb garden, so I take advantage of all of those wonderful fresh flavors.

And I gotta say, my husband is being a real trooper through all of this. For dinner he pretty much eats what I do, but I try to throw some type of starch in for him, like rice. (I could feed him rice ten times a day and he would be in hog heaven.) When we go to the grocery I ask him if he wants to pick up anything different for himself, and he always declines.

My sister was appalled to find out the amount of yard bird I feed my husband. “You feed that man a steak!” she scolded me the other day. So, I did pick up a couple of New York strips the next time I went to the grocery. I got home from work one evening to find he’d fired up the grill and seasoned both steaks. When I told him I was going to eat chicken (big shock, that one) he politely informed me both steaks were for him. I will say he didn’t eat both of them at one sitting, though.

No weight loss regimen is complete without exercise, so when I sent Ben and Jerry packing I revisited my old friend, the elliptical machine. It sits behind the recliners in our living room, facing the television. In the past I would put something interesting on the TV to watch while I exercised, as I simply don’t have enough self-discipline to work out without something to distract me. This past week, however, I took advantage of the text-to-speech feature on my Kindle (the best gift BJ has ever gotten me!); a good book and some ear buds, and I’m all set! I’ve started with a 20 minute preset workout – many days I do it twice – and with my Kindle the time just flies by. I can knock out about 290 calories and 50 carbs in one 20 minute jaunt. Even when I really don’t feel like exercising, I make myself do it anyway; I’m to the point that I’m tired of my ass being fat more than I want to sit on it.

A friend introduced me to a great online tool to help me keep track of my eating and exercise: www.myfitnesspal.com. (I added a link under the Helpful Tools tab – check it out!) It has a library of literally thousands of different foods – all you do is search for what you’ve eaten, then click on the portion size. It automatically populates calories, carbs, and fat and protein grams. The program also allows you to track your exercise and calories burned. If you set up a profile with your height and weight, when you total your food and exercise at the end of the day the tool will calculate your approximate weight at the end of five weeks, based on your entries that day. How cool is that?

So, with one week under my belt and some notable progress, I’m still pumped! I know there will be rough patches – days when I really want to pig out, when I don’t feel like exercising – that’s when I’ll be relying on my family and friends to kick me in the butt and get me motivated again.