My outline

What's your plan?


I am a planner-through and through. So, making a plan is easy. It's sticking with the plan that I find difficult. I was talking with a co-worker yesterday about maintaining. Now, I know I'm not at a point where I have to worry about maintaining; there is still a lot of losing to be done. But I do worry about it. I think that's where my problem came in last time. I'm either on it or I'm not. I can log everything and watch every calorie in and out, or I don't. I have a hard time balancing the two.

Now, my plan is this:

Work out at the gym 6 of the 7 days in a week; however, I still plan to take a nice walk or something on the 7th day. I use a fitbit. In case you don't know what that is, check it out. Fitbit.com. It's an amazingly fun gadget! So, it logs my steps, active minutes, water, etc. I don't particularly like their food logging and/or calorie budget/estimates, so for that I use loseit, which is an app that you can log all your food in. LoseIt seems to be more conservative with the estimates of what you should eat, and they let you scan barcodes on your food and pulls up the actual nutrition information for the food. It also lets you create food and recipes. So, I can go in, enter all the ingredients to make a pot of whatever, and then divide it by servings, so I know the calories per serving of my favorite recipes!

This week, I am doing 4 miles on the elliptical at the gym in the morning. I have to get up at 4:30, and I get to the gym by 5. This lets me be home by about 6, which gives me time to relax for a bit with my cup of coffee and then get in the shower. I then still have time to get ready for work, maybe throw in a load of laundry, and make my husband breakfast. I love the morning.

I make sure to eat a piece of toast with peanut butter before the gym. I read you should eat something with protein within 30 minutes of waking up. Since a big breakfast is the last thing on my mind at 4:30 am, the toast is the best I can do.

LoseIt updates how many calories I can eat based on how much I weigh that day, so I don't worry to figure it out myself. I do, however, try to stay around 1200, even when it says I can have more. And if I burn a ton of calories with activity, I try my best not to eat those. I'd rather a boost in the progress than a steady run.

This week, I have added in a mile at night. I have this tiny elliptical that I can do that on, if I don't want to go outside. I don't really like walking in the cold and/or dark....I can't wait for summer!

I am also trying to drink half my body weight in water ounces every day! It can be tough, and I spend a lot of time peeing!

So, that's the plan. And I'm great at sticking too it. Like I said, last time I did this, it was down to a science. Dinner every day was a chicken breast, a cup of brown rice and a cup of broccoli and/or cauliflower.

But what sucks is when other people don't understand or care about your plan. I have to be in bed by about 9 in order to be able to get up at 4:30 and actually function the next day. So, no, I don't want to start a show at 8:30. I have to get ready for bed. And no, I don't want to grab pizza. I don't have the calories left to eat it. It sucks to get that look, like, oh, shut up about your calories, you are obsessed and crazy. I may be, but if I want results, I have to watch what I'm doing. Grabbing the fast food is what got me to where I am. I need to do this for me! Please don't make me feel bad for it.

Some things give me such anxiety when I'm trying to watch everything....like being asked to go out for a drink. In my head, I think, okay, I can allot 200 calories for this trip, so I can only get one drink, basically, and then I'm no fun. Or restaurants. Sure, I can order the chicken breast and fresh veggies, but who wants to pay for that at a restaurant? Not me, bring on the bacon cheeseburger. Buffets suck. There is no way to eat well there. And snacks at work...I appreciate them, but I really didn't have it in my plan. Same with office lunches where I don't pick what I get. Now, I'm not complaining; It really is sweet of them to do that for me. I just didn't have it in my plan.

How do you deal with these surprises? Are you as type A as I am? It's very difficult. And as much as I hate the looks when I turn someone down for something, or the attitude about having to keep my schedule, but I hate even more when there isn't a choice.

Hopefully I will lean to deal with these as they come. I'm trying, this time around, to be more flexible. To plan ahead for the disruptions of my plan, to make up for extra calories with extra activity instead of giving up on the day, to understand that not everyone is on my plan and it can't always go my way, and to find ways to make the plan work when life is still happening around me. Last time I did this, I lived alone, there was no other schedules to follow, no time lines in place, no distractions, so a set meal plan worked....but now, I'm married, I have my husband, step-daughter, and 3 dogs to work into my schedule, I'm working on furthering my career, and I'm trying to show everyone, including myself, that it is possible to do this and still have a life. I've always thought that if I could be locked in a boot camp like on the biggest loser where people make my food and my only job was to work out, sure, I'd kill it too, but what one of these shows needs to show is that it can be done by anyone, in any situation. This is my attempt to show it to the world!