Systems Update -- Health Habits

Though I am using a different logo, I'm following the Happy to be Home "2 Moms, 20 pounds" meme for Weigh In Wednesday.

By the way, I think my favorite posts ever about health and eating are at bearing blog: master chronology (a whole weight loss journal) and constellation of habits.

So here's my situation. When I weighed myself this morning I was at 145 pounds. I am 5 feet 8 inches and this puts me within a pound of a BMI of 22, which is just fine for a 46 year old female. It's also 18 pounds more than I was in college and 13 pounds more than I'd like to be, but I can live with that.

The main reasons I keep up with these accountability projects is so that (1) I stay in my target range (it's harder now than it used to be when I was younger) and (2) because I'm really not a very healthy person unless I try to be intentional. Sometimes I feel guilty about posting about my food issues because I don't technically have a weight problem. On the other hand, I think I really do have a food problem. It has gotten better in the last 20 plus years but I still have to manage it. Jen's Saint Diet posts are quite insightful about the spiritual effects of food issues.

So I'll be focusing primarily on health. I would sort of like to lose about ten pounds but that's secondary. The main thing is that when I start eating too much junk, my energy level dives, I get less involved in life, and I usually end up depressed. It's partly a psychological thing I need to deal with.

So here I'll try to list my goals and challenges:

Food

My basic longstanding goals are:

• eat breakfast within an hour of getting up,
• eat at regular intervals during the day (breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner with an optional extra snack either at mid-morning or at bedtime if I really need one),
• limit carbs of any kind and especially white flour and sugar,
• eat a bunch of vegetables during one meal at least, and
• eat fruit (or any carb) only alongside a protein.

My bigger-view goal is to stay with these goals at least 90% of the time, and when I get off track, to get back on track within a couple of days (gradually, if necessary).

Water

I do all right on water most of the time. Fortunately I love water and dislike juice and soda, so there's a hazard avoided right there.

The goal is maintenance here.

Exercise

I'm a sluggish person -- temperamentally a combination of melancholic and phlegmatic, and allergic to sun, some airborne outdoors things, plus my own sweat (due to eczema).

Favorite exercises: a hike through the woods, riding the exercise bike with a book propped on the rack, and, um, that's about all.

I am trying to read books about running because I like the IDEA of running, just have difficulty with the actual doing of it.

My Walk to Rivendell ticker is here. I probably need to set a specific goal per day. Maybe I'll start with 3 miles on the bike, ie 20 miles per week, and go from there.

Challenges

Listing the big long-term ones here and hoping to come up with workable solutions over time. For me, One Solution doesn't seem to work. Toolboxes work better, but better still if there's an order of priority.

• Carb spirals -- where I have a few bites of some sugary or carby thing and then can't stop, sometimes for days, weeks, months.
• Dislike of exertion (see above). I usually exercise for a few days consistently and then just...stop.
• Plus the melancholy tendency to get discouraged when I meet with difficulties. What usually happens is that I bring my phlegmatic side in to console the melancholy side ("it's not so bad...") and then basically just let the whole things slide. I have to take the emotion out of it.

Successes

Since this is the baseline I won't list any.

Plans for the next week

Eat regular meals and snacks and refrain from eating in between meals. If unachievable, resort to carrots or salad or something of the sort.

Weigh every day.

Weigh-in

I have a ticker over here. and there is also a chart showing my definitely cyclical history over the past couple of years.