We are six months into the new year and I have to say my New Years Goals are falling a little short. I have yet to lose more than 3 pounds, I’m still drinking soda, I’ve read several books (but by no means as many as I should), and we’re still eating out way more than we should (we’ve discovered take out…bad).
With that said, I’m NOT giving up. There are still 6 more months to this year and I will reach these goals. A few things are helping me on my path.
1. Weight. In six months I’ve lost all of 3 pounds. I’m going to blame a little of that on my back injury, but I’ve learned a couple things this week that I think will help me get back on track. 1. When I spin, my back doesn’t hurt anymore. Strange but true. While I’m on the bike, I feel no pain what-so-ever. This is a very interesting development and I’ve decided a blessing, really. So I’ve been on the bike nearly every night this week. And the final night I rode for 25 minutes and barely broke a sweat, so I need to amp it up. All good news. I’m thinking that if I get in better shape the back problems will take care of themselves. 2. To that end, I’ve signed up for Yogilates at my friend’s studio for Monday evenings through the end of summer. I’m pretty pumped about it. I’m feeling back on track and with just a week of working out I’ve noticed my mood has improved as well. The house is even clean (although cluttered).
2. Sugary sodas. Okay I’m drinking a Coke as I type this blog. Sad, but true. I have three more Cokes in the fridge and I intend to drink those as well. But then…that’s it. I’m not buying one more soda and bringing it into my house. I’ve purchased coffee, and I’ll start my morning with that to ward off the headache. Hopefully the working out will increase my energy levels and I won’t need that afternoon Coke to get me through until evening. Keeping my fingers crossed because I have this feeling that the sugary sodas are thwarting my weight-loss attempts. I guess I don’t have a “feeling” as much as I know that they are thwarting my weight-loss attempts.
3. Reading. Okay, so working from home even part time has been interesting. I’m not putting in as many hours as I should and kids are expensive. With that said, Nate and I have a much tighter budget than we’ve had in the past and it’s been quite an adjustment to just his income and less than a quarter of my previous income. So we’ve been looking through our budget at possible trimming we could do to save a little cash. One item keeps popping up – cable. We pay a ridiculous amount on cable, and I’ll admit I spend a ridiculous amount of time watching cable. It’s silly, really. I should be reading books. I’m sick of TV, and there is nothing I really want to watch, so why am I paying for PREMIUM cable. To that end, we’re dropping HBO/HBO On Demand and all of our premium cable channels. We’ll at least save $20-$30 per month. It’s a start and it will help this reading goal a lot. Of course, reading can be and expensive habit as well, so I’ve renewed my library card and we’ve already started using it. Much better idea than buying, plus my shelves are full and another shelf will not fit in our living room.
4. Eating out/cooking. We’ve already started getting better at this. We looked at how much money we were spending on going out and decided that it was crazy. So we’re starting slow and we’ve been going to Trader Joes to pick up food. It’s way cheaper, especially for two + people and our grocery bill has nearly been cut in half. Plus, the majority of the food is organic which has made me feel much better already. Strange how that works.
Well that’s the New Year’s Goals update. I refuse to give up on this. I want to be able to say that I’ve accomplished all of these goals in December. I know I can do it. A little will power and a little determination and I’ll be able to push through.
Yesterday I discovered that I’m six pounds heavier than I thought I was. I could just die…
Those sodas will kill you when trying to lose weight. I commend you for trying to give them up. I switched to mostly diet a long time ago. But I just can’t give up my real Root Beer because diet just doesn’t cut it. That said, I joined Weight Watchers in March (I suspect I have a lot more to lose that you do) and so far I’ve lost 25 pounds. But it took me almost two months to “get serious” about it. Since then it’s been going better.
I rediscover my local library just after I had Beth and it’s been a huge money-saver. Not sure where you live, but if you’re in the Milwaukee county system, you can get the books from any library shipped right to your local library. I even have the ones from my local library put on hold for me so that they don’t get taken before I get there and so that I don’t have to waste time looking for them. In and out in under 5 minutes.
It doesn’t work for everyone, but I find that planning meals ahead and buying the food that I need for those meals really helps keep us on track when it comes to eating out. Instead of eating out 2-3 times a week, like we were before WW, now we eat out maybe once a month, and often even that’s planned ahead.
We lived w/o cable for a long time. Now that we can afford it, we do have it, but it’s one of the first things we’d drop if we needed the money.
Good luck on those goals! At least you haven’t lost sight of what they were.
Thank you for the thoughts, Shannon! We knew that having a baby would be an adjustment, but I think the little things are starting to catch up with us. We feel like we’re headed in the right direction now. 🙂
I’m sorry about the six pounds, Carrie. 🙁 My first 10 were from eating fried foods while studying for my Master’s exam, the other 10 were from the baby. I’m hoping that this new exercise regiment will help to take the pounds off, as well as the healthy eating. 20 pounds by December is totally doable for me. I just have to stay motivated, which is hard.
I had originally wanted to shave off 10 pounds, and it would still put me at a healthy weight. But now I have 16 to lose! I just want to fit into my clothes again. Anyway, my most-likely-to-fail plan is to try out the bento box idea. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, so I don’t want to over-explain. While some people prepare bento meals for the sake of cuteness, I’m going for the goal of smaller portion sizes and the correct ratio of proteins, fat, veggies, and fruit.
I just looked up the Bento Boxes. That’s a neat idea, especially for lunches which I always found the hardest when I was in the office. I never knew how much to bring our how hungry I was going to be. Right now, we have a huge amount of snack food in the house because of BBQs and parties, etc. I just have to throw it all away. I’m trying to muster the will-power to do that tonight.