Small Goals

The route I’ve taken to up my health is sparkpeople.com. Why them? Why not… Weight Watchers? Or Jenny Craig? Or Nutrisystem? Or South Beach?

Because, my friends, it is FREE! I can eat whatever I want. I feel no pressure to eat nothing but bacon. They actually encourage me to eat carbs. I was tempted to do South Beach, but two weeks without fruit would possibly kill me. Additionally, I don't like Splenda. The Sparkpeople website’s founder, Chris Downey, recently authored a book called “The Spark.” Aside from being annoyed that they’ve gone from being 100% free to almost commercializing themselves, I’m actually pretty impressed. The book takes the program they have on the website and condense it into four weeks. And I’ve been loosely following the book program while sticking to the internet one, and I’ve discovered a couple of things.

I can’t eat for weight loss. I can’t, can’t, can’t do it. Because what happens then is that I don’t lose weight. When I eat healthy meals, I feel better about myself and I feel more energized throughout the day… and it’s nice to know that I’m eating well. It just FEELS good.

And it turns out when I eat for weight loss, I don’t actually lose weight. Goes back to the credit limit thing? I tell myself that what is important is the week over all, and that I’ll be good the next day but tonight, I REALLY WANT THAT FRUIT ROLL UP!

When I make meeting my calorie and fat and carbohydrate ranges my goal, instead of weight loss, I do a much better job. I’m boycotting the scale for two weeks after Monday. Because the first few weeks, weight loss was the goal, and I would get down to 315 and back up to 320 and then back to 315. And why Monday? Well, folks, the On Campus Apartments is having a “The Biggest Loser” competition! Heck yeah. I’m excited for it. Cheer me on, right? Right.

The same thing goes for exercise, by the way. Some weird thing, boundary, something has passed. The first couple of weeks, the idea of exercise made me feel dread and shame and tired. And that was before I even DID anything active. Now physical activity has a hint of appeal to it—not a lot yet, but a sort of “Hmmm… working out could be fun right now.” I even found myself popping in an exercise DVD because I was exhausted when I got home from work. I had so much more energy after! It’s interesting the different tricks and tips I’m learning about my body.

So every day, I decide whether or not I’m going to be within my calorie range. And I decide whether I’m going to work out. If I do both, it’s been a pretty successful day. Monica was right—baby steps are totally the way to go. I don’t even get upset at myself any more when I don’t work out or go over. And the most interesting part of that is I’m on day five of being within my calorie range—which is probably the longest streak I’ve ever had. It will possibly be broken tomorrow, when a certain classmate and I go out drinking, but Sunday will start a new week.

I’m feelin’ pretty good about all this today. I think I'll go work out now.