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And…Take Two

By on January 23, 2012 in eating, Paleo, plan, planning, working out

…wherein I confess that I fell off the “transitioning to Paleo” wagon about a week after I hopped on!

So guess what?  Apparently when you plan to change your entire way of eating, some planning is required in order for that to be a success.  Go figure!

Also, news flash?  Babies take up a LOT of time.  Where BB (“Before Baby”) I could have zipped out to Costco or the grocery store any time to stock up, and had time to cook most nights (I didn’t say I actually cooked most nights, just that I had time!), now … not so much.

So, yeah.  I made it about a week before my (a) failure to plan/cook/shop ahead and (b) inability to make time for such things mid-week derailed me.

Oh, and then there was the GSS2012 (Great Snow Storm of 2012) wherein we were “snowed in” for a week.  And by snowed in, I mean we had 12+ inches of snow and we live on a hill, so although the roads were mostly fine about a mile from our house, there was no getting out of our neighborhood unless I wanted to slip and slide in my car like I was on skis.

So, yeah.  Crap, I already said that.

Anyhoo, in an effort to be more realistic, I am taking this week and coming weekend to do my shopping/planning/cooking ahead.  In the meantime, I am back to no sugar starting now.  Each day I will do one thing to prepare for my change in food choices.  Except today, when I am going back to the gym.  For the first time since Alana was born.  I’m signing us up for a family membership and I will break a sweat.  That’s more important to me, today, than anything else.

Here’s the plan:

Tuesday: Costco after work.
Wednesday: Cook one Paleo-friendly meal, freeze at least 4 servings of same.
Thursday: Grocery store after work.
Friday: Same as Wednesday.
Saturday: Cook 2-3 meals, freeze, also prep snacks for the week.
Sunday: Same as Saturday.

Workout-wise:

Monday (today): Gym
Tuesday: Wii Fit
Wednesday: Gym
Thursday: Mid-day walk (little rain in forecast)
Friday: Rest (I have a hearing that day and like to get home early on Fridays if I can!)
Saturday: Gym
Sunday: Not sure, walk with hubs hopefully?

How about you peeps?  How are you all doing?  Please don’t say “I told you so” on the whole failing to plan is planning to fail thingy.  :)

Gratuitous baby pic:

Comments { 3 }

Welcome to 2011!

By on January 1, 2011 in goals, holiday, hope/inspiration, plan, planning, R2P4

Welcome to 2011, friends!

I hope whatever you did last night, you were safe and with your loved ones.  I heard about people who slept right through it; who went running to bring in the New Year on the pavement; who spend the evening with family and friends at home or out on the town.

However you chose to celebrate, I hope you are happy.

And if you are not happy, may I suggest that 2011 can be your year?  The year in which instead of making empty resolutions which fizzle out by February…you set goals and make a concrete plan for how to reach those goals, and then execute that plan?  The year in which you actually begin to achieve some of your goals, and make your own dreams come true?

I said something on Twitter the other day that resonated with me and a few other people: the difference between a resolution and a goal is having a PLAN.  It’s so easy to think about what we want, but the truth is that unless we sit down and put together a realistic plan that allows us to follow-through on that thing we want…well, chances are we’ll spend next New Year’s Eve thinking about the same things we want, and setting the same resolutions for 2012.

Here’s the deal: 2011 is going to pass one way or the other.  And in one year, you will arrive at the last day of 2011 and you will look back at this year.  You have the choice now to determine how you will feel and what you will see when you do that look-back.  So what will you choose?

I choose health.
I choose to do some hard work mentally & emotionally.
I choose to keep working to become the best me I can be.
I choose to run in several events that scare the bejebus out of me.
I choose to keep battling to lose this weight and keep it off because I AM WORTH IT.
I choose to be open and transparent here with myself and all of you…because it makes me better.
I choose LIFE.

So 2011?  BRING. IT. ON.  I am ready!

Are you ready?  What are your plans for 2011?  What is your PLAN to achieve your GOALS for this coming year?

You’ll here more about some of my plans over the next few weeks.  I can’t wait to share!

