THE AWESOME PLAN

It's Tuesday, but it's really Monday.  I figured I'm done with the shenanigans and am ready to face brass tacks or whatever one says to indicate they are finished goofing off.

I took a week off of exercising last week because I injured my lady parts (yes, those lady parts) and walking was making it worse. Few things are worse than sick lady parts and having to deal with medicating it. Then I went to three parties with vast amounts of food and gained two pounds.

Right now I'm 218 pounds and this is the weight I've been sitting at most of the year.  It's a pound or two lighter than I was at my wedding, and about ten lighter than around New Year's, and it makes me feel like all my clothes are digging into my flesh.  Not cute.

I'm already uncomfortable being fat.  I know I talk about trying to learn some body acceptance and to eat healthier and to beat my emotional eating once and for all. However, right now I just want to be thinner and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Not having a goal or a plan, I googled, "How to lose 100 pounds."  I found a lot of great resources for creating a plan on this website, although I don't really like the before and after photos and do not plan on being as thin as the lady in the photograph. I decided to pick and choose ideas that seemed doable and discard everything else.

Goal

It's not like I want to be extremely thin and birdlike.  Sure, my inner anorexic teenager is already picturing what she perceives as beautiful bones and what I see as unhealthy attitudes.  I just want to be less heavy when I move.  I want moving my body to be easier and to be able to do it for longer periods of time without becoming tired.  I want my clothes to be loose and easy to move in. My ultimate goal weight is 128 pounds, with good blood test numbers, and to stay moderately to highly physically active and I will adjust as much as I can when I get within 50-20 pounds of it. My goal is to make peace with stepping outside of my comfort zone, to sweat, to ache sometimes, to try to stop eating to the point of feeling uncomfortable, to live life in a better and more sustainable matter.

Timeline

I want to lose 90 lbs.  Can I do this in a year? NOPE. However, it might be possible to succeed in two years. I found a website that helps you calculate realistic weight loss goals.  You plug in your information and your weight loss goals, and it gives you a calorie count for each week. I am 5'4.5" and 218 pounds.  My goal is a healthy weight of 128 pounds.  I put in the goal of losing 90 pounds in a year, but notice that this puts me under a healthy amount of calories per day toward the end of my plan.  I can either choose to lower my yearly goal on the calculator or go with the current plan with the intention of eating at least 1500 calories per day toward the end of the diet for a slightly slower result toward the end.  I chose to lower my yearly goal to lose 45 pounds per year for two years. I will be losing between 1/2 to 1 pound per week. During the first week of the plan, I will want to eat 1785 calories per day.

Exercise

Remember when I said I want to move around more?  I'm going to start by moving around more. Each day when I arrive home from work, I will slip on something more comfortable, tie up my sneakers and walk 30 minutes with a 5 minute stretch after.  On weekends I will wake up and walk 30 minutes with a 5 minute stretch after.

In fact, remember that instructable I linked to?  Here is a sample workout plan I stole from it that looks perfect for me:

Monday - 30 minutes of walking with upper body strength
Tuesday - 30 minutes of walking
Wednesday - 30 minutes of walking with core strength
Thursday - 30 minutes of walking
Friday - 30 minutes of walking with lower body strength
Saturday - 30 minutes of walking
Sunday - 30 minutes of walking

I love this, because upper body strength could be push ups and rows, core strength could be Pilates moves with a sole focus on back and abs, and lower body strength could be squats and lunges.  And if I get bored there's this website, and this website, as well as this website. There are endless websites with endless moves to jazz up a boring strength training workout. There are endless workout DVDs featuring Biggest Loser trainers and in-home walking workouts for those days where the outdoors sucks.

WHAT IF IT DOESN'T WORK?

This is the most important part.  Losing even five to twenty pounds would be fine with me, and is more than doable. However, the most important goal is to continue to be more physically active and banish unhealthy attitudes toward food.

Failure is laying on the couch worrying about what I'm eating constantly and not coming up with a plan to get off that couch eventually.

If I keep trying, then that's all that matters. After two years if I don't lose almost 100 lbs, as long as I'm on my feet, moving around, dancing and running around and lifting heavy things with a healthier attitude toward nourishing myself, I haven't failed.

If I'm making recipes featured on Thug Kitchen, I haven't failed.

If I'm enjoying the special occasion small bag of chips with that recipe, no big deal.

If I go over or under my calories, no big deal.  Calorie counts are more of a guideline to get your weight in a different direction.  It's more about eating until you get just the correct feeling of not being too full and not being too hungry, and trying to make sure those foods are full of nutrition or are feeding your soul.

I will make this work for me, because I plan to live longer than the two years I've scheduled for weight loss, and I want it to be something I can make friends with for the long haul.