I'm not calling it a diet, but....

So, I’ve decided that I want need have to lose some weight. Before you try to say something nice, let me say I have seen pictures of myself and I know I’m overweight. Now, I’m not expecting to look like I did in high school or anything, although that would be lovely. But I do need to be healthier. My eating habits have taken a tumble. I love my chocolate and I love soda, or Coke as we from Texas call almost any carbonated beverage. I used to be great about drinking my daily requirement of water, but that has long gone out the window. And Coke had taken its place. Not so good on your system!

So I decided that upon return to Texas from our two weeks of visiting family and eating almost any and everything in sight, I would get my act together and start a very late new years resolution. At first I had this lofty goal of cutting out all cokes, chocolate, sugar, white flour, etc., but I just can’t go cold turkey. In my ideal world, I would go to whole wheat everything, cut out all sugar, eat lots of salad and veggies, but I need to dip my toes into this slowly. I don’t want to overwhelm myself. I had read on some blogs about drinking “green” smoothies and thought I would give that a try, but I quickly decided that I would much rather just eat my lettuce/spinach/etc out of a bowl with a little dressing on top of it, thank you very much. More power to those that are able to do it, maybe some day I will join you!

And if you know me very well at all, you know I don’t “do” veggies or even many fruits. I’ve slowly started to appreciate and even enjoy veggies over the last couple of years. Now, there are some that I flat out still do not like, but I’m getting there. I’ve even eaten salad by choice in the last few months. It used to be that I would begrudgingly take a bite or two only if I had to…you know to be polite or something.

So, long story short is that I’m making some efforts to change. I have some changes that I need to make and I’m trying to set some goals. My goals as of this moment are to:
* eat at least salad once a day
* have pancakes or donuts only one time per week (this one is hard b/c Zane loves pancakes and I’d gladly make and eat them every morning that he says he wants them, but I know that are really kind of just carb/filler/nothing great for you! And well, donuts, that an obvious one, but equally as hard with a Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner around here!)
* add more whole wheat and fiber to our diets (I’m thinking of getting a bread machine and trying to make our bread. I’ve never really enjoyed whole wheat bread, but I wonder if I find a good recipe I might enjoy making and eating my own homemade bread.)
* be very conscious of my coke and chocolate intake. I’m not going to ban it completely, because I think that I would just rebel anyways, but I’m going to be more careful and not just pig out! For example, I’m not going to order my own coke when I go out, but I will most likely share a coke with Mike or have some of his.
* drink more water! I started the other day drinking my water out of a measuring cup just because that helped me to “see” how much I was drinking, but Mike looked at my like I had a third eye or something. So, now I’m drinking out of a Mason jar. Same idea, it has the measurements there for me and I do like the feel of drinking out of something glass. I like water bottles, but the “green” in me just cannot stand to buy individual bottled waters any longer. And I just can’t seem to find a reusable bottle that I love.


Now, why have I shared all of the goals on a public forum like this for all of the world (okay, my four friends and three family members) to see? I don’t know. Maybe it helps to have it written down. And maybe some accountability. I don’t know, but there it is, it’s out there! I’ll keep you filled in as to how it’s going!!!