Comments { 16 }

Self-Discipline

By on December 1, 2010 in consistency/commitment, determination/motivation, emotional stuff, fear, holiday, planning, R2P4, working out

Self-discipline is something I have struggled with my entire life. How does someone with this struggle get through law school, run a successful business, and hold down a full-time job?  Well, the part of being disciplined that I struggle with the most is when it comes to myself and my personal goals. With the normal deviations and exceptions, when I know I have to do something to perform at work or in my business (or in school, when I was there), I get it done.  Perhaps with some degree of procrastination, but always done, and always on time and with excellence if it involves anyone else (a client, a boss, etc.).

When it comes to personal goals, though, self-discipline is a tough one for me.  Maybe it’s because I am so disciplined in my professional life that it’s hard to be the same way in my personal life.  Whatever the reasons, though, I really thought that this would become less of a struggle for me as I lost the weight.  And to some extent, it has.  It feels a bit easier to keep myself “between the beacons” when it comes to healthy eating 90% of the time, and that’s a win in my book.  (During the darkest times of my life I was lucky if I ate healthy 10% of the time!)  I’ve built an exercise habit that I’m proud of and can see myself sustaining for a lifetime.

And yet, the struggle remains.  For example, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to get to bed by 10pm and be awake by 6:30 am every day during the work week.  I did great the week before Thanksgiving, but having an unplanned week off, during which I was sick, slept a lot, and didn’t work out has really thrown me for a loop.  I can feel the temptation to slide a little further down the slippery slope every day.  It’s okay to miss today’s workout – it’s just one.  It’s all right to sleep in – after all, you need to be well-rested and sharp to do your job well. The rationalizations and excuses come so easily, after years (decades, really) of practice.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m fine.  I’m not giving up, throwing in the towel, or otherwise despairing of my ability to do the right things.  My eating has been healthy, I’m looking forward to my workout today, and I am not on the precipice of falling back into old habits.  But I can feel the temptation, y’all. And it’s important for me to examine these feelings so that I can recognize them for what they are and develop some tools for keeping me off the slippery slope for good.

So here’s the pattern I’ve identified.  I get to a point where I’m doing really well with a healthy habit – working out, getting up early, eating healthy, whatever.  But life being what it is (unpredictable & ever-changing), eventually something happens to sidetrack the good habit for a short time.  Being sick makes it hard to work out.  Being on vacation makes it hard to get up early.  Whatever it is, a blip shows up on the radar.  And if that’s all it is – a blip – it would be no big deal.  In fact, that’s what healthy people do all the time – treat a holiday or a missed workout as a “blip” but get right back into their normal, healthy habits pretty much immediately.

Here’s where my old pattern (because I’m all about building new, healthy patterns up in here) differs from that of a normal, healthy person.  For me, a blip has been really hard to recover from.  In my past, a blip like this last week (sick, snowed in, Thanksgiving, off work, etc.) would have been the beginning of what would eventually turn into weeks or even months of struggling.  Eating healthy all day long only to go home and overeat at the end of the day.  Skipping workouts here and there until I string together a week or more of not moving my body.  Oversleeping my alarm, justifying every day how it’s okay not to get up because I need to be mentally sharp for my job and I can’t do that without sleep, can I?

And here, my friends, is where I break from the old pattern and embrace a new pattern.  I am drawing the line in the sand today. 

I will be getting in my 4+ workouts per week from now through the end of the year (and beyond).
I will be getting up no later than 6:30 a.m. during the week and turning in no later than 10pm at night.
I will be eating healthily 90% of the time, and any less-than-healthy eating will be planned and mindfully chosen and enjoyed, instead of mindlessly shoved into my mouth in front of the TV.

And I need your help to cement my commitment to these habits, because for better or for worse, it’s easier to follow-through on a commitment made to others than a commitment made only to myself and made in secret.

So there you have it.  No more old patterns.  No more slippery slope.  No more struggle for days and weeks and months on end.  I am adopting the mindset of a person with a normal, healthy relationship with food and her body.  A blip is just a blip and will not become more.

