Five Minutes For Me

Our weekends have been crazy busy this summer. No matter how I plan, I haven’t manage to be home during lunch on a Saturday all summer. We are busy and all of a sudden someone in the group is hungry, so we stop at a favorite fast food joint for junk food to hold us over until we can manage time to sit down for a real meal.

Well, I think I’ve got this weekend all planned out. No more food emergencies for me! I purchased some of those Ziploc food containers and quart size food storage bags. I have one of those big thermal lunch boxes to pack our snacks in.  

Our snacks include cut up veggies, grapes, sliced cantaloupe, chunks of watermelon, low fat cheese sticks, pretzels, apples, and a lot of fresh cold water… fresh filtered from our tap. 

I even bought a box of high fiber fruit and grain bars. I know they aren’t sugar free, but they are high in fiber and only 140 calories.

I think we’ll make it through until we get to sit down to a healthy meal.

I started this blog back on August 9th, 2007. For me it was all about exercise… and lack of. I decided to get up and move during the commercial breaks of my favorite television programs. Well, I do that now. You’ll rarely see me sitting through the commercials now days… so I’ve accomplished that.   

What about the weight loss? I still have over a hundred pounds to lose. Oh goodness… I don’t like seeing that in writing. But what have I done to lose the weight? Not much.

If I’m perfectly honest, my diet hasn’t changed much. Okay, so I’ve lost fewer than 15 pounds since August. But let me tell ya, that’s 15 pounds I don’t carry around anymore.  For the most part, all I’ve done is get up and exercise during the commercial breaks. I haven’t made super big changes to my diet.

 I’ve cut out a lot of the junk foods in my diet. I generally drink more water than I use to. I try to not drink much soda or juice. I try to keep fresh fruits and vegies visible, so when I want a snack, I’ll grab an apple instead of a snickers bar.  I don’t always reach for the fruit… a snickers bar sounds too good at times. I don’t always skip the french fries and I don’t always pass up the desserts.

I know if I passed up the junk foods, and always prepared a healthy, low cal meal, I’d lose faster. But I haven’t done that.

So…. today I’m sitting here reading my old posts. Catching up on the reasons I want to lose the weight. Catching up on the things I’ve done, seeing if any of the changes I made during the past five months are still part of my life, or did I go back to the old way?

So now, I’m back to reading my motivation… and I’m going to write out a plan as I attempt to figure out what I can do to lose more than 15 pounds during the next 5 months. Working out a plan that will work for me…

I received an interesting question in my email this morning. I thought I’d share part of the email and my answer. If anyone else has advice we’d both appreciate it. Thanks!  

Question:

“I’m so off track on eating right now. My best friend is trying to get me off this. She’s heavy, and has no will power or desire to diet. She keeps tempting me with stuff. I don’t know how to handle it. I love her to death, and wouldn’t hurt her feelings for anything, but how do I say “no, I can’t go there to eat, or I can’t eat that”? We go to a restaurant and she puts the dessert menu in front of me pointing out what “we” should get. Any advise??”

My Answer

That’s so difficult to deal with. I’m so new to this diet and exercise thing, I really haven’t learned how to deal with that either.  I’ve been reading the books by Dr. Phil and he says we have to change our circle of friends if they aren’t going to be supportive of us.

Now I don’t know about you, but that would be too difficult to do. I have learned I can have some influence over my meal times spent with friends. For the most part I’ve managed to start doing other things with my friends… playing cards, I eat grapes if something must be munched on. Scrapbooking… no food issues there, because food, photos, and pretty papers just don’t mix. Going to a park with my camera to take photos of the scenery while we sit and talk or walk around.

 If a bunch of us are going out, I try to influence them to eat where I know there is something on the menu I can eat. As far as the dessert… I wouldn’t give it up completely… having one every couple weeks in a controlled environment, like in a restaurant,  is far better for me than making one at home and having the whole thing there to tempt me. However, I haven’t ordered one just for me. I share. LOL I talk a lot. So when the dessert comes, I carry on with my conversation… take a little bite and enjoy that… then talk some more, then another bite…. in the end I’ve only had about an eighth or a quarter of the dessert…

I would be honest with her. I’d tell her I’m doing this for my health, and even though you don’t want to join me on my diet, I need your support in my effort to lose weight… for my health. 

Well, it has been awhile since I really sat down here and blogged. My thoughts are all over the board here so my post may seem very random.

It seems like so much life has been happening, I don’t have time for me… not even five minutes for me. That’s how I got where I am in the first place. No time for me… well, now I’m doing something for me… five minutes at a time. Hmmm… okay, it’s not that I don’t have time really. I very simply haven’t felt like doing something for me.  I’ve done for others, and I’ve done housework… laundry, dishes, mopped floors, etc…

This next five minutes is going to be spent planning the next couple of days. I know, I said somethng about just getting up and exercising during the commercial breaks was enough of a plan for me, but obviously that plan isn’t working right now, because I haven’t had five minutes to really sit and watch tv. So here’s my plan for the next tow days. We’ll see if this works for me.

• Get up and around 30 minutes earlier so I can workout in the morning.
• Have a bowl of fruit washed and ready on the counter, so when I get the sweet munchies, I have something ready to eat.
• Keep a food journal with me… paper & pen, so I can write down details of the when, what, and whys of my eating.
• Make time for me… write in my blog.

This past week or two really has been tough emotionally. We’ve been going… going… and going some more. For the most part, I’ve been careful about what I’m eating. I know I’m an emotional eater, so I’ve been taking care to not eat just because I feel like food can comfort me. I think I may have taken it to the extreme though. I know, one day I only ate one meal… and at the end of the day, I didn’t feel very well. I wasn’t hungry. How strange.

Today I feel like I’m moving around like a slug. Ugh. It’s not nice feeling like a slug… I know not working in any exercise hasn’t helped the way I feel. I sit here right now, looking at my eliptical machine and I wonder why I don’t just get up and workout for five minutes. Why. *sigh*

Well, I’m going to shower… I know, late afternoon, and I am still in my pajamas. My youngest is home from school. How’d this happen? We are going to visit the young parents… the ones who lost the baby…  and my family tonight. My cousins fly home tomorrow.

It’s as if  life starts for us all once again on Tuesday.