Week One: Goals

I know it's Wednesday, but maybe I'll roll over each week on Wednesdays? Start when and where you are-- no reason to wait until the arbitrary Monday!

Ultimate goal: Cut out all added sugar
Week 1 goal: Cut out sweet treats. 

I never thought I had a sweet tooth until I started paying attention!!
-B is currently potty training and gets M&Ms for his successes (I know, I know... food rewards aren't the best. We tried other things at first, but this is what is actually working). He would get 2 M&Ms, and I would get 2 M&Ms. Or 5. or 10.
-Girl Scout cookies are in my house. I tell myself I can eat just 2 and be satisfied. But I end up eating a third, and sometimes fourth after lunch. Then another 2-3-4 after dinner.
-When I drink my coffee I either like it really gussied up (mmmm maple & brown sugar lattes...), OR I like my plain old regular lattes and coffee with cinnamon toast or some sort of sweet roll or chocolate.

This needs to stop. I'm going to talk more about this concept later, but I am an Abstainer. It means I don't do moderation well (this is part of my eating disorder behavior, too). I'm an all or nothing sort of person and for this stage of my work, I am just going to abstain from sweet treats all together. When I feel more secure, and when these items are less of a binge temptation, I will see if I can add them back in once a week or something.

Ultimate Goal: Do some sort of workout/body movement/stretching activity every day
Week 1 Goal: Complete trainer workout (including a short walk) 3 times a week. Do stretching program on the off days. 

This goes with the Abstainer idea. I need to make sure I am doing something intentional to move my body every single day. If left to my own devices, especially in these cold winter months (It's not even 30* here today!), I just cuddle up under a blanket and read books all day. Luckily, my kids help with this sedentary lifestyle some. I am always going up stairs to check on them, picking things up around the house, chasing B down the sidewalk when we go pick up the girls. When it's warmer/my back is fully healed, we will walk the girls to and from school again. I did this the entire first semester, and it was great! It is .6 miles to their school, so it was really nice to walk about 2 miles each school day. I'm looking forward to that happening again!

I do have a trainer and she is awesome. I see her just once a month, where she comes to my home and goes through the month's exercises with me. Then I get an emailed plan of my workouts for the month. This is really the best set up for me. The gym isn't a good option for me right now, plus everything I need to do to get my core strengthened I can do at home. Her plans include doing the week's work out 3 days. I am doing a stretching set she put together for me the very first week when I was still pretty injured on the off days to keep the healing process going.

Ultimate goal: Drink 120 ounces of water every day. 
Week 1 goal: Drink 80 ounces of water each day this week. 

This is obvious, right? Water is important. I hear all the time you should drink the number of ounces that equals half of your weight, so this is sort of around there. Seems like a good place to start and adjustments can be made as needed. That's a LOT of water. I have a 20oz straw bottle I'm using, but I need to figure out how much I am actually drinking because I need ice in my water.


I guess those are my current ultimate goals. Notice I am not focusing on a number of pounds to lose in these big goals. I won't try to be all high and mighty about it-- the numbers are definitely in the back of my mind. But I am really going to try to keep them there-- in the back of the mind. I want to keep the focus on building healthy habits, and creating goals that are sustainable long term for me.

I'll be back early next week with a post about the whole Abstainer/Moderator concept!