Is self-discipline a struggle for you?  If so, do you have any tips and tricks to share for how you’ve worked on this character trait in your life?

Comments { 16 }

The Morning After…

By on November 29, 2010 in eating, family, holiday, planning

Happy Monday, friends!  I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving – I know I did!  I was sick for part of the weekend, but I still really enjoyed the quality time with my family and friends.  My plan called for me to avoid sugar and starches and enjoy the rest of the food this weekend in moderation, and I’m happy to report that I did it!  Due to crappy weather, being sick, and not having access to a gym, my only workout was an awesome run on Friday, so I am really looking forward to getting back in the gym this week.

So, it’s the “morning after” now.  How’d you do?  Did you go into the holiday with a plan for how to approach it?  Did you decide to indulge reasonably and in moderation?  Or did you decide to treat Thanksgiving just like any other day?  Maybe you made a conscious choice to throw caution to the wind and just go wild for the weekend.

Whatever your plan was, did you stick to it?  Dwelling in the past isn’t always useful, but if you can use past experiences to learn a lesson and be better equipped for the next holiday (which, ahem, is in 26 days), then it’s not “dwelling” at all.   My advice to you is this: have a plan.  Then when the day has passed, evaluate your plan.  Did it work?  Did you stick to it?  How do you feel?  Can you tweak your plan to make it better next time?  Are you feeling empowered or deprived?  Etc.  Take your pulse now that Thanksgiving is over.

Even more importantly, though – today is a new day.  Even if you had a plan and then failed spectacularly at its execution, it’s over.  Every moment, every meal, every workout from this moment forward provides you with a new opportunity to start making healthy choices again.  Healthy people aren’t healthy 100% of the time, you know.  They’re not perfect.  But they don’t use one bad day (or weekend) as the reason to throw in the towel, throw up their hands, and give up completely.  Get back on track – today.  Decide that your next meal or snack will be a healthy one.  Look at your calendar and plan your next workout.  Heck, your next week’s worth of workouts!

This post feels all over the place.  What I really want to say is this:

I hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving.
I hope you had a plan and stuck to it.

And for those that didn’t, I hope you love yourself enough to say, “Thanksgiving is over.  I wasn’t perfect, but that’s okay – it doesn’t make me a bad person.  And I am worth the effort and planning it will take to get back on track today.”

What is your advice to people who may be just starting their journey and who feel overwhelmed by the holidays?  How did you do?  What lessons did you learn for next time?

Comments { 7 }

Managing Time – Tips and a Plea for Help

By on November 10, 2010 in blogging, consistency/commitment, food, goals, plan, planning, R2P3, working out

Time management is one of life’s most important skills, and that applies in all areas of life – work, home, healthy lifestyle – all of it.  And it’s one of the things I struggle with the most.  The longer I’ve been involved with the fit blogging community, the more I want to do – read your blogs!  comment!  tweet with you!  comment back when you comment on my blog!  It’s all so fun, valuable, and engaging.  And being a part of this community?  It’s helped me tremendously in getting healthy.  Blogs are how I discovered the HCG Protocol.  Blogs are how I connect with others who are fighting the same battles I am.  And blogs are how I met this hotass and this badass!  I mean, really, what more could I ask for?

At the same time (no pun intended), my life is busier and fuller now than it has ever been.  And again, it’s full of all! good! stuff!  Work is fulfilling and will likely turn into an opportunity for me to be a part owner in the next few years.  My business is successful enough, even though I am ready to move on, that I have not one but two lawyers interested in purchasing it.  My marriage is lovely and challenging and gets better every day.  My body is loving the healthy food and challenging workouts I’m giving it.  And as you all know, this all takes time.

Time is the most valuable asset/resource we all have.  It is non-renewable and we all have a finite amount of it to “spend” wisely (we hope).  And the reason I’m blathering on about time management today is that (1) I am realizing how important this skill is going to be in order for me to live a life that is in harmony with my values and (2) I need your help to develop some strategies that allow me to stay connected but manage my time well!

