Post: #1

Working on my Pre-work and adding to my home journal. Now just need to plan meals and excercise plan for the next few days to get started. We will have company with us tonight and tomorrow so the first day may be a bit of a challenge for my husband and me.

12-31-10
In my ideal world, I will weigh 150 lbs, and have long lean limbs that are limber. I will walk tall and lightly from a regular yoga routine, and glow from the regular water, exercise, and fresh air from a daily walk. My mental health will also be lighter and freer from daily meditation. I will be eating fresher foods and less prepared/packaged goods and will be planning meals as well as exercise plans weekly with my husband. I will carry around my green bottle of water to ensure that I drink when thirsty and stay hydrated which will help my stay alert. I will also take my multi vitamin daily along with my flax seed to ensure I get other nutrients I may miss from diet alone.

I want to reach 150 lbs and I am currently at 169 lbs. I am 5'11" tall so I think this is a healthy weight for me. I believe that by drinking water and eating healthy planned meals along with regular exercise I can lose 6 lbs, 2 lbs per week, during the 21DHL. I will also keep a daily log of everything I consume and the exercises I do so I am more aware of the choices I make.

Post: #2

Stephanie --- hi! Thanks so much for sharing your meal plan, it is awesome. You and I have the same weight goal: 150 lbs but I'm sad to say I have about 10 more lbs to go than you. If you want a free/easy calorie counter food tracker thingy you could use as your daily log try: http://www.myfitnesspal.com. I was using it until about 6 months ago and I plan to use it for the DHL. I'm also a believer in flax seed --- I discovered it while looking for foods to help lower my husband's cholesterol.

I love your "ideal"-- it also resonates with mine. One of my tasks this week will be to sign back up for a yoga class --- I don't think there is anything to compare to yoga for combining exercise with mental clarity.

My challenge will be to combine all of this with going back to work next week after a 2 week break. Oh well, one thing at a time.

I may very well try planning my menu on excel and sharing it. All for now, Happy New year!!! Cdee.

Post: #3

I also would like to say thanks for sharing. It helps with ideas.
Your plan sounds great.
Happy New Year & Good Luck!
GmaSoup

Post: #4

lots of water and no to packaged food. good way to start indeed
Happy New Year

Post: #5

(01-01-2011 07:21 AM)clarkindee Wrote:  Stephanie --- hi! Thanks so much for sharing your meal plan, it is awesome. You and I have the same weight goal: 150 lbs but I'm sad to say I have about 10 more lbs to go than you. If you want a free/easy calorie counter food tracker thingy you could use as your daily log try: http://www.myfitnesspal.com. I was using it until about 6 months ago and I plan to use it for the DHL. I'm also a believer in flax seed --- I discovered it while looking for foods to help lower my husband's cholesterol.

I love your "ideal"-- it also resonates with mine. One of my tasks this week will be to sign back up for a yoga class --- I don't think there is anything to compare to yoga for combining exercise with mental clarity.

My challenge will be to combine all of this with going back to work next week after a 2 week break. Oh well, one thing at a time.

I may very well try planning my menu on excel and sharing it. All for now, Happy New year!!! Cdee.

Hi Thanks for the website address, have gone and checked it out - great!

Post: #6

Yesterday got off to a bit of a rough start but overall I did ok. Another thing I am working on is not having an all or nothing attitude so just because I did not do as well as I intended yesterday does not mean that I have to throw in the towel. That being said, I also started counting calories yesterday too and just need to look up some of the calorie counters for the fresh foods that were prepared so I can log those. We had company until 5 yesterday evening so I did not meditate or excercise as planned. On that note I did find a quote yesterday that I thought I would share as we all work on our Goals:

Andy Warhol wrote, “Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.”

Wishing everyone a lovely day!

Post: #7

Thanks Stephanie for the sharing!

No worries about not keeping up to it yesterday, i am sure you will do better for the following days.

Have a lovely day too!

Post: #8

Stephanie -- I just had to sneak back over here to the S group to see how you are doing -- even though we've been split up into groups, I'm sure that's okay.

I'm totally with you about the fixation on the "all or nothing." My perfectionism has really led me astray so many times --- in things like diet and exercise. At work, too. If we focus on being perfect all the time we won't actually accomplish much -- many times "good enough" will be actually quite all right and hey, there's always next time. But if you give up and stop trying.....where does that lead? I like the Andy Warhol quote.

I also think we should just focus on making the best choice, here and now. What happened before is a done deal and you shouldn't worry about the next time -- it's not here yet. I hope that makes sense.

Keep on posting!!!! CDee

Post: #9

Thanks for checking back in! Yeah!! Thank you for reminding me about the here and now too. I am cleaning out and sorting through storage items and it is clouding my world right now with melancholy thoughts. I needed to be reminded of the beautiful here and now.

Cannot wait to pop over to your section soon too.

Stephanie

Post: #10

Hi Stephanie,
How are you doing with your tasks? I hope you are enjoying this exercise as much as we all are. Looking forward to your updates

Rohit

Post: #11

I Sephanie, I just love quotes and here is another one for you that is great and from an wise person - Dr Seuss... just love him

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own.
And you know what you know. You are the girl who'll decide where to go."

Will check in on you again...

Post: #12

:DHi Rohit,

I am loving the 21dhl as it totally keeps me accountable. My husband is participating too and created an application for us to keep up with all of our calories and excercise so he is also a huge motivation for me. Today I walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes and meditated along with light yoga for another 20 minutes. I have been doing a meal plan for the past 3 weeks already so just need to make some modifications and then will head to the grocery store.

