Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Day three - staying on track

The only reason I am still within my daily allowance of calories today is because I have all those exercise calories earned this morning. Otherwise I would be over by about 250. I have eaten all real, healthy food (except for one square of chocolate, my indulgence of choice) but I have had large serves of high-calorie items like nuts and cheese and spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. My bowl of pasta was huge. I had a salad as well, which I had after the pasta and forced myself to eat, and I am feeling quite overfull.

Even if I am eating good food (I consider things like pasta and cheese good food even if they are high in calories/fat/carbohydrate) I still need to consider portion sizes and only eating when I am actually hungry. Something to work on.

But; today I have done my exercise, tracked all my food, drunk 6 glasses of water (and will have more before bed), stayed within my total calories, and eaten 2 fruit and 2 dairy. And I won't eat after 9 pm. My only vegetables were at dinner - a salad plus the tomato, onion and mushroom in the pasta sauce. Probably 3 serves total, I need to incorporate vegetables into my lunch. A pretty good day though. I think I am actually starting to feel proud of myself. 3 days is great.

I also feel a little less sleepy-tired today. I think I slept better last night. I did wake up several times from about 3.30 am onwards, checking the time, but I will learn to trust the alarm. It is hard getting up so early, but also hard needing to go to bed so early. I feel like I hardly get to see my husband (who doesn't get home until 7 and sometimes much later). And I have taped a couple of favourite TV shows but haven't had time to watch them.

Work-wise this has kind of been bad timing, in that I have a big job on hand that was supposed to be due today but will be 1 or 2 days late. It might have been late anyway, but I have been tireder than usual and haven't been able to sit up and work in the evening. I would have really loved being able to have an afternoon nap or two as well. I work freelance, so some weeks I would have been able to. But not this week. Not until I get this work done, anyway.

As a new lifestyle, I feel this is mostly do-able. I am assuming I will get used to early mornings, and I kind of hate to say this but I am already sort of enjoying the exercise. That is hard to admit, because it makes me feel like I should have been exercising more for years. But I have to put the past in the past. I will tell guilt and shame and self-loathing that they have no power over me!

I think the worst thing about this new exercise regime, in the long term, is the reduction of time with my husband. I hope that when I get more used to it I won't have to go to bed quite so early, but even so I will be going to bed at least an hour before my husband. To get 8 hours sleep I need to go to sleep at 9.45 pm, and even if I fall asleep relatively quickly (which I don't do now) I would want to be in bed at 9.30. That is so early! I am not totally sure that that is a sustainable routine. I have early exercise class on 4 days a week, later on Friday and Sunday, and I have Saturday off. I suppose I only have to go to bed early from Sunday to Wednesday nights. And I have various meetings on 3 Wednesday nights a month, I only get home about 9.30. I'm thinking that Thursday morning - the fifth straight day of exercise and after an early night - is going to be the hardest one! Thursday is another Pump class.

Well, I have made the committment to do this for 2 weeks, then I will see how well it has worked.

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