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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Ok. Here's the deal. I need to lose weight. 25-30 pounds to be exact.I'm done having kids, done nursing, done having "excuses" to lug around this extra weight. I started going to the gym three days a week again back in November, so I'm started on the exercise part, but I need some work in the "food intake" area.
I've also found myself sucked in to a contest with some of my fellow SEOs. Basically, ten of us are going to live blog our weight loss attempts over the next two months. There are five women and five men participating and we're gathering up sponsors. (Anyone interested? Email me.) At the end of the two months, the man and woman with the highest percentage of weight loss will go head to head in a vote. Winner gets all of the sponsorship money for the charity of their choice.
Now obviously, I'm going to be playing for the milk banks.
We've got $2500 raised so far and we're all working our contacts. There's a good chance we can get the pot to $10K or more.
That's obviously pretty good motivation for me. I mean geeze, fit into skinny jeans AND help the milk banks? It's a win-win.
So to pull this off, I need a game plan. I'm going to be relying on bento boxes for portion control and healthy eating while I'm out and about (no more fast food) and I'm going to be mixing pilates into my workout schedule to cover me on the days when I don't make it to the gym.
Beyond that, I'm giving VERY serious consideration to giving up meat. (Please do not even think of suggesting I become a vegan cause it ain't gonna happen. I can live without meat, I refuse to live without organic dairy and organic eggs. :-P) I know several of my readers are vegetarians/vegans and I would love it if you'd share your favorite recipes and resources.
(NOTE: I'm reminded now of why I don't generally write and publish posts on the fly. Clearly people are reading this post and thinking I'm giving up meat as a "diet" to lose weight. That is not what I mean. I'm saying I'd like to try giving up meat because there are health benefits to doing so and because it will force me to work harder to incorporate whole grains and new veggies into my diet. There are sources of protein other than whole milk and peanut butter. ;) Giving up meat does not mean eating tons of fatty foods as protein replacements.)
It will be a challenge for me as I don't like tofu, lentils or red/black beans. That said, I fully recognize the health benefits of eliminating meat from my diet. So...I'm willing to experiment with tofu, but let's aim for tofu in terms of stir-fry and maybe chili or spaghetti...not tofu as in "this chocolate dream pie made with silken tofu is fantastic! really, I promise!" ('cause I believed them and they're wrong.)
I also need a cheering squad/accountability squad. I need people to pester me about working out and what I eat. That might be in the comments here (because I get email notice) or even in the comments over there once I start posting later today. In an ideal world, some of you would join me. :) If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll post weekly accountability posts here on The Lactivist where everyone can share their progress.
So, what do you say folks? Anyone have any tips, resources, ideas? Anyone want to join me in publicly saying "yeah, yeah, I'm fat. Let's get this fixed?"
Oh and is it cheating to eat a bunch of junk today to get it out of my system and to give me more weight to lose? (I kid! I kid!)
Labels: Healthy Eating, Healthy Living, Milk Banking and Sharing
One of the things I've always liked about breastfeeding is the fact that it's a sustainable resource. There's no waste involved. 
The entire thing sits up on two concrete blocks so that gravity does the work to get the water out. You can see in the picture over there on the left that you simply turn the spout and the water comes out.