How are you doing on the plan? Cannot wait to hear your updates and any advise you have to share as well.
Stephanie

---

Sonia~Thank you for the quote! I love all of the encouragement that is being shared. There is this energy being shared of committment to ourselves and to one another`beautiful!

Wishing you much brightness in your day today. Here is my quote to share with you and here is to creating a wonderful healthy and strong YOU!

Cheers,

Stephanie

“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.”
Thomas S. Szasz quotes

Post: #13

“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.”
Thomas S. Szasz quotes

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Great one love it- will give you a nice one again tomorrow with your update...sweet!

Post: #14

Hi, Stephanie -- just checking back with you over from the "C" group! Wow, you got your husband to participate -- fantastic. I would love to know more about the application for tracking calories. My husband is thin, but being all that healthy with exercise and medical appointments, etc. He's aware of a big change in me over the past 3-4 days and is getting interested! Maybe I can get him involved in some other way.

Take care and keep updating!

CDee

Post: #15

CDee,

My husband created the program in Microsoft Sharepoint and created one list for Daily Calorie Consumption and one for Daily Excercise. You can easily sort by date, food type, colries consumed, fat consumed, etc. For instance I can tell the most fat I have consumed this week is coming from dairy. I put 1 to 2 tablespoons of cream in my coffee and that is 3.5 to 7 grams of fat in a cup of coffee! You could also create something in excel as well and sort or use filters to get a similiar result.

Getting ready to do my post as I have nto posted much this week. Have a great weekend!

Stephanie

---

Day 8 Update:

While I have not been diligent about posting this week, I have stayed on track.

-I have a water bottle that holds 20 ounces of water and I found that as long as I keep it with me at all times I easily drink my 67 ounces and then some! Staying hydrated alone makes me feel better.

-I set my goal to excercise everyday with the belief that I should have a daily habit. I walked outside or on the treadmill 20 minutes everyday with the exception of Thursday when I put off excercise for the end of the day to do with my husband. It did not work out as planned and I did about 10 minutes of Zumba instead. Lesson here-just do it first thing in the day.

-Meal planning: I started meal planning about 3 weeks ago and have enjoyed planning and cooking meals. This week for dinner we had:

Monday: Husband Rotisserie Chicken, Me Dinner out-Scallops and Sashimi with Edamame-Split w/ a friend.
Tuesday: Fish Tacos with Beans and rice
Wednesday: Boca Burgers with roasted rosemary potatoes
Thursday: Chicken Breast, Salad
Friday: Boca Tacos, Rice and beans (the Boca meat substitute crumbles were really good-my husband even said tehy were good which was a plus)

For breakfast we had cereal or yogurt and granola bars. For lunch we had leftovers.

We really need more vegatables and fruits in our diet. We have been eating pears and cantelope that I cut up as well as salad's for lunch with left over chicken but this is an area that we need to step it up.

Tip: I used a lot of Plain Yogurt this week in place of mayonaise, tarter sauce, sourcream, and dressing. It is easy to flavor and substitute for so many things. Here is a recipe that I made-up for serving with chicken and fish dishes but is also great on sandwhiches as a mao substitute:

Yogurt Cilantro Sauce
1 qty 8oz Plain Yogurt 100 Calories (8 Tablespoons)
1 Tablespoon of honey (60 Calories)
Half of a large cucumber chopped fine (12 Calories)
Cilantro chopped or cut fine with scissors (as much as you want)
3 dashes of dill
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon of Lime Juice
About 10 Calories per tablespoon and no fat

-My husband and I have kept eachother on track and he has defiantely been a huge help to me whenever I felt weak. I have seriously been craving cheese pizza this week. We ahve a New Years/Birthday family get together on Sunday that will have tons of food (everyone brings a dish) so that will be a good test for us.

-Finally, I weighed today and have lost 6 lbs!! That was my total goal for the 21 days, but I really think that most of it was water. The week of Christmas I ate so many salty foods and drank a lot of wine and did not drink a lot of water. Based on that I think I am on track with my 2 lbs of weight loss and probably 4 lbs of water weight! Feeling pumped!

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!!

Post: #16

Hi Stephanie,

Congratulation to have lost 6 lbs weight, Well done!
I am impressed on your meal planning. I do not have the patience to plan for the whole week meal. Meal planning was good idea and it save a lot of time. Thanks for the useful tip.

Sue

Post: #17

Thanks Sue! I think once you cook some of the meals for a while it all kind of falls in place on auto pilot. The only draw back is you can get bored with the same thing every week only varrying slightly. I found that when we ate out all the time we ate the same thing then though too. I really want to try to make home made pizza this week and have found a couple of dough recipes on line that I may try. Figured this way we would really know the fat and calories in it.

How did you do your meal plan for the week? Did you just wing it and make what you wanted everyday?

Post: #18

Hi Stephanie,

I like your patience to try new recipes. I agreed that outside food will be bored and not healthy.

For me, i only cook once a week. Normally i will go my parent house or my in law house to had dinner. So i did not have the proper meal plan. Sometime i felt that cook for 3 person food is time consuming and costly, because i am not very good in cooking.

Hope one day i could be like you to try the new recipes.

Sue

Post: #19

I would like to say so much but it all boils down to that i would love to have your discipline

Thanks for inspiring.

Love S