Day 2 - Goals and Sub goals

Well, I never got around to the "routine" portion of my post yesterday. Routines and habits are a huge part of a lifestyle change - and the biggest obstacle to acheiving success. Do too much at first and you are doomed to fail. Do too little and you may not see enough results to want to continue. Its all about BALANCE and Baby Steps!!!



We all have one overarching goal in this little contest - LOSE WEIGHT - however - the hope is of course that it is more than a temporary loss, that there is a change to our lifestyle.



I'm currently reading an excellent book by popular blogger Leo Babatua entitled, "The Power of Less - the fine art of limiting yourself to the essential...in business and in life". It has a very good method for goal setting and acheiving those goals. It involves narrowing your focus to what is essential and, basically, attainable. For me personally if I said, "I'm going to lose 35 pounds, run every day and eat three healthy meals every day for the next 10 weeks" I would be doomed. I'd crack somewhere around the Eagles game on Sunday, if not beforehand, and justify eating an entire bag of potato chips with an entire container of onion dip, as an APPETIZER to my 5 or so slices of pizza .....downed by numerous beverages of high caloric content!!!!


So - What are my goals? Lose Weight. What are my sub-goals? 1. Eat healthier 2. Exercise more 3. Get more sleep/wake earlier 4. Organize my home kitchen/bedroom closet better 5. Organize my work/school papers etc better. 6. Limit my media consumption (i.e. Television, internet, etc)


Now - thats a lot of sub-goals - and I can probably list NUMEROUS sub-sub goals for each sub-goal (maybe even sub-sub-sub goals?) - anyhow - The first 2 are obvious - eat healthy, exercise, you lose weight (In general...). The rest may seem vague but are things I think play a very important role in adapting a healthier lifestyle. For now I will just deal with sub-goal one, since that is what I'm putting my efforts into this week - tune in to later posts for the other sub-goal analysis (riveting stuff isn't it?!)




As we have well established - I've got a problem with portion control (its actually not my fault its just the American way!!). So through my ups and downs I have managed to stretch my stomach now and then (anybody remember the first victim in the movie Se7en?) To cut to the chase - I find it damn near impossible to go from eating pork roll egg and cheese sandwiches, pizza, cookies and candy galore to ....Carrot sticks and lettuce. It just doesn't fill me up at the beginning - so my only goal for the first week of a diet is to make sure whatever I choose to eat, that it is healthy. Fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains. If I am hungry I eat because that whole mind over matter thing does not work when your blood sugar is plummetting. I don't overdo it to the point of Thanksgiving evening where the button on my pants is liable to pop off and kill somebody, but I don't force myself to avoid food - it gets too mental and too hard. So if you are out there starving yourself on day 3 only - eat something - just make it a banana instead of a twinkie!





Quick story about "portion control" from dinner last night. I got a quick easy recipe for broiled salmon from one of my cookbooks (will post later) - got home from practice, marinated the fish, hopped in the shower and was really looking forward to a nice relaxing dinner. Broiled the fish and was just getting ready to put it on the plate - slip!!..........HALF of the fish fell in slow motion off the spatula - it never even got to hit the ground - this scolding hot delectable piece of salmon was caught mid-air by my garbage disposal of a canine - my dog, Midge. I wasn't about to make any more - so thanks Midge for "helping" with the portion control!

Stay strong everybody!!!