May Just Happen

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White-board to do list: 1. Use White-board. — Ambitious me…

Those of you who know me—i.e. all three of my readers—know that I’ve tried to be more health-conscious in fits and spurts over the last few years. I have gone through brief periods of using the livestrong.com diet/exercise tracking tool (as I mentioned here and here), and I have also tried using the one over at sparkpeople.com. While the “Spark People” website sounds a little more like some sort of new-age religious movement than I’d like, I was really impressed to see that they offer a customizable meal plan generator tool that will even spit out a grocery shopping list for you. But in spite of the availability of these and many other self-improvement tools, I have not yet found lasting success with following through on one of these plans. I mentioned something to this effect when talking with Siel from Green LA Girl a couple months ago, and she suggested that blogging about it might be a way to boost my accountability to myself and get ongoing encouragement and support from friends. I was initially a little resistant to that idea, simply because I’m not crazy about the idea of opening myself to all variety of suggestions and opinions about how I should proceed. But then, that could also have simply been a handy excuse for not holding myself accountable to my goals.

After giving it some thought, I’ve decided that maybe I can approach it differently than I have in the past by taking a couple very small, manageable steps at a time instead of trying to overhaul multiple areas of my life all at once. So, without further ado, and just in time to coincide with the stress of my student loans going back into repayment, I’m offering up the first few goals I will tackle. And because I know you’re all just dying to keep tabs on my progress, I will report back here weekly to let you know how it’s going.Here are a few of the goals I’m pursuing:

No french fries.
No meals after 9pm on weeknights.
Sugar/dessert no more than 2 times a week.

I was going to post this before the 1st of May, by the way, but punctuality is not one of the goals I’m currently pursuing!

Comments

12 responses to “May Just Happen”

May 3, 2011
chris
For the record, item #1 does not apply to the Frysmith truck. (Good catch, TK.)
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May 3, 2011
moye
TEAM NO FRENCH FRIES!!!!
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May 3, 2011
moye
But smushed potatoes still count.
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1. May 3, 2011
  chris
  w00t!
  Reply
May 3, 2011
Colinski
Woo! Now we just have to help keep you accountable.
;)
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May 3, 2011
Marjorie
I’m going through some struggles with my weight as well. I have joked to a couple of my friends that I might take a hatchet to my ass if it isn’t gone by the time I turn 31. I have sworn of all soda and I am thinking about telling sugar to go to hell as well. I’m the last person who needs to lecture anyone about weight and eating right. So I’ll definitely support you if that is what you need, and I’ll be reading if that is any motivation at all. :-)
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May 3, 2011
Marjorie
I just wrote of instead “of” instead of “off” on the blog of a masters degree holder. *feels stupid*
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May 3, 2011
Marjorie
Can someone please tell me what the hell is wrong with my typing because I have no idea what I just did. *feels even dumber*
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1. May 3, 2011
  chris
  Don’t sweat it, Marjorie. We may judge you but we’ll politely keep it to ourselves :-p
  Reply
May 4, 2011
Marjorie
Dang I wish I had me more of one of them there ejoomucashuns!
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May 4, 2011
Siel
This just occurred to me — I think maybe because you named exactly 3 items — but have you considered using Health Month? I blogged about it here. Basically it’s trying to make getting healthy a game — that includes encouraging friends. You can set up to 3 rules free. And at the end of the month you get an analysis of which types of goals work best — i.e. do rules vs. don’t rules. All your current rules are don’t rules — From what you’ve described in past convos, my small suggestion would be to make at least 1 of those rules a do rule. No need to make getting healthy seem like all no-nos and deprivation at the get go :)
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1. May 10, 2011
  chris
  Yes, I created a profile on there when you blogged about it, but once I set my goals I never quite figured out what to do next. I think it was blocked by the web filtering software at work so it can be hard to find time to stop by and check it out in the evening when I’m catching up on my other social networking stuff. I’ll play around with it some more.
  Reply