Katie: Week 4

Week 4 stats, comin' right up!

Current weight: 160 pounds
Last week's weight: 161 pounds
Total weight loss: 10 pounds

Well, embarrassing, unflattering pictures of myself are every other week, but there will be a gross picture of me in this post anyway.  You'll see why in a minute.  (Or if my weekly recap of my rules bores you I totally understand and would then encourage you to skip down to the gross picture of me.)

My rules:
1. No Sweets!
Absolutely NO sugar sweets/junk/desserts/candy/etc. for three months (i.e. until April 1, 2010).  At that point I'll reassess and see if I can allow myself small things here and there or if I need to keep up the no sweets rule.  I will allow myself the occasional healthy dessert, but it will count as a processed snack (see below).

Although I still want sweets sometimes, I have noticed in myself that my will power is much stronger.  We had a bunch of friends over to play board games on Sunday night and everybody else had brownies and ice cream.  I quietly declined, simply said, "I'm not eating desserts," so as not to offend our friends that brought them, and made myself a little berry parfait instead.  The brownies smelled good, but I truly wasn't tempted.


2. No Fast Food!
No fast food or eating out.  Period.  And if on the off chance I'm stranded somewhere or something and I have to get fast food I will order the healthiest thing.

I did eat out once this week.  My good friend Emily and Mary (Emily's best bud from home) and I went out to lunch at Zupas yesterday.  Mary was in town visiting and they invited me out to lunch.  Mary is probably the nicest, sweetest person I've ever met in my entire life, so I deemed this occasion break-the-rules worthy.  Besides, Zupas isn't exactly a burger joint.  I picked out ahead of time which salad I would get, but Zupas doesn't yet have nutritional information published anywhere, so I just did the best I could based on the ingredients in the salad.  I ended up splurging and getting a sandwich too, but my lunch was by no means over-the-top calorie or fat wise.  It really was a healthy lunch.  Oh, and I even gave away the chocolate-dipped strawberry that came with my meal.  So there.

3. Healthy Meals and Snacks!
Eat three healthy meals each day along with 2-4 healthy snacks, with no more than one processed snack (100 calorie packs, etc.) per day. 

This is going well.  And did you all see the recipes I posted last week for my typical lunch, fruit parfaits, and extra healthy banana bread?


4. Fresh Foods!
Trade out cravings/impulses to eat granola bars and other processed snacks with fresh fruits and veggies.

Yep, this is going well.



5. Keep Track!
Write down everything I eat in my food journal (a little notebook I can carry around and keep with me).

Yep, this is going well.

 

6. Exercise 30 Minutes!
Exercise in some way for at least 30 minutes every day and write down what I did to exercise in my food journal.

So last Tuesday I committed myself to doing Tighter Assets at least 3 times during the week.  I (sort of) did this.  I actually did Tighter Assets twice and then went to an abs class one night with my friend Sarah.  Although the abs class was great, it was not as good of a workout for me because I couldn't do most of it.  A lot of it was totally beyond my level right now (kudos to Sarah for at least attempting everything!).  At one point I totally fell flat on my face.  For reals.  And the stuff that I could have tried hurt my wrist real bad.  Real, real bad.  I have a cyst on my right wrist that doesn't give me too much trouble, except when my hand is perpendicular to my arm and then I push on something (i.e. pushing a door open, etc.)  So you can imagine how well push-ups went over.  Not so well.  Anyway, it was worth a shot and it was fun to watch Sarah be hard core.  ('cuz we all know that "you're not hardcore unless you live hardcore.")  Anyway, this week I think I will just stick to doing Tighter Assets at least 3 times during the week.  Oh, and I also went on walks and stuff the other days when I wasn't working out with Tamilee.
 

7. Drink 80 Fluid Ounces!
Drink at least 80 fluid ounces of water every day and write down how much I drank in my food journal.

I was under 2 days this week, and over 5 days this week.  I'd say that's pretty good.  Still not perfect, but pretty good. 

