Day 1

Well it's a start.  If I could find our scale I'd go get an accurate weight for my first day starting towards my new weight loss goal.  However, I have a pretty good idea where I stand.  Eating wise I didn't do too bad today, at least until the French bread came out of the oven with dinner tonight.

I started off the day with some old fashioned Quaker oats, sweetened with cinnamon and raisins.  I actually measured to make sure I made enough for only one serving. I never do that!  For lunch I had a hamburger leftover from the grill yesterday.  I ate it on a whole wheat bun with lettuce, tomato, and red onion only.  No ketchup or mayonnaise!  I was proud that I actually ate raw onion and surprised that I actually didn't want to spit it out!  I had a glass of lemonade and split a banana with Gray for a sweet little dessert.  When we got back from the park, I counted out 16 wheat thins for a quick snack.  Dinner consisted of a  bowl of homemade lentil soup and French bread.

I know I ate way more of the bread than I should have, but it is virtually fat free and I ate it plain.  I did all the work to make it so that has to count for something right?  And there was definitely no need to add butter or anything but a little broth from the soup to that warm crusty bread.  I think I'm going to slice up the rest of the loaf to try a healthier version of French toast for breakfast in the morning.  The recipe is just like any other French toast recipe with just a few minor modifications.  It calls for soaking the bread in a mixture of egg whites and low fat milk along with the typical vanilla and cinnamon and cooking on a griddle sprayed with cooking spray instead of melted butter.  I always use a low calorie sugar free maple syrup so that will round things out quite nicely.

Besides working on eating healthier, I have to work on getting more active.  It's hard to convince myself some days that grocery shopping and laundry are not aerobic activities (even though I've left the grocery store sweating from having to handle 2 kids and a cart full of groceries).  I found this website tonight that is a complete eye opener.  It allows you to list your current weight and the amount of calories you'd like to burn off.  Then it displays a list of common activities and various sports and exercises and tells you how long you would have to do that activity to burn the amount of calories you selected.  It really makes you think twice when you want a snack.  Look at the package and see how many calories it is, and then plug that number into the website.  See if it's really worth all that time running, bicycling or whatever else and decide if you really want to eat it!  Makes it much easier to return that snack to the shelf or the fridge (or better yet, the trash!).

I did stick to my new rule and got out of the house today (something else that should be classified as an aerobic activity around here!)  I thoroughly enjoyed walking along the trails at the park today, but it was more of a leisurely walk pushing Alia the stroller, stopping frequently for Gray to check out rocks or pick up a leaf.  He also enjoyed some time on their playground which is much bigger than the park right beside our house.  I wish I had been able to do a little more "moving" though.  I'd love to go for a jog in the mornings when I get up, but it's just not an option.  I'll figure out something eventually.  It's all a work in progress!