GETTING PREPARED

The day is Friday, December 30, 2011. I am three days away from officially beginning my new healthier life.

I am taking today to reflect on what challenges I may face in my journey. I want this to go as easily as possible. Based on my previous “light” workouts I already know the physical side is going to take some real work on my part and I am going to experience some level of pain before I get to the other side of the wall. After that I can at least just continue to maintain what I have achieved or step it up to increase my endurance level even more. We will take a look at it then and decide.

For now, I am focusing on having the logistics prepared and ready to go so that all I will have to think about is the workout itself.

I set up an account with livestrong.com to use their application called “my plate”. This application is great. It allows you to input the foods you are eating throughout the day and seems to have a really good database of foods already input for you.

It has been a real eye opener on how many calories I am actually consuming every day. It is no wonder I have been gaining weight over the years. It seems pretty subtle too. My calorie intake is usually only a little bit over what is recommended for me. If you add to that the fact that I have been doing very little physical activity, it just gets worse. At least if I had been doing some type of activity then it would have offset the calories to some degree.

Now that I have a good visual on my calorie intake I can start taking control of that by cutting certain items out that have no purpose for being in my diet. Perfect example is soda. There is absolutely NO nutritional value in a soda. Yet, I am addicted to it and I know that. I believe this is going to be the most difficult item for me to get out of my life.

Today I did not do any workout. Two days in a row took a little bit of a toll on my body. It was not horrible but I figured I should give my body a day of rest anyway. In three more days it will be full blast for me so I want my body prepared for that. 

I additionally know that you have to plan these things out very carefully or you are more likely to fail. The one time in the past that I was able to make some progress on losing weight and transforming, I planned for it. The other times, I did not.