Day 1

First, let me just say, I remember when I started and thought absolutely nobody read this blog. But now I've learned my readership is at least in the high single digits! Actually, it's great to hear from people who I never knew read my blog mention something I wrote. Kind of fun! So thanks to those of you who read my little blog.

And it's great to hear from some friends who have said they're in on the challenge. Teresa, were you serious? Let's do it!!!!

So while I say this is day one, I've been trying to lose weight since the beginning of the year. I started off by not drinking sodas. Actually, that's something I started last year, but when a friend brought over a nice Dr. Pepper for me while I was moving, it was all over. First it was, "I'll just drink until I'm done with the move thing" then "Ill start again in August" which all never happened. So I started again at the beginning of the year. And I have broken it twice - once when I had a Dr. Pepper for my birthday (because I was REALLY dragging and wanted to be a bit more awake for my birthday) and once on Sunday, when I went to a birthday party and they had real draft A&W root beer. Now the excuse for the root beer is that, well, I'm a sucker for draft root beer from A&W. At least it's made with sugar and not high fructose corn syrup.

But yesterday I signed up for 24 Hour Fitness and ate less. I signed up online and even went there after work. Then after my workout, I figured I needed new clothes. Because I like to spend money. So I bought some clothes and am ready!

Yesterday I just had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, a pb&j for lunch, and one cup of tortellini (which is a lot less than I normally eat) and some corn (yes, too much starch, I'll have to get more vegetables), plus a few bags of fruit snacks. I'll have to work on the fruit snacks. But at least for yesterday, I wasn't really that hungry. I'm surprised how much I was full. I think the Lord is helping me combat my hunger. I'm sure I'll need all the help I can get!

Time to lose weight....

....or as my physics teacher at BYU would say, time to lose mass. I've needed to lose weight for awhile, but I finally think I have the motivation to do it. First motivation - my sister signed up for Team in Training and completed a marathon last year. A marathon! Then my brother has gotten into cycling and is going to participate in a diabetes ride. There's a third reason, but I'm going to keep that private for now (Kelley might know).

So my plan is to lose at least 50 pounds by the time I go to Hawaii. That's about 10 pounds a month. I signed up for 24 Hour Fitness today, and I really want to sign up for Team in Training, doing a triathlon. That's probably in the future, but I do enjoy cycling and swimming, and I guess I should do running too.

I've already given up soft drinks, and now I'm going to give up fast food and prepared food. I need to get better at cooking anyway.

I know it won't be easy, but I really need to do it to work on my own self confidence, and to prevent diabetes and other diseases from getting me. And sheesh, I can't ride on Roar at Discovery Kingdom anymore. I love that ride!

No soda

I've decided that as the first stage to losing weight, I am going to not drink soda this year. At least this year. The carbonated water, the high fructose corn syrup, all of it just isn't good for me. So I'm cutting it out. The only soda I really like is Dr. Pepper, Root Beer, and Sprite (and similar products like Mr. Pibb and 7-Up, to a lesser extent). I've never been a cola fan.


I did make an exception that I will drink a couple of root beers when the new A&W restaurant opens up in town. I just have to enjoy a couple of those root beers. The good thing is that root beer is made with regular sugar and not the high fructose corn syrup, which is evidently very bad for you. It's just a limit of two, though, and then it's done. And speaking of root beer, I did already accidentally break this ban when offered a root beer float at FHE one night. It was only afterwards that I realized what I had done.

Now along with that kind of comes a ban on fast food eateries. Not really a complete ban (obviously, I'm going to places like A&W when it opens), and when travelling, it's hard sometimes not to go somewhere. But I'm avoiding it as much as possible, and when I do go, I'm not getting french fries. which are dang good but so bad for you.

My biggest test so far was when I went down to Disneyland a week and a half ago. I forgot how much I savored a big bottle of Dr. Pepper on a long drive. I had to compensate with something else, as water alone wasn't doing it. So I settled for chocolate milk. I know that's not a good alternative, but it helped me get past not having the soda. It also helped that Disneyland doesn't offer Dr. Pepper.

So there I am. I still need to work on other portions of this. I need to stop with the chocolate milk as well, and I need to work on portions. Some coworkers are starting a contest - you put in $50 and whoever loses the most weight by percentage of body weight wins and gets all the money. I don't care so much about getting the money, but losing the money might be the motivation I need to actually do something.