Pragmatic Laziness Week 3 – Goals and Steps

It’s time for the 2012 version of GetHawt! Join us, won’t you? For the first week, Sarah has asked us to “Tell us in your blog post what your goals are, and what steps you plan on taking to get there.” Okee dokee, Sarah!

Goals

What are my goals? Let’s start with some science.

I am overweight. It’s very nice that I don’t look it, it’s very nice for some of you to say “but you’re so much skinnier than I am!”  But I am medically, officially, unhealthily overweight.

So here’s my goal: I want to be smack-dab in the green “healthy weight” bar, around 130#.  More specifically, I want to start by losing 25 pounds in 3 months, putting me between 130-140 (depending on where you start counting).

Methods

Now, how’m I gonna do it? First, by tracking my weight daily (as described here), and posting my weight chart each week.  And by the way, here’s that…this time, with actual weight visible:

Update: I’ve made an easy-to-use version of the graph. Here it is in several formats: Microsoft Excel, Excel 97-2003, and OpenDocument Spreadsheet. Let me know if you want another format.

This has proved effective so far. I touched the top of the bar, and semi-panicked, and ate much better for two days. Thus that dropoff in weight over the weekend. I”m taking it day by day; I got complacent, I caught up a little. It’s kind of what I expected with this approach.  So if, by March 18th, I’m still within my limit lines on the graph, I’m calling it Mission Accomplished.

Second method: Eating well. I realize this isn’t a very concrete goal, but it’s what I got. I think I’ll refine this as I go along. For example, I’ve found:

• Diet soda makes me snacky, and sick. So I’m effectively quitting diet soda.
• Lots of carbs late in the day = bad bad bad. My favorite meal is popcorn or cereal before bed, and that’s gotta go.
• So far, I don’ t necessarily need a 100% pure lowfat, low carb, or low cal diet to lose weight. More like moderate fat, moderate carb, and overall low calorie (e.g., apparently 2 big pieces of pizza at lunch is okay, with a balanced day and week).
• I gotta start keeping more Better Bad Choices around the house – that is, frozen fruit bars instead of ice cream, no cal jello instead of popcorn, dark chocolate instead of milk*, that kinda thing – for when I do get late night snackies.
• I never, EVER get tired of eggs for breakfast, or tomato soup all the day long. These are good, healthy choices.

(*I won’t eat nearly as much dark chocolate as I will milk chocolate. I savor the dark more.)

Third method: Making exercise a habit.  Last week I walked 7.5 miles, and biked 3.6 miles. I’m getting my Mom into the habit of walking, too – we’re both signed up to walk our first 5k on Saturday – and Sean looks like he’s going to make me bike more, and train with me for a Rocky Mountain hiking trip. Roping others around me into the process really helps me keep it up, because if I suddenly quit, it gets kinda awkward around the dinner table.

NO CANDY FOR YOU

Fourth: Participating in GetHawt, and getting a partner there. I really need somebody who’s not going to tell me “it’s okay, we all make mistakes”. I need someone to tell me “Girl, you’re eating like a pig. Stop it. Go cook some tomato soup and chicken breasts for the week, dammit.”

Summup

• Goal: 130#. Other stuff will follow, I’m sure.
• Use the chart.
• Eat well, observe, change, repeat.
• Work out habitually.
• GetHawt.

Also

And by the way, I’m inducting Jeff Rush into GetHawt. He’s already doing it, he just didn’t have the name. Origin Story , First Weigh-in.

-Jen