Thursday, April 17, 2008

Dieting is Not The Answer

I have been trying to eat a balanced, portion controlled, nutrient rich diet this week. This has been going OK, I was really struggling on Monday, but each day I have been less hungry(read: miserable). I have been spending most of the week thinking about when I can eat next, I have been bored at work since several people are out of the office for some big meeting in Atlanta and therefore they aren't needing me, so when to eat has been my whole focus.

I have been thinking a lot about the best way to both reach my health and weight loss goals and still maintain some quality of life. I love to cook and eat and try new things - this strict thing is just pissing me off. On the other hand, I know that if I don't have a structured plan of what to eat, I will eat whatever is available when I get hungry. This means grabbing Taco Bell on the way to school or giving in when my husband wants to grab Thai food.

I know that I need to come up with a balance. I need to be able to eat the foods that I love and still get healthy. I was complaining about this and a girl here at work mentioned that she is doing Weight Watchers and loves it. She explained that it works on a points system, you get a certain number of points allotted to you each day and then you spend those points on food throughout that day. You also get a certain number of bonus points each week for a splurge or whatever. She told me that you can earn more points by the amount of exercising that you do too.

I think that I am going to go with her to a meeting next week and see about the details. I would think that it would be really easy to fall into an unhealthy pattern of eating junk with low point values or whatever - so I need to see if this will fit into helping me with both goals.

If so, I will be able to be more flexible about food when I have people over for dinner, or go out with a friend, or meet with my study group. I want to lose weight, but not at the expense of my taste buds!

I just think that dieting does not really work, diets are all about what you can't eat for a certain amount of time, you reach your goal, you go back to eating the old way, you gain it all back. We all need to stop the short term thinking and find a way to lose weight, get healthy and eat the foods we love, for the rest of our lives! I believe that means making good choices 98% of the time and 2% of the time eating something decadent.

I know that I need to start adding exercising back into my life, but I am giving myself a pass for the 3 weeks it will take to finish this run of taking 2 classes at a time. Once I am back to one night a week for school, that will leave me time to check out the new gym that my husband I just joined (it was just built too, so that should be exciting).

I also think that the new eating plan I have been doing this week is helping my stress level. All the food for the whole week is prepped and ready to go, packing it up is easy and I don't have to stress over making a bad choice or how I am going to fit in eating. I have also stopped giving myself a hard time about not working out. I have just decided that I need to give myself a break while I finish up these two classes and then start fresh the first full week in May. New Month = New Habits!

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