50 days

that's it.  this has been a crazy year of ups, downs, highs and lows.  crazy progress followed by not so impressive performance.  i have learned what it's like to have willpower and be inspired and moving towards where i want to be with my life.  and i have learned what it's like to feel as though i have no willpower, essentially a return to feeling trapped by my emotions, my sugar cravings, my negative patterns involving food.  through it all i still acknowledge that i am the only one who can make my choices.  i am the only one, ultimately, that puts food in my mouth or chooses whether or not to exercise.  although there is still a large degree of chaos in my life right now, i refuse to continue making choices that sacrifice my health and well-being and move me further away from where i want to be.  there are only 50 days left in this year and i'm determined to make them count.  today i got off the fence and officially joined a gym.  i also got back on the scale and got out the old measuring tape.  here's where i'm at...

135.8 lbs

28.2% bf (according to my scale) or 20.8% bf (according to my handheld omron)*

bicep: 11 (unflex)/12(flex)

thigh: 22.25

hip: 35.5

navel: 32

waist: 29.5

chest: 31.5

bust: 36

i want to enter the new year at 125 and see a general downward trend of measurements, meaning i need to lose a very reasonable 1.5 lbs a week.  i want to feel focused on my goal and determined to make every day count over the next 50 days, but i also want to achieve this without resorting to anything super extreme.  i so desperately need a maintainable lifestyle change that i can stay excited about and feel good about.  so, here's the plan to get me there:

1) accountability.  i will be blogging daily and boring you all with the details of what's going in my mouth simply because i know that i'm more compliant if i'm writing out what i'm eating.  my camera's still broken, but i'll find a way to get pictures up soon too.  pictures are key, pictures don't lie.

2) nutrition.  i'll be combining eat stop eat with what i want to call extremely sensible nutrition.  that, for me, is no sugar, no wheat, lots of fruits and veggies, light on the dairy (mainly non-fat yogurt, cottage cheese), meat, fish, eggs, beans, and whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, oats).  i'm feeling really torn on coffee.  i'm tempted to include black coffee in the a-ok list, but working at a coffee shop i'm always cracked out on caffeine and find that i always want to eat something sweet to go with my coffee.  i'm going to exclude it for the first 7 days since it's been a while since i've been off coffee and then i'll see how i'm feeling after that.  as far as fasting, i'm going to start out with one ese day a week and see how i progress.  i find that if i do two days a week i tend to get burnt out or feel deprived, but i like taking the occasional break from eating to give my digestive system a rest and i like creating one big caloric deficit for the week to not have to watch calories quite so closely on the other days.  i think that i'll look forward to my one day break a week.  and if i find that i need to step it up, i might try alternating one fast one week, two the next, etc.  

3) sanity.  being that i'm going for lifestyle change here, i'm going to include one cheat meal per week where i get to forget all about extremely sensible nutrition and just eat what i want.  i'm also including three glasses of red wine a week (spaced out or all in one sitting, but three's the limit).  since tomorrow is day 1, my weeks will be going wednesday to wednesday.  

4) exercise.  turbulence training all the way baby.  we all know it works.  still have to sit down and pick which tt workout i'll do next...but i'm planning on mon/wed/fri being tt days and then picking three additional classes at my gym every week (yoga, spinning, etc).  mix it up, keep it interesting, you know.  

so that's the plan.  i'm so excited to get started again, really get my rhythm down, and get back to making progress.  50 days, here we go.