Let the Merriment Begin!

Today is the first day of the holiday season! Well, for me it is. I hung the wreath. The first step.

I love the Christmas season - every single thing: the buying, the wrapping, the cooking, the eating [well, you know about that!], the tree, the music, the everything else. Unfortunately, Mitchell is less enthusiastic, altho he puts up with my enthusiasm for it. And, he does like some of it - he just doesn't want to admit it.

So, step one: The wreath is up. Previous years I used this wreath with big red poinsettias on it, but my wonderful sister-in-law gave me the oversized metal "ornaments" for Christmas last year. I liked them so much that I chased down a local source and bought a couple more. I love the look now.

Ho, ho, ho!

Kicking it up a Notch

So... the 10-10-10 Get in Better Shape (aka Lose Some Weight) program is not going so well. After a week's vacation that included five mornings of tennis and two days on a bike, I "only" gained five pounds - putting me at a new lifetime high weight. Not at all the sort of record one wants to set - ever!

It's time to kick it up a notch.

I have a lot of things going for me:

1) I have all the skills and experience I need for this. I have lost weight successfully a number of times. [Altho it's also true that I am even more successful at gaining it back. We will deal with that later - in about six months!]

2) I have support. Stacy (a Wise Woman), you all in blogland, and starting today Mitchell. More on that later.

3) I have found an exercise that I actually like - Jazzercise - and have been slowly increasing the number of times a week I go. And after a three-month break, I am ready to start playing tennis again.

4) I have a new tool. I know that journaling is incredibly helpful in the weight loss game, but I have not been doing it. Apparently having to write it down if it goes into the mouth causes us to either not put it in the mouth at all, or to choose a healthier option. You know, a cup of tea instead of a tablespoon of peanut butter (right out of the jar!). But, keeping track in my head is just not doing the trick.

5) And, perhaps most important of all, I know that I can do it. It will be hard, but I can do it.

And, I'm sharing the new tool with you. It's a free website called MyFitnessPal. You set up an account, set your goals and create a profile and then track both your food intake and your exercise on whatever basis you want - daily, weekly, or whatever. That sounds a lot like journaling, doesn't it? The modern difference is that the site calculates how much exercise and how many calories you need for a slow and sensible weight loss and provides the info on how many fat grams, carbs, protein grams and fiber grams on a daily basis. As you enter your foods consumed, it calculates what you have left. At the end of the day - when you have also entered any exercise - it gives you a daily summary.

You can do weigh-ins as you wish and it keeps a running track, as well as calculating BMI - now, that's scary - and resting metabolism and all sorts of other nerdy statistical stuff. There are message boards, blogs, all sorts of community resources. You have the option to post your weight loss to your Facebook account - like I'm going to do that!! And if you have one of those fancy phones, you can access your account from there and do your inputting on the fly.

Mitchell found the site this morning and shared it with me. He announced that he wants to lose some weight, too, and we are going to work together on this. It helps so much to have an in-the-house partner. We planned dinner together tonight and calculated how much each of us could have, and he's already talking about how to make soup tomorrow, so it will be a good partnership for us both.

If you are interested, please join us. We're gonna get healthy ... and a bit slimmer! My goal is significant for a short woman, so it may take nine months or more, so I am looking at 11-11-11 as a goal date. How do you like that?