Happy birthday, Sheridan!

I thought I’d post a quick update regarding my new healthy lifestyle. After weighing myself a couple of hours ago, I’m happy to report that I lost another 1.6 lbs this week.  I’m quite excited! I can’t wait until I actually start seeing the difference.

About last Wednesday, I started to get a little discouraged with the exercising part of my regimen.  Usually the discouragement would come when I got home.  I realized there were a couple of reasons for this.  The first is that I felt like all I was doing after work was eating, cleaning up a little, exercising, and going to bed.  I didn’t really feel like I had any time to myself or to spend with Corey.  I know that I was over-exaggerating a little bit, but that’s how I felt, so the discouragement came.  The second is that I was hungry and tired when I’d get home.  Remember BLAHST?  Yeah, I could definitely see it working against me.  So, I’ve made a few changes to my plan.  Instead of exercising after work, as of last Friday, I now exercise in the mornings.  So, I get up at 6:00, rather than 6:40, and exercise.  I haven’t felt any discouragement regarding my exercise since!

Corey thought that my discouragement was coming also because all I had to work toward was the end of my major goal.  And, since the end won’t be insight for a while, if I want to lose weight the healthy way, I’d get discouraged.  So, he suggested that I have a benchmark or reward system set up.  I decided that each Tuesday (my weigh in day), if I have exercised every day like I’ve planned to and I’ve met my calorie intake goals, I can get a vanilla ice cream cone from McDonald’s.  The awesome thing is that it’s only 150 calories and low fat, so I can easily stay within my calorie intake for the day; it’s only $0.99, so I won’t go broke; and it’s something I love.

I’m also going to set up some benchmarks too.  I haven’t decided if that benchmark is every 25 pounds, so I’ll have four benchmarks, or what.  I also haven’t decided what I’d get as a reward once I hit that benchmark.  But, since my total weight loss is only 4.4 lbs so far, I figure I have a little time to make up my mind.

I’m really excited that I’m feeling better and keeping to my goals.  I feel good about myself because I’m not letting myself down and I know I’ll continue to get more energy as I do this!