Monday, August 1, 2011

A Lifetime Plan

I spent my whole life listening to my mom worry about her weight. I watched her diet hop; I heard about exercise programs and watched her start and stop every single plan.
I have been sooooo lucky. Up until a few years ago, I weighed around 100 pounds soaking wet. I never had to work at it; I ate whatever I wanted; I was hated by many -- understood by few. 20 years ago, I even threw away my scale and never missed it.
Well, all good things must come to an end, and as an old friend of mine used to say "the gravy train is over!"
I looked in the mirror the other day and faced my moment of truth. I am overweight.
A long time ago, I decided that when this moment came, I would NOT fad diet or exercise, instead I would approach it as a life choice time and figure out what I can live with.
So this week, I bought a new scale. Scales have come a long way in the past 20 years, and the one I got has numbers instead of a dial and it tells me in glaring red that I am 10 pounds over what I would like to weigh.
Next step was to set up an exercise program that I could live with, so my deal with me and only me is that I will work out 1 hour a day doing something active -- anything active -- until I have lost the 10 pounds. Then I would go down to either 1 hour 3 times a week or 1/2 hour 6 times a week to maintain.
After that, I began to look at my diet. For the most part, I eat very healthy foods and meals. So I had to look a bit closer and realized that I am drinking too much wine and using too much butter and always including desserts. So time to amp the food and drink down a notch and see how it goes.
If this system works, I believe I can make a life practice that will take me into old age.
I'll let you know!