Goodbye to fads - Hello health!…Day 8

Wow, I feel great today! Woo, one headache gone and a good night’s sleep, and I’m good to go today. It is 11:22 am and I have already done all of my errands for today and am ready to get busy at home. I feel like I have gotten a really good workout in because of all the walking I have done and hauling groceries, etc. I made sure I didn’t park too close to the stores I had to go to, so I would have to get some walking in that way, and I MOVED - I tried to really pick up the pace and walk quickly when I could. Sometimes the aisles are not exactly made for that sort of thing, so I just did the best I could. But I feel really fantastic right now. Yesterday I only actually ate one meal - lunch - a club sandwich and french fries, followed by a dessert of two Reese’s Hearts. I know that is not exactly health food, but I don’t feel too bad about it since that was the only meal I ate! However, I did close out the day with a soda, and when I weighed this morning I was not down any, even after eating so little yesterday.

So, I have gotten quite a lot of exercise today, and will probably still do the walking video this afternoon at some point, if nothing else just to give my arms a good workout!

My husband had requested chicken and dumplings tonight for supper, and for anybody who knows me - that is my weakness!! I cannot eat them without binging! I have really been working on exercising some self-control, but I don’t feel a need to overtempt myself. I called a friend this morning and told her about the upcoming meal, and she was very encouraging. She said she had stepped on the scale this morning and had not lost any more weight, and that did not feel good. She reminded me that if I ate the C&Ds I would feel yucky, that’s besides the fact that they are probaly one of the worst things that I could eat while trying to lose weight! She said that there was no food that she could eat that would make her feel as good as seeing her weight come steadily down. And she is so right. So, tonight while my family eat chicken and dumplings and cornbread (starch, anyone?), I will be eating chicken and broccoli stir fry - fried in olive oil cooking spray so as not to add any more fat! I love that, and it will make me feel better, and keep me from even giving those dumplings a second glance. So just remember that those Reese’s hearts may taste really good, that Dr. Pepper might seem really refreshing, the brownie might really be gooey, and that cake is probably really, really moist and chocolatey, but none of it will make us feel as good as stepping on the scale tomorrow morning and seeing progress, another pound down, maybe more.

I guess with me, I just got fed up with fad diets and worrying about dropping 40 lb in a month, etc., and now am only interested in living a healthy lifestyle, not a quick fix. That one pound down, is in fact a pound down. And just think, if you only lost one pound a week for an entire year, that’s 52 pounds lost by the end of the year. When you think about it that way, it seems almost easy to live a healthy lifestyle! So here’s to making good decisions every day, and if you mess up one meal - don’t go and eat a dozen donuts out of guilt, just make the decision that your next meal is going to be healthy. There is no reason that healthy can’t mean delicious either, because it can be really, really delicious! And if you do mess up that one meal, maybe walk an extra time or two around the block or vacuum the house to burn some calories. One mess-up is no reason to go back to being unhealthy. This is a way of life, not a fad! Hang in there!