Old Habits, New Ways of Life

I had some awesome ideas on what to blog about today, but go figure, they literally flew out of my head.  So instead, I'm going to talk a little bit about how I'm trying to stay healthy with my new life.

When I joined my last job, I was more focused on the fact that I was working my first full time job and that I wanted to make a good impression.  My focus was entirely on my career, which was the right mindset...but it blew up in my face because I neglected everything else.

Over the course of two years, no joke, I gained nearly 20 pounds.  I can't even tell you how hard it is to write that.  We've all read those magazine articles about how if you do x (ex: drink a whole milk chai latte) x times a week (how about 3 times) over the course of x years (let's say 2), you will gain x pounds (how about 20?).  My downfall was not chai lattes (at least not totally), it was the general lifestyle where I didn't focus on the pizza, the happy hours, the venti coffee drinks...and then I woke up one morning (when I started this blog) and asked myself "what have you done?"  I lost 8 pounds.  Then I celebrated and crapped out.  Gained the 8 back, plus 1.

About the time that I began to realize I couldn't be happy and stay in my previous job, I also began to realize that I couldn't continue to treat myself the way I was treating myself.

You've read the story of how I managed to get through those months before I joined my new company, so now you know it's possible, but I was really worried about the transition.  As unhappy as I was, I had a schedule I knew how to maintain, but I also had horrible habits.

If I didn't get up to go to the gym, I was usually up about 15 minutes before I had to walk out the door.  I was hitting the right caloric intake, but at the risk of of getting the wrong nutrition.  How do you make a day's worth of food in 5 minutes?  Easy!  You throw a lean cuisine, a 100 calorie pack, and some other processed stuff into a bag and off you go.

I promised myself when I started this job that I would live my life in a way that I was enjoying it.  Every minute of it.

I have promised myself to do the following:
- Make a meal plan every weekend that does not involved processed food
- Wake up an hour before I have to leave
- Eat breakfast EVERY morning
- Make my lunch every day or have a plan if I have a client lunch meeting
- Make a gym schedule and stick to it (schedule must be flexible)
- Enjoy every meal that I eat (because calories suck if they taste bad)

I know it's only day three, but I've gotten up consistently an hour before I had to leave for work, gotten to work early for 30 minutes alone to have coffee and watch the news.  I made a menu plan, cooked on Sunday, and have stuck with it.  My gym schedule hit a bump tonight, but because it was flexible, I'm going tomorrow night and taking tonight to relax.

I have 8 pounds to go--I added two pounds to my goal weight loss, otherwise, I am proud to say that I've maintained my weightloss for the past two months and that as soon as I sign up for my trainer, I'll be back on track with all systems go to burn off 8 pounds by the middle of June.

I think the bottom line of this meandering post is this: if you're unhappy with where you are, nothing says you cannot change that.  I know that I need milestones to help me change things, but think about what it is that you're dissatisfied with.  Do you rush in the morning?  Skip the gym?  Rely on take out?  Make an action plan and change it, because from where I'm sitting, and maybe it's the new job talking (it's so awesome, btw, I love being there), but changing something that makes you unhappy, as small as it may be, magnifies in how happy it makes you when you change it.