Friday, March 11, 2011

Day 6...Travel

So I am home visiting family, which is really nice, and makes me happy to see my family and friends.  In my family though we all have different ideas about what nutrition means.  Some members feel that it means cutting out all carbs, others think that it means lowering your food intake to one or two meals a day, and I think that it is a combination of diet and exercise.  You see I have been on this weight loss path before.  Several years ago I hired a personal trainer, joined a local gym, and put my life in this trainers hands.  She not only gave me an exercise routine to follow, but she mapped out several meals for me to help me get the most out of what I was doing.  I followed both plans she gave me and I lost around 20 pounds.  I couldn't afford the trainer anymore and had to quit, and even though I had these tools she had given me, and was still a gym member I just couldn't make this plan work anymore.  There is one thing that I learned from all of this though, with my body I need to reduce my caloric and fat intake, as well as increase my activity level.  This is hard to do outside of my comfort zone at home.  Here I have little to do with what foods are available to eat.



Last night I ate out for the first time since I began this journey.  My family eats out a lot since we all are picky eaters and it's just easier than trying to find and make something that we will all eat.  Eating out though is a whole new ballgame for me.  I found myself looking at the menu trying to figure out what I could and couldn't have based on my daily caloric and fat allotment.  We went to Applebee's, a restaurant that does make finding foods I could eat a little easier due to their 550 calorie menu, but what about places that don't do that?  The Alli plan suggests you look up the menu of a place before you go and have a game plan before you arrive...yeah imagine my family planning for where we are going to eat if we can't plan a meal we can all consume!  So I just have to hope that what I choose is going to be a good option for me when I go somewhere.  Anyone have any tips on eating out?

Another challenge while I'm visiting is going to be exercising.  I've begun doing yoga...ok really what I'm doing is watching someone else on a video do yoga while I attempt to make myself look like they do.  I'm sure it's quite a site!  Whatever I'm doing though I'm sure that it is burning some calories.  I've also begun walking.  I brought my yoga mat and video with me and doing that in the mornings doesn't seem to be too much of a problem, but I haven't tried walking since I've been here yet.  I just feel like I am less active here than I am at home.  Maybe this will get better, I mean this is only day two of being here.

Anyways I still feel like I am on the right path.  With the exception of some sinus headaches in the mornings due to weather changes, and a kitten who still doesn't know the difference between night and day my sleep schedule is becoming more of an actual schedule.  I think that when I get home from this trip I might even try phase two of goal one and add a scheduled study time in.  We'll see how much this trip throws things off for me first though.

Oh, and one last thing, at the end of next week I am going to have my first weigh-in.  Fingers crossed I've lost some weight!

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