Kenny and I have been talking about some big life changes lately- owning a home, and maybe even having kids. I want to be able to teach my kids about living a healthy life, and I want to be able to live it myself, not just talk about it. I want to teach them to have a good relationship with food, and a great relationship with their bodies. I don't want to accidentally pass on my negative self-talk and I don't want to be in a diet mindset for my entire life. So I need to do the work now, so that when they arrive, I am already living the life I would want for them. I don't care about being this skinny tiny woman, I think that an adult woman should show her age. I am not afraid to have curves and be a little soft, I have grown to really love those parts of me, most days. But I do want to be strong- I want to be able to get down on the floor and play effortlessly, I want to be able to help carry in the groceries, I want to be a reliable partner in any home renovation projects we do- not leaving Kenny stranded or having to wait for a friend to have time to come help because I cannot. I want to be strong for pregnancy- my back already hurts, my hips ache. I want to mitigate as many of those symptoms as I possibly can. I want to be able to relax and relish in my body growing a human, without worrying about how my inactivity is hurting me even further.
No more excuses, no more coping, no more whining. Just nose to the grindstone and doing the damn thing. That is the feeling I want to capture and bottle and hang on to. When we don't have food in the house that sounds good or appetizing, then I lean on snacks, and then I want to get off track. I need to stop overcomplicating the meal plan, and just make the things that I know I enjoy. I need to suck it up, and cook dinner. I can still live a life in the next couple of years that includes treats and days without tracking, but I know from experience, from three summers ago, that tracking works for me. I lost nearly 30 pounds just from tracking my meals and being good 90% of the time.
I always want to try doing way too many things right out of the gate, and I need to just take it one step at a time. So here are my thoughts on a gradual step-up program to get me doing everything I should be doing to create a healthy body and lifestyle, without doing it all starting tomorrow.
Today: I will meal plan for the next 3 months. This worked extremely well during my last serious attempt to lose weight. Having generic meals planned out on rotation meant that I didn't need to spend mental energy each week coming up with new meals and grocery lists. If I spend 2 hours today putting together a plan, then for the next 3 months I can just look at that calendar once and know what to buy for the coming week. I will also go to the store today and purchase this week's groceries. I am going to keep in mind simplicity, focusing on protein and fruit or veg with each meal. Low dairy, low sugar. I think that is when my body feels best.
Week 1 (April 12-18): I will meal prep on Sunday and eat my planned meals throughout the week. We have no reason to get takeout, especially when it costs $30-$50 each time. This is money that we need to be saving anyway. Simple meals, simple prep. This is the only thing I am going to hold myself accountable to this week- just eating and tracking everything I eat. I want to see the scale go down by next Sunday, even if it's just water weight.
Week 2 (April 19-25)-Week 6 (May 10-16): In addition to sticking to my meal plan, I will add in 3 walks. Each walk should be for a minimum of one mile. They can be on the walking pad, or outside, any day of the week. I think I should continue this minimum commitment- eating on plan, and walking 3x per week for a month or so. This is the minimum amount of care that I owe my body- moving semi-regularly and eating food that is nourishing 90% of the time. If I can get this rule-set to become more habitual, then I think I am ready to increase the intensity.
Week 7ish (Mid-May): By this point I will have been following my meal plan for over a month, and walking regularly for about the same amount of time. At this point, I either want to increase the number of walks per week to 5 or increase their length to 2 miles minimum, maybe even adding in a run (as much as I can) 1 time per week. I want to increase the amount of movement I am getting in overall, while still keeping it sustainable. Maybe a good split could be:
- MWF: walking 1 mile
- TR: walking 2 miles
- Sat/Sun: practice running, working on endurance and cardio
In this way, I am not fully committing to a total shift in intensity, but I am still making an effort to increase the amount of exercise I am getting. I would like to work on this routine until I am able to run for a mile straight on each attempt. I genuinely have no idea how long it will take me to reach that point, I know right now I could probably slog through a quarter of a mile before absolutely having to stop. I imagine it would take me a few months to train my heart and lungs well enough to be able to run for a full mile comfortably.
Month 4 or 5 (Around August or September): By this point, I hope that I am in a groove, in a flow. I hope that meal planning and eating within that plan is coming easily. By this point, if I haven't increased it already, I would like to be walking 2 miles per day, M-F. I think one mile per day is the absolute bare minimum to keep my joints happy, but I think 2 miles per day is the real minimum I want to live by on most days. It takes us 40 minutes right now to walk 2 miles, that's less than an hour each day to keep my body limber and to encourage better cardio health. Assuming that running for one mile is comfortable at this point, I would like to adjust my weekly split:
- MWF: walking 2 miles
- TR: running 1 mile, weight lifting (arms, legs)
- Sat: walking 2 miles, weight lifting (core/back)
- Sun: walk 1 mile, rest
I am getting to a point in the planning now, that this feels out of my grasp and I think that means it is a good place to stop. I can make a plan today and I can grocery shop, and I can follow a meal plan this week. I can do those things for several weeks in a row and make incremental progress. The rest can be adjusted on the fly. But I have to stop changing every single thing I do at the exact same time and expecting to be able to sustain that kind of change. Small steps lead to bigger success. I need to stop holding myself accountable for a million different things before I am even proven successful at being accountable for one or two things. I know I am capable of creating and following a meal plan and losing weight through CICO. I have done it once, I can do it again. I just need to keep holding on to those small moments of success that build and build until I have accomplished my greater goals.
My current long term goals are these:
- Lose roughly 80 pounds (215 - 135)
- Run a 5k comfortably without stopping (3.1 miles)
- Complete 10 proper push-ups and/or pull-ups unassisted (no modifications)
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