New Year, New Plan

Happy New Year, everyone! Still hanging on to those New Years resolutions? It's been a day already, and I know how quickly they can sometimes fade away, ha ha! I, myself, didn't make a list of resolutions this year. Instead, I made just one simple philosophical pledge which I hope to follow over the next year: quality over quantity. It's something that can be applied to a lot of areas in life: time with friends and family, charitable donations, food, gift-giving...the list goes on. So that's my plan, and I'm hoping to stick with it. What's yours?

Now...onto weighty matters. As I mentioned in a previous post, January 1st was to be the re-birth of my healthy lifestyle, and so far it's going well. I also noted that I would be doing a few things differently this time, and I am. First of all, I am really (moreso than before) viewing this is a new LIFESTYLE. And no lifestyle plan can be exactly the same all of the time. So I will not panic when I am invited to eat at a restaurant, and I will not harp at myself when I eat too many cookies if it's just for one day. These things happen in life, and it's okay as long as long as they don't happen all the time. If I mentally beat myself up over perceived "slip ups", then isn't that a "diet" mentality? I don't want to live like that! In fact, I think it's been hurting my success.

I am also going to start off making weekly goals for myself. I used to make 4-6 weeks plans, but they were getting harder and harder to follow, which caused me to feel like a failure. By doing things a week at a time, I can look at my upcoming schedule and choose a plan that is reasonable for those seven days. And since I will be changing things up more often, I am hoping that will prevent boredom in my routine.

My plan for the first week (which will technically start on Friday, which is my official weigh-in day): exercise 5 times, eat 3 servings of vegetables a day, drink lots of water, do 200 push ups, and not eat ANY fast food. Fast food has been killing me lately!

Lastly, I am going to try to mix cardio and weight training a bit more consistently. I'm thinking, for now, 60-70% cardio and 30-40% strength. I'm curious to see how that works for me.

Now, without further adieu, I will admit my weight to you. Let's get this over with. It's NOT good:

Weight: 173.6lbs
BMI= 26 (overweight...only by about five pounds, but STILL!)

And here are some "before" photos:



As always, I know it could be worse. And I know it's not that bad, and if you look like I do, you should not be at all ashamed of yourself. It's just that I gained almost 20 pounds in less than two months. That is NOT good!

I am hoping that I can lose about 7 pounds this month. That would make me very happy!

That's enough rambling for me! One final photo: my New Year's Eve outfit:



Yup. PJ pants and a Guess shirt. Can you tell I stayed home with the kids? I'm such a party animal!