Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Big Girls Don't Cry

A few years ago, I bought an elliptical from my friend Janelle, cut back to 1500 calories a day, and lost 45 pounds.

Then it plateaued, I moved to Denver, and I started slowly gaining weight back (there may have been a little work stress involved ...coughSTMS!cough).

I certainly haven't gained it all back, but I don't like the path I'm on. So! To help keep me motivated, since the musical season is almost upon us (Yay! for not having time to snack, Boo! for having to rely on take-out and being too exhausted to work out), I figured if I held myself publicly accountable, I might maintain better long-term habits.

I'm testing out a new (to me) app that lets me track food and exercise both on my phone and online. I'm in that opening phase where I enjoy detailing everything I eat. That will quickly become tedious, I'm sure. It does give me a handy sidebar badge, though. Big scary red number!

I don't trust my weight tracking, though. 9 pounds in two days? My weight can fluctuate that much from morning to night. Crazy female-ness. We'll see how I'm doing a week from now.

As for working out, I have my motivators - I like working out while watching "Chuck" or "Dr. Who" - they both have good moments of fast, energetic music. But that's for a 45-minute workout, which I usually don't have time to do during the week.

My new resolution was inspired by a Mamapop staffer. Instead of planning my workout by time and feeling daunted by the 45-minute goal, my new vow is to do at least a mile a day. If it's late and I'm exhausted, all I have to do is a mile. That's doable! And if I'm feeling up to it, I can add more. Yesterday I did 1.5 (in 15 minutes!), today I did 1.8. Short, daily workouts have got to be better than infrequent long ones, right?

We'll see what happens when I go out of town this weekend for another speech meet. My immediate goal is to drop 20 pounds by my trip to New York over spring break.

I'm going to hit "Publish Post" now. Which means I can't take this back - you all will know my plans. Dang my knowledge of how publishing goals makes you accountable for them!

Wish me luck!

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