I am proud of myself! Yesterday I was a good girl, I got stressed out and instead of stuffing my face with some high caloric food, I've decided to clean my stove! I was really pissed, and I displaced all the frustration into the greasy stove. I felt so empowered! And today I am doing great, I am controlling my portions, and watching my calories. My day is going great, and I believe my night will be even better!
Yesterday I was reading Sean Anderson's Blog, and I was amazed and inspired by him! He was at 505 pounds, and one day he decided he had enough. He did not want to deprive himself from foods he liked, so he gave himself a daily allowance of 1,500 calories, and decided to include some type of exercise every day. He is close to the 230 pounds he set as his goal. A lot of the experiences and thoughts he shares, are similar to my experiences and thoughts, but one thing he said reinforced my theory of how to lose weight effectively. He does not believe we need to go an a diet and deprive ourselves from what we like in order to lose weight. Neither do I.
My theory is that if we want lose weight we need to eat what we like. In the past, every time I went on a diet I dreamt on achieving my goal as fast as possible, so I could finally eat the foods I was not allowed to. Eliminating foods from your diet is not real, you have to learn how to live with the foods you love. If you have a few pounds to lose, doing this might actually help, but if you are instead learning new habits, you have to include the foods you enjoy in your weekly menu, or you are at risk of falling off the wagon pretty fast. The most important thing about changing habits is eating small portions and choosing healthier ingredients. However, if you are dying to eat a piece of chocolate cake, just go ahead and eat a small piece. It is better to eat a small piece of cake, a bite of chocolate, or a cup of ice-cream, than try to avoid them all day, and end up eating an entire pie at midnight when no one is watching. The secret is controlling portion size and calorie intake. If I want to eat a nice dessert after a special dinner, but I only have 150 calories left that day, I can't eat a hot fudge sunday, because I don't have the calories to "buy" it. However, I can eat a soft cone from McDonalds because they are just 150 calories. Sean Anderson cleverly said that, If you treat the daily calorie allowance as cash, you will understand that if you don't have the cash, you can't buy the goods, and if you don't have calories left, you can't eat the food.
So I too decided to give myself a 1,500 daily calorie allowance, and instead of starting my ... my what? it is not a diet!.. Starting my new habits on a Monday, I began it yesterday, a Thursday! There! How's that for new habits? But I needed something to help me control my calorie intake. I do not want to walk around carrying a note book or a calorie book, I want something simpler or I know I will give up on the whole idea. So I remembered I have an iPhone, and so I searched for an App that could work for me, and I found an App called "MyFitnessPal". It is great! If I eat something, or if I want to know a certain food's calorie value, all I need it to do is open the app, search for the food, and check its value. Then after I chose the food and portion size, it tells me how many calories I've already spent, and how many calories I still have left for the rest of the day. This way I can keep track of what I am eating and how I'm doing.
I also want to include exercise to my new lifestyle, unfortunately I did not start exercising yesterday. It was SO DAMN HOT here in Orange County, that I could not exercise with that heat, I felt tired just by standing up! I bought the "Brazilian Butt Lift" DVDs; it's an exercise program by a Brazilian trainer, and let me tell you..... the exercises are great! I use to do those type of exercises when I was working out in Brazil, and my butt and legs looked just delicious! I want that again! I hope today I can exercise at least 20 minutes.... if the heat gives me a break. One of my volunteers suggested that I set the air conditioning on at a higher temperature, but still bellow the horrible 86 that it is now. She said it will cost me less to do this than to what I've been doing when it's unbearably hot, which is to turn the air conditioning on low temperatures, wait for the apartment to coll down and then turn it off. But when I do this, I actually have to turn on the air conditioning several times a day. Let's see Salle, my friend, I will give it a try. And by the way, thanks for the grammar tips today!
Well, I guess this is it for today. I am still here!! Not going anywhere! I'm excited to see what's next..... I plan on using some techniques I have learned on how to control OCD in my new lifestyle. OCD? yes, there are some great exercises OCD patients learn to confront their fears that might be great for my program, I will let you know what it is, and if it worked.
See you later,
Love,
Me
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