Friday, September 30, 2011

Friday Quote Day

The bad news is, after my highly motivated post earlier this month, I've managed to gain seven pounds.

The good news is, I haven't stopped trying.


No matter how many mistakes you make
or how slow you progress,
you are still way ahead
of everyone who isn’t trying. 
~ Anonymous

I'm not sure you could call a seven-pound gain "progress," but I'll try to spin it that way anyway, just for your amusement.

I've often heard, and frequently said, that anyone or anything can be an example for your own life. I've met many people who have been very good examples of how not to live, how not to have a relationship, how not to behave.

I think I need to step back and look at my September self as some other person, someone I've observed, someone whose example I'd not care to emulate. That September person hasn't been on the beam, so to speak, in any way except taking an almost-daily walk and eating mostly healthful meals.

When I return from my walk today, I will have logged 51 miles since September 10. (I didn't walk at all the first several days of the month.) Fifty-one miles divided by 20 days averages out to 2.55 miles/day. Not bad, but obviously not enough.

My meals have been pretty good, but my snacks have not. And I simply can't resist one processed food that I'm sure will make all you good little healthy eaters barf: beef stick. Or summer sausage, whatever it's called in your neck of the woods. In Ohio there was a variety called trail bologna, which is the gold standard of processed meat as far as I'm concerned.

Definitely not primal. Heh. Not that I'm trying to be a primal eater or anything, but it's interesting to me that the food I love to abuse is protein mixed with fat. (Oh, and salt. Which is totally responsible for seven pounds, right?)

So here's what I think I should be doing, instead of what I've been doing.

  • Continue the almost-daily walk, but add a mile (from three to four) and once or twice a week add two miles.
  • Drink more water. I just signed up for the Brita Challenge (and have already downed 16 ounces this morning), following the excellent example of MizFit. I even have a Brita pitcher. That I don't use.
  • Stop snacking. Period. When did snacking become as important to me as mealtime? I grew up eating three meals a day and, while I didn't have the body I wanted then, I'd certainly like to have that 135-pound high-school body now. (Ain't. Gonna. Happen. But I'll let you know when I hit 150. Again.)
  • Lift weights. Just little ones, for now, to get back in the weight-training groove. And I could also throw some walking lunges into the daily walk mix.

Four things is enough for October, right? Let's see how it goes.

A tiny little knitting note: Jujuba is progressing and I love the very subtle neck shaping. There's something so clean and simple about the gentle slope of k2tog and ssk decreases.

Our company will be here tonight. We're so excited to see them, it's been far too long. I'm doing a whole lotta cooking today – mozzarella for tomorrow's dinner pizzas, chicken noodle soup, granola (not necessarily for guests, but because I'm almost out of it), something for dessert. Breakfast breads are already baked. No one is going to starve.

Especially me. Sigh. Have a great weekend, won't you?

6 comments:

Kitten With a Whiplash said...

Garlic Sausge is my downfall, well my sausage downfall. I can resist most others for months at time with no cravings. But I can hear the siren song of Garlic Sausage while I'm still two blocks from the market. Unfortunately, I only live a block and half from the market.

Anonymous said...

I'm a snacker, too, but my food of the primrose path is potato chips. I just cannot resist them. I almost never buy them, but if they are in my vicinity they are mine, all mine. Crud.

denise said...

Threw away two half-gallons (or 1.5 quarts or whatever they sell these days) of frozen yogurt this week because I couldn't keep my spoon out of it...no matter how many lectures I give myself about being a grown up and trying to eat like one, it never seems to take.

Hope you have a great weekend with your company.

D said...

We all have our snack downfalls. Little Debbie snack cakes would be mine. They're not even real food, but something about them just makes me happy. Scratch a healthy eater and you'll find a processed snack obsession lingering just below the surface :)

Anonymous said...

Loved summer sausage which usually only came to the house in gift baskets. And was immediately snarfed down by everyone. So I totally relate.

You've identified four specific, measurable, and doable changes. We'll do the water challenge together. Sometimes I get waylaid by my once-a-day Plum-a-granate Snapple, which I sip instead of gulping, and it messes me up. We can do it together.

Enjoy your visitors and the weekend. ((( Hugs )))

Ruta M. said...

As someone who is usually on a diet, with varying results, can I suggest that instead of cutting out snacks (which I would find torture) that you find yourself a range of 'safe' foods that you can have for snacks. (I'm one of those people who can't eat just a little of something and save the rest for another day, it has to be the whole bar of chocolate.) Anything that does not contain sugar or fat. The best would be raw vegetables such as carrots, celery, caulifower, sugar snap peas or fruit though bananas are a bit heavy on natural sugar. For a snack I often eat a slice or 2 of Ryvita (crispbread) which comes in a fruit variety as well as seeded ones. All these tastes are a bit plain to start with but I find that after a week I'm really enjoying them. Even rice cakes but though they are satisying to eat they don't fill me up. Cups of tea, coffee, diet hot chocolate,slim-a-soup and low-cal drinks also help to fill me up.
I'm back on a diet at the moment as my husband thought I got too thin last time and kept buying me chocolates. I find that I need to wiegh myself daily, keep a little smiley chart for each day's eating and treat each day as a new day. I'm only losing a lb a week but by Christmas that would be enough. Good luck with your diet, I know from many past diets just how hard it is.

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