The Rules:

1. I will not starve myself: I will eat three full meals per day and two scheduled snacks.
2. I will not eat after 8pm
3. I will drink a minimum of 4 glasses of water per day
4. I will walk to BART and use BART to get to work every day
5. I will take at least one long walk every weekend
6. I will "lift" weights with resistance bands every Saturday morning for 30 minutes to an hour.
7. I will weigh in and measure once a month to track my progress.

littleowl.com

Monday, September 18, 2000

I've been good today

I walked to the BART, even though it's 95 degrees out.

I had fruit salad and hot chocolate for breakfast.

I had a sirloin sandwich with salad and fruit for lunch and drank only water

I just now had ONE Dove Promise. Just one.

And I'm going to fill up my mug with water. It's a good day so far

posted by Beth Kelleher 9/18/2000 2:16:32 PM

Friday, September 8, 2000

Okay, getting back on track. We're short on cash this month, so I really have to keep an eye on the food.

Yesterday I had a can of lentil soup for lunch and nibbled on some RyKrisp crackers. I chewed on cheese for breakfast and helped sabs finish the chocolate chip cookies I made the other night for dinner, along with some crackers and a glass of milk.

Definitely not enough food.

Today I finally made myself be good after being bad in the morning.

I started out my day with a can of root beer. Once the grocery delivery arrived, I had apple juice and a bowl of rice krispies with low fat milk. I am now downing my first mug of water of the day. I also had a handful of M&Ms and two of the mini-sized Hershey chocolate bars.

Leaving the mug out as a reminder to refill it would work better I think, than having it up in the shelf above my desk, but the cleaning people go around picking up the stray mugs, so I can't leave it in plain sight.

We'll be eating a lot of bean soup over the next week. A lot.

Now the key is to start exercising. I don't know how much I weight, but I know I've gained weight since we moved, because I can't find my waist. This is the first time since I gained all this weight that I have lost my waist. I don't like it one little bit. So no more driving to work. This also means going to bed at a normal time, so I need to kick the nasty habit I have of coming home and getting right onto the computer.

Exercise is the key -- I just know it. I don't know why I know it, but that's what I feel in my heart of hearts, is going to make a difference for me. I think maybe I should try to find a gym I can go to.

posted by Beth Kelleher 9/8/2000 2:31:06 PM

Wednesday, August 23, 2000

So far so good today.

Still not up to the walking to work every day thing, but here's the food so far.

Breakfast: Glass of apple juice, bowl of Rice Krispies with 1% milk.

Lunch: Apple juice, 2 slices of wheat toast spread with regular cream cheese.

And I'm heading to the kitchen to full up my mug of water. I've already had a half mug today, but need more.

posted by Beth Kelleher 8/23/2000 2:13:17 PM

Sunday, August 20, 2000

Hrmm. So I thought that having this on blogger would make it easier to maintain, but I've been as lax as if I had to format pages to do this.

Today was a bad food day, though a decent exercise and water day.

I had breakfast, a glass of milk and two slices of bread with some butter and jam. Lunch didn't happen though -- I grazed on chips and salsa and then had more bread and jam for dinner. A very bad food day. I had salad in the fridge too, that I could have eaten, but I didn't

Water intake good -- about four glasses worth judging by how much I depleted the gallon.

Exercise: I picked up all the trash that some idiot dumped all over our lawn, pulled boxes out of the closet and hauled boxes up the stairs, and started unpacking things into the closet.

posted by Beth Kelleher 8/20/2000 12:03:50 AM

Friday, August 4, 2000

Alrighty then -- off to a bad start today. Overslept majorly, so it's after noon and I haven't had breakfast yet.

Haven't even had a drink yet for that matter. That said, I'm going to get a mug of water.

posted by Beth Kelleher 8/4/2000 12:33:06 PM

Thursday, August 3, 2000

Today was not a good day, therefore the meeting of goals did not go well either.

I'm on my second mug of water and it's already three o'clock in the afternoon. We drove into work because we overslept and I wasn't very careful at lunch either. I did however take a walk around the block earlier -- I got really really angry about stuff at work and just had to go get rid of all that pent up anger.

Food today:

Breakfast: 1 Banana and a glass of milk

Lunch: Grilled cheese with tomato, side of fries and a small root beer.

Snacks: Munched on M&M's throughout the day. Three mugs of water.

Dinner: Roast beef and cheddar cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomato. Half of a fresh mozzarella and cherry tomato salad. Glass of milk. One Nantucket Nectars Half and Half Iced Tea/Lemonade

Analysis: Look in the fridge at work for fruit to munch on at 11:30 and at 16:30. Get water instead of soda to drink at lunch. Take thyroid medication earlier so I can eat a bigger breakfast. Eat lunch earlier so hungrier before 8pm.

posted by Beth Kelleher 8/3/2000 3:13:52 PM

Getting Started

First things first, this plan is something I've put together from things I've read and just plain common sense. I'll be relying heavily on Strong Women Stay Slim as a point of reference.

The Rules:

1. I will not starve myself: I will eat three full meals per day and two scheduled snacks.
2. I will not eat after 8pm
3. I will drink a minimum of 4 glasses of water per day
4. I will walk to BART and use BART to get to work every day
5. I will take at least one long walk every weekend
6. I will "lift" weights with resistance bands every Saturday morning for 30 minutes to an hour.
7. I will weigh in and measure once a month to track my progress.

These are seven simple rules I think I can follow and stick to. In all of the literature I've read about losing weight, the baseline is simply that you have to find changes you can make that will stick. Anything else just won't work because they're concessions you might not be able, or willing to make.

This plan concentrates on seven specific things for me to do. The first three target my bad eating habits, ie skipping meals which makes my body think it needs to conserve whatever it gets, eating dinner too late at night, and forgetting to drink enough water to flush out my system.

The second set of three items concentrates on working exercise back into my daily routine. When I lived in Europe as a student, I was walking everywhere, constantly. Now that I live and work in a pedestrian and bicycle friendly area again, it should be much easier for me to incorporate low-level physical activity back into my routine. I lost twenty to thirty pounds in a year, by simply walking a lot and eating regularly as a student. By paying a bit more attention my nutrition, I think I can achieve similar results again.

The last gives me a way to track progress so that I don't get discouraged and give up.

I am not putting in any particular food restrictions because food is something that I enjoy very much and is very hard for me to give up. This is the biggest stumbling block for me in the struggle to lose weight. I love good food and if I'm miserable I'm more likely to fall back into old habits, so I'm choosing not to introduce this element of potential unhappiness into my plan until I've been working at this for a while.

That said, I'm going to keep the general idea of avoiding fatty and sugary foods in mind when choosing what I eat, I'm not going to make it a rule, but a guideline. Something to keep in mind when I step up to the counter to order lunch at the deli.

And to close for today, here is where I am now:

Height 5'8":

Weight: 235lbs

Waist: 39 inches

Thigh: 30 inches

posted by Beth Kelleher 8/3/2000 12:16:35 AM