This was brought on today by the fact that I am missing my Twitter time with my peeps.  And yet, with a limited number of hours in the day, I simply cant’ fit it in anymore.  I write a blog for work, I tweet for work, I write a blog for me, I love reading your blogs, I want to comment, too…and I want to tweet with y’all!  No offense to the women’s lib movement, but there’s this myth that we’ve bought into that we can have, do, and be it all and be excellent at it, too.  I hate to break it to you (and I hate to admit it to me), but it’s simply not true.  We can be kinda good at a lot of things, or really good at a few things.

So here are some of the lessons I’ve learned that are helping me make the tough decisions I need to make in managing my time well.  And I sure hope you’ll share some of your lessons and strategies with me, because God knows I have lots of learning left to do here!

Lesson Number One: You can’t do it all if you want to do it well. Period.  If, like me, you want to be excellent at the things that matter to you, you have to focus in on the things that are the most important to you, and let go of doing those that are less so.  Doesn’t mean those things you’re letting go of aren’t good and worthy.  It just means that as a human being with limits and only 24 hours in the day, you have to choose where you are going to spend that time, and it makes sense to spend it on the things that are most important to you.  (Perfectionists, please do not interpret this as a call to perfection in all that you do.  That’s a whole ‘nother post for another day, but sometimes?  It’s good enough to be good enough.)

Lesson Number Two: The choice between “good” and “best” really sucks sometimes. Please refer to Lesson Number One, wherein we agreed that some of what you choose to let go of is good stuff.  Most of us aren’t choosing between, say, a jog with a friend and robbing a bank.  Clear choice: there’s a good and a bad there.  The hardest choices in life are the ones where there isn’t a clear “bad” choice.  There’s only good and better.  And sometimes it’s really, really painful to say “no” to a good thing.  But it is necessary.  Speaking of which…

Lesson Number Three: Saying no is necessary and good. I know, right?!  I did just say that saying no is a good thing.  You read it right.  It’s really hard to do, and it’s even hard to do it well.  Saying no is actually an art, and those who do it well manage to do it with enough grace that the no-ees (as opposed to the no-er, these are very technical terms) understand completely and do not feel rebuffed or rejected in any way.  We are so conditioned (maybe even women more so than men?) to think that saying no is somehow rude or offensive.  The reality is that saying no, and saying it often and well, may be the only boundary between your best life and a life so chaotic and overfull that you want to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil.  (Oh, please.  Tell me you haven’t been there before.)

I could go on and on (no, really, have you read my blog??), but suffice it to say that time management and living the life you want requires a lot of work.  A lot of thought.  A sprinkle of strategy.  A pinch of “no.”  And lots more.  You don’t just fall into being good at managing your time.  You don’t just stumble into the life that you’re meant to live.  You think about it; identify it; choose it; and then go after it like a dog after a bone.

As a practical matter, I have some strategies I use to manage my time well:

  • Schedule my workouts, as in put. them. on. the. calendar.  Then follow through and do them.
  • Schedule meetings with my entire week’s schedule in mind, so as not to get overloaded.
  • Schedule weekends and days when I have NOTHING on the schedule.
  • Commit to at least one night/week of quality time at home with my hubs.
  • Check e-mail at predetermined times each day, instead of every time the “you’ve got mail!” icon appears in my system tray.
  • For God’s sake, stay off the internet if you have a lot of actual work to do, Valerie!
  • Limit my time on Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, [insert favorite social media medium here].

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I am going to be changing some things.  I’ll probably be closing my current Twitter accounts and opening one that I use for personal and work purposes.  I am one person who does several things – work and running being two of them – so why do I need a separate account for each one?  I’ll be spending less time on Twitter and Facebook and using that time to keep reading and commenting on your blogs, because that is how I feel connected with you all, which is what I want most.  I’ll be giving myself an e-mail/internet schedule and sticking to it so that when I am doing those things?  I don’t feel guilty because of my ever-mounting to-do list that somehow doesn’t just do itself while I’m off having fun.  And so on.

Now you: How are you at time management?  Have you thought about it in these terms before, that where you spend your time should be aligned with what you value in life?  How do you make your time-spending habits and your values sync up?  What have you cut out?  What tools or strategies can’t you live without?

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