Monday, August 30, 2004

Eat less, exercise more

Why is the simple formula of eating less and exercising more so hard for people to grasp? Maybe because it's so simple, yet so difficult to implement. It's certainly not trendy.

Quite frankly, it works. I've been doing my workouts and really watching how much I'm eating and the weight is slipping off again. I know when I plateau, some thing is not right: either I'm going over my calories, or I'm not working out enough.

It takes a considerable amount of sacrifice to not "treat" yourself. That's my problem. I want to have ice cream, but I make the decision to only have it once a week. Sacrificing is hard and we live in a society that doesn't reward sacrifice. Life is full of things out to sabotage a healthy diet (just watching TV can be hard with all the crap food they advertise). The "oh, one cookie isn't going to hurt you"... well as a matter of fact, yes it can. It'll take me an extra hour on the treadmill to work off half those calories for that cookie, thank you very much.

Part of me still is very resentful to those who don't care (or even need to care) about what they're eating. I watch a baseball game on TV and see the junk that people are eating, and I'm jealous. Tonight I will be going to Stitch n Bitch at Barnes and Nobles and everyone will have something to eat. It's a challenge for me, but I don't eat after 7:00 and I can't afford the 400 calories that a Starbucks coffee contains (or the fat in a cookie).

It will be easier tonight, as I've reached my August goal of below 163 lbs. I hit 162.8 lbs this morning. My size 16's no longer fit. I would say I feel good, but that wouldn't be honest. In actuality, I'm hungry, I'm sore and tired and I'm mostly irritated (and let's not forget jealous), but it's for my health so it's worth while.