The time has come...

for me to try (again) to lose weight. I went to the doctor yesterday and I knew he would fuss about my weight but I wasn't expecting the talking to I got. He spent quite a bit of time talking to me about it and when I was checking out, I heard other patients complaining, wanting to know why they were having to wait so long. He asked me to promise him to do something about my weight and I promised that I would try and I am bound as a Christian to keep my promises.

So, here is my plan. I took a weight management course last summer and learned a lot of things I never put into practice. I hate measuring my food and keeping a food log but like my doctor told me, I don't need a diet, I need a lifestyle change. That's how I'm going to have to look at this, as a lifestyle change. I hoping that after doing this for awhile some of it will become second nature and won't require as much thought.

My doctor recommended Weight Watchers but I can't afford the montly payments so I am going to go with what I learned last summer. I am going to keep a food log for a week and continue to eat as I normally would. At the end of the week, I'm going to see how my calories I consume a day on average. I'm then going to subtract 100 from that number and that will be my goal calories per day for the next week.

I'll continue averaging my weekly calories and subtracting 100 until I get down to the recommended amount of calories for my height and age. It will be a gradual that hopefully won't be hard to do. That was the lesson from the weight management class and what my doctor told me yesterday. I need to make small changes that I can live with and not feel deprived. That's what's always killed me in the past, the more I tell myself I can't have the Reeses Cup, the more I want it.

I'm also going to try to drink more water. I bought a water bottle that I can take to work and keep on my desk. If I can just keep it full, I will sip on it all day. The other thing is exercise. I used to go to the gym regularly and loved it. I don't have time to spend 30 minutes to an hour in the gym anymore so I'm going to do the same thing with my steps that I'm doing with my calories only going the other direction.

I'm going to track and average up the number of steps I take in a week and then add 100 and make that my goal. Hopefully, I can find a way to get up to the recommended 10,000 steps a day. I'm going to try to post my progress and thoughts on this blog as a way to keep myself motivated. Hopefully, by putting my struggles into words, I can work through them instead of letting them get the best of me.