 

8. Balance Food Intake!
Enter the foods I eat each day into the Menu Planner on MyPyramid in order to make sure I'm getting a good balance of the foods I need.

No problems here this week.  Except when I eat more than 12 oz of grains it messes up and stops telling me how many ounces of grains I ate, so I kind of have to guess at that point.  But whatev.  I really shouldn't be eating that many ounces of grains anyway. 

 

9. Stay Active!
No sitting at the computer/TV for more than an hour (or one movie) at a time.

Again, no real problems here.  


10. Get out!
Get out of the house at least once a day!

I am happy to report that I have definitely made it beyond our apartment complex every day this week.  No snowfall and clear sidewalks/roads makes it much less tempting to just go to my sister's and back.  However, it is snowing again today, so wish me luck.

Okay, now I promised you an embarrassing, unflattering picture of myself.  (That's what you really read The Skinny for anyway, right?)  So here it is for this week:

My face is much, much more bright red in real life than it is in this picture.  Somehow the flash was a little too kind to me.

To go along with this gross picture, the question I'd like to ask everybody is this:

What keeps you from being healthy?

What do you hate about it?  What excuses do you have?  What are your drawbacks?  What little things just bug you and cause you to put off reaching your goals?

I'll go first.  And then I hope the rest of you will answer this for yourself either in the comments or, if you're still feeling too shy to comment, I hope you'll answer it for yourself on a piece of paper, or at the very least as complete thoughts in your mind.  I think just owning up to all the ridiculous (or sometimes valid) hang ups we have can help us recognize just how ridiculous or valid those hang ups are and then, hopefully, we'll be able to move past them and get on with our lives.

So here's my answer:

-I hate that my face turns BRIGHT RED whenever I exercise.

-I hate that when I exercise I get so sweaty that it makes my eyes water.

-I hate that (since I get all sweaty and gross) I have to spend time then taking a shower after I exercise.

-I hate that exercising takes time away from more fun things.

-I have scar tissue on my knees and sometimes it hurts to exercise in certain ways.

-I don't always enjoy exercising because I'm not very good at it.

-We live in a small apartment and sometimes it's hard even to follow an exercise video in our tiny living room.

-I really like sweets and I don't like to give them up.

-It's more fun to drink chocolate milk than carrot juice.

-I like baking sweets.

-I don't like that drinking a lot of water means I have to use the bathroom all the time.

-I don't like that drinking a lot of water means I wake up in the middle of the night more to use the bathroom.

-Preparing meals at home every day takes a lot more time than just eating a bowl of cereal.

-I feel like a total idiot working out with a work out video.

Okay.  Deep breath.  Got that all out of your system?  Now, here's my advice:  Get over it.  Be sweaty.  Take a shower.  Go pee all the time.  Stop eating junk.  These are not life-or-death things here.  You can do these things with no real problems.  We want sweets and convenience.  We don't need them.  And I say that as a lover of all things chocolate.  But I gave away my chocolate-covered strawberry yesterday.  And the world has not yet exploded.  It really is okay.

So, now I would like you to list for yourself all the things you like about being healthy.  I hope the things on this list will outweigh the things on your previous list (either in quantity or quality).

Here's mine:

-I have better self esteem when I work out.

-I have better self esteem when I take a shower and feel all clean and fresh.

-I feel like I can do anything after I work out.

-I feel more motivated to eat healthy and drink lots of water after I exercise.

-I am a happier person when I eat healthy and exercise.

-I experience exponentially less guilt when I exercise and eat healthy.

-I feel closer to my Heavenly Father when I exercise and eat healthy.

-I am proud of myself when I exercise and eat healthy.

-I like myself more when I exercise and eat healthy.

Again, I hope you'll leave your answers to both questions in the comments, on a piece of paper, or at least recite your answers in your mind.  I think it's an important part of knowing where you stand with yourself.  And I think that's important.

Have a great week everybody!