Planning and organising

I spent my afternoon preparing the mother of all organisation charts. I am so stoked with my efforts at colouring and planning and scheduling things for the next 7 weeks that I want to tell you all about it. 

I mentioned that I am going home to Australia for a visit in February and have only seven weeks to get as fit and healthy as I can in preparation for the emotional turmoil such a reunion will bring. I have a wonderful family and good friends back home but I find I have moved on from a lot of relationships there (and the distance has truly proven who real friends are). When I go back, I want to fortify myself and the best way I know how is to feel as good about myself as I possibly can. That way any well-meaning individuals who in the past may not have treated me the way I would have liked them to, can still do what they want and say what they think and will still freely give their opinions on my life, but I will be stronger and not take their 'advice' to heart. 

So I planned and organised and did bubble diagrams all to figure out the best way to make myself feel as good as I can. What will make me happy? How can I break this down to a measurable action? And finally I created the Chart. It's beautiful (to me) and took the better part of a day to create. I then went grocery shopping and bought some stickers and coloured pens and now every day I am checking boxes and colouring in and putting smiley stickers down when I have completed an objecticve for the day. Am i a bit anal? Yes. But it's making me feel good and that is what is important.

Resolutions

I don't like celebrating new years. Or more specifically I don't like celebrating it in a big way- I do like the opportunity it gives me to re-address issues from the last year and make plans and goals for the coming year. I have a problem with sticking to them and am trying to improve the way I manage them however. This blog for instance is a means of keeping accountability for my weight loss actions and endeavours.

So I'm planning my resolutions in bite size chunks. I want to tackle a week at a time right now and am planning weekly goals and challenges that I think are manageable.

This week I resolved to record all my food and track my calories and also exercise 3 times - separate from the workout I get at work during sales. So far so good. It's day two of week 1

Crazy christmas

I'm so glad it's over! I love the holiday season but I'm glad it only comes once a year.

I have not written daily as I have been consumed with work and homesickness and emotional upheaval and shopping and so on. I'm tired. But I am resolved to get going again on this journey.

I have something to look forward to as well. I'm going home to Australia for a holiday in February. Its only 7 weeks away. And seeing as it's most decidedly beach weather there (almost year round!) I really want my body to be as bikini worthy as it can get.

It starts (again) now!

Self control improving

I must be in the right frame of mind as I am feeling good about giving up bad things. I am still having some not so good things but not nearly enough to do damage to my daily allowance.

I want to ponder this some more - why is it so easy to over ride your self control at times and others it's easy to be strong? Have we got a finite amount of self power?

Sleep loss

I have noticed that I find it difficult to fall asleep when I am losing weight. I am not sure if it's because my body is hungry or if it's burning fat and all fired up. I normally sleep 8 hours easily and am fine to nod off and wake up when I need to but this last week has been difficult.

And I'm tired. I am flat out at work and know my body is physically tired - I feel it in my bones - but I just can't sleep. I'm not thinking hard on anything or stressing out about stuff. I'm not.

I want to sleep.

Has anyone experienced this before?

Full of it

Uh oh.

I am feeling homesick for christmas in australia with my family. My mum would buy loads of goodies for the holidays and have them out all the time like a smorgasbord. Candies and nuts and fruits and pies and cookies for almost a month. It was a very unhealthy tradition but one that I am currently missing out on as I live on the other side of the world.

I have been getting emails and cards and msgs wishing me well and missing me over the holidays and I have been so busy at work that I haven't had time to feel sentimental.

But today was my day off and it all caught up with me. I caved in and went to the store and bought candy and shortbread and other holiday treats. I am at a crossroads and feel lost.

Madness and managing it

So I've mentioned a couple of times that I work in retail. And as you would expect it's a little busy this time of year. I'm under-exaggerating. I have never seen this kind of busy. Quite frankly, after working so much overtime in the last few days in order to manage the midnight madness hours, and managing to stay on track of my weightloss, I am so unbelievably proud of myself.

In a way I can thank my work for not screwing up my diet as I haven't had time to be bored and overeat or anything bad. And I'm running laps around the store so definitely keeping up the exercise.

I'm just sore and tired and need a day off!

All around goodness

Another day down and I'm feeling good. I have not gone hungry nor felt deprived. Almost as importantly I have not felt like it was easy or that I could reward myself and then overindulged.

Each day is a new day and I have 1500 calories to consume however I want to. With a frantic work schedule I'm trying to be prepared with healthier snack/meal choices and working in a mall I have access to other options when I'm not so prepared.

I feel good.

Another one down

The joy I felt this morning weighing in 1 pound down was only beaten by the joy I got finding the perfect christmas gift for my nephew.
I am back on track and feeling good about it.

188.2

Damages

One beer is all it takes to make me feel gross all day after. Sad isn't it?

I met my best mate last night for a pint and a catch up and now all day I feel lethargic. My head hurts, my skin feels gross. I used to be able to hold my liquor. I'm sure it's not the last three days vigilance that have turned me against it but rather a dirty beer tap or my residual cold. It's just thy the one beer doesn't seem worth this pain today.

I feel okay but my choice in having it - I mean that I allowed for it in my calorie count. I just think I'll stick to diet coke next time.

Keep my spirits up

Today was my day off work. I still went in to work however as in the lead up to Christmas my job gets insane. But I'm feeling pretty good anyway.

Energy is high spirits are lifted and I've been counting calories well too.

Yay

Off to a good start

Back on the plan and trying to write daily. I'm convinced my pants are looser today.

I like playing games. I can challenge myself and see what I can achieve. I also quit when I don't see results or get bored of the same challenge. I want to focus on overcoming this quitting mentality. It's my objective this month.

Each month I want to set a personal goal to work toward - a non scale objective that is still health and weight loss related. If you haven't checked out Gretchen Reuben's 'The Happiness Project' yet, I strongly recommend it. She challenges herself to focus on small themed projects for a month at a time aiming to increase her awareness of and general daily happiness.

So I'm not quitting this month. Easy as that.

New start

I've been way off plan. Waaaaaaay off plan. So far off that I forgot there was a plan. I've realized that I don't have the capacity to multitask something like this along with say looking for a new job. Both are things that I really need to address but take up huge amounts of time and energy.
So - prioritise.

I have put my job hunt back on hold as the job I have is sufficient just not satisfying. In the mean time the added energy I will gain from refocusing on my health will hopefully enable me to balance a future job hunt more easily. At the moment it's got to be all or nothing.

So today is a new start.