Beautiful weather!

This is a beautiful time of year.  70 degree temps, warm sunshine...  But of course that's not really supposed to happen in March, but I'll take it.  With the warm weather, I am discovering my new obsession, so to speak.  I absolutely LOVE geocaching.  I love going out in the nice weather with my usually trusty handheld gps unit and walking around parks until I find the hidden treasure.  It's great.  The fact that it also means getting off my butt and in the sun is only one of the benefits.  Sometimes it's even aerobic as it often involves walking up and down hills a lot, maybe some climbing, etc.  One of the cool things about geocaching is that it can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.  Regardless, it's definitely turning into an obsession for me.

In addition to geocaching, I've also picked up Zumba, which I find to be really fun.  It is my new Monday night activity.  Tonight I am going to Fit Barre at my gym, which is more resistance training.  I'm really trying to not focus completely on cardio work because, while the benefits of cardio can't be denied, resistance training is also an integral part of it.

I'm also intensely curious about kettlebell; so much so that I'm half tempted to buy one on the way home.  Clearly I'd buy the lightest one (7lbs) as I'm a beginner and I don't have any experience with it.  But I'm extremely curious about it and it looks like something that I might like.

Finally, nutrition is a key component of weight loss as well.  I've been increasing the number of servings of fruits and vegetables.  But, I've also given up pop for the time being.  There is really no reason to drink pop from a nutritional perspective.  Maybe someday I'll drink pop again, but right now I'm trying to get used to how I feel not drinking it.

Happy thought of the day:  my best friend informed me that if I keep going the way that I am currently, I will visibly be losing weight in the next few months.  Hopefully that's right!

Extended Hiatus: Over

So the last month to two months haven't been the greatest in terms of healthy living accomplishments.  But there have been a host of other accomplishments that I've achieved.

• The Big One: I GRADUATED!!  School is officially and perhaps forever over!  No more worrying about papers, no more worrying about blackboard, no more crappy professors.  IT. IS. OVER!
• The other, not quite so big, one is that I made it through Christmas.  It was touch and go there for awhile.  My family loves to pile on the stress, guilt and what-not to make something that is supposed to be wonderful absolutely awful.  But I made it through Christmas and, even if the weeks leading up to Christmas were pretty much horrifying, Christmas Eve and Christmas day were actually rather relaxing and drama free.  

New Year's also went very well though it wasn't exactly what I was planning/hoping/expecting.  But, que sera sera.  I was extremely happy to see the New Year though because it inevitably means that December 2011 is over.  January means more free time, more time to accomplish the other goals that I have, those that are more healthy living oriented.  January means less stress, less drama and in general a quieter life.  I had been craving January for a several weeks.  So far, it's lived up to it's expectations.  I am started to get my equilibrium back.  I'm starting to NOT feel exhausted all the time because I simply don't have time to sleep.  I've been walking my dog more and I've been cooking more.  It has been wonderful.

This brings me to the purpose of this post.  It's a little late for New Year's resolutions, but it's never too late for goals.  That said, I am starting out simple.  I would like to increase my cardio workouts.  I think that this will help me in the future for dealing with the aforementioned familial stress.  Maybe next Christmas won't make me so crazy.  To start, I am going to try to make it to the gym 1-2 times per week to use the elliptical, take my dog on at least one half hour walk every day and give one of the classes at the gym a try.  Probably Zumba, because I've been extremely curious about that.

I'm also going to go back to my meal planning on the calendar.  I would like to plan to prepare about three nutritious dinners every week.  I say "about" because the leftover situation may call for more or fewer nights cooking.  I'm also going to try new things for lunch because I'm really tired of the sandwiches that I've been bringing.  This week I made a pasta salad that is delicious.  I substituted whole wheat penne pasta for the egg noodles and didn't use all of the dressing to reduce the calories.

Last night I made a delicious batch of minestrone soup, courtesy of Clearly Delicious.  That, combined with the good lunch of the pasta salad means that I am currently feeling a lot better then I have been.  I just have to keep this up!

Anyway, toodles for now.

Small Victories

Sometimes it's easiest to achieve goals one day at a time.   That said, yesterday was a good day for my health goals, but a bad day for homework.

After work I went to the gym and did thirty minutes of cardio.  I know that I need to do more resistance training but at this point I think I'm going to stick to working mostly on cardio.  After that, I went home and cooked a stir-fry with delicious veggies (red pepper, onion, carrots, sugar snap peas).

Therefore, I'm going to start to rate my goals of eating, exercise and motivation on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being that I feel that I did very well.  For yesterday, those ratings are:
Eating: 8
Exercise: 10
Motivation: 9

Eating is 8 because I did partake in more treats during work then was necessary.  One of my co-workers is getting married and we had a cake, ice cream bars and a cream cake thing.  I tried both of the cakes but, and this makes me quite proud, I didn't have an ice cream bar.  On the bright side, dinner was home cooked and healthy, I packed a relatively healthy lunch that included vegetables and breakfast was an oatmeal breakfast cookie.

Exercise is 10 because I made it to the gym for the first time in a week.  I hope to keep up going to the gym at least three times a week and taking walks or doing something at home (like WiiFit) the rest of the week.

Motivation is 9,  mostly because I didn't really think about my goals before having a second piece of cake.  Even if I choose to disregard those goals for a piece of cake, I would like to consider them.

Introduction

To start out with, I've never really been a blogger.  I'm not sure if I ever really had that much to say.  Honestly, I'm still not sure.  However, I am trying to make some changes in my life, some little changes that will hopefully lead to big changes.  I am trying to lose weight.  I've never tried any fad diets, I've never joined weight watchers or Jenny Craig or anything like that.  I've never even tried counting calories.  I've had periods of time where I did exercise frequently, but those times weren't long-lasting or frequent.  Similarly, I've had times where I've had a better diet but like, the exercise, it didn't stick. 

I'm hoping to change this, but one step at a time.  The first step for me was joining a gym.  I joined a gym last week that is directly across the street from work.  I pull out of the parking lot and see the sign.  That's the basis of it's appeal.  If I see the gym, and if my workout bag is on the seat of my car next to me, I have a difficult time coming up with an excuse to not go.  So my first goal is to go to the gym at least three times a week in order to do 30 minutes of cardio. Today, I was successful.  Two more times to go this week!

The whole point of this blog is to keep me honest with myself so that, incrementally, there is a little less of me.