Post: #1

Hello all! I'm joining the challenge/journey to make my self more accountable and actually develop some healthy lifestyle habits that I can stick with.

Other than my own motivation to lose weight, be happier, etc. (I'll list later), I was prompted to make some major diet and lifestyle changes after a good friend of ours recently had quadruple by-pass surgery at age 49. My husband is 47 and has a family history of heart disease and high cholestrol. My father in law had a heart attack several years ago (and survived, thank God), but I don't want to continue to worry about my husband and when he might have some serious health problems.

As for me, I have been a major yo-yo dieter for years. Although I have never been obese, I have gradually gained weight back several times until I no longer fit into my pants and don't like the way I look or feel about myself anymore. I'm also a small business owner and the stress of worrying about the business, employees, etc has let me to some pretty awful diet decsions in the past. Excercise is something I enjoy and can do fairly easily. My lack of results has always been diet related in the past.

I also allowed several people in my life to cause me to have some pretty ugly behaviors this year. Fortunately they were all employees who I either fired or who quit. But I still need to purge some negativity about them and the situations dealing with them.

I'm inspired by my older brother, who shed 60 pounds about three years ago after having made a conscious decision to start eating better and start running. I have committed to and entered a half-marathon that I will be running with him in June.

So I'm very excited about this journey. My biggest challenge will be taking time to journal and do my exercises (mental, not physical). This means I need to stay away from the television (I watch way too much TV) and take some time for myself everyday. So watch out tomorrow...here I come!

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Here's my list and I completed my calendar. Going to paste them to my bulletin board on the desk at my Healthy Living Center.....which is a small desk in the kitchen that I recently "reclaimed" from clutter. This is where all my healthy cookbooks are and a small netbook computer that I can acces the forums on.

Ideal vision of a healthy lifestyle
1. Attain body weight of 160
2. Exercise 5 days a week
3. Size 8 pants
4. Eating primarily lean protein, some dairy, lots of fruits and veggies, try to limit carbs but not to an excessive amount that makes me crave them
5. Limit wine to one glass once a week
6. Limit/eliminate night-time snacking unless healthy protein shake or other approved foods
What to accomplish at end of 21 day challenge
1. Lose 5 pounds
2. Have started running; working towards 5K in Las Vegas
3. Have weekly menu planning, shopping and pre-cooking/prep work so that evening meals are easier and lunch options are readily available

Post: #2

Drinking water today...although drinking adequate water has never really been a problem for me.

Today I nursed my hung-over husband and had a far less productive day than I had hoped. I did write down some goals for just ME time this year. Seems like I spend Sundays trying to play catch up for all things I didn't get done during the week, but this year Sundays are going to be MY free time! Well, after today, that is....

I guess I need to look at the next challenge for tomorrow.

Post: #3

Calculated my calorie deficit required to lose 22 pounds in 90 days. Seems I need to only eat about 1300 calories to attain that goal.....might be a stretch. I also expect to be running soon, so my caloric expenditure will be much greater.

Definitely need to start writing food down and tracking calories better....