Time to get serious.... this year I am going to do it...

Ok, I'm now in my forties, overweight, still try to be a weekend warrior, and I love food. I have been riding my bike and exercising quite a bit over the last year... and I'm pretty much in the same place I was a year ago. I am 224 pounds... this is tough, because I was always the skinny kid. Looking back I can see it happening. I ate out a ton more, and food became a friend, instead of a fuel. I do not want to live to eat anymore, I want to eat better to live better.

So Saturday I downloaded a Calorie Count app for my phone - I am going to try to watch my portion size and calories. I 'think' I ate well before - just too much. When you think of portions, I always think back to High School health class - your stomach is approximately the size of your fist. I was definitely eating too much. And as the economy went bad and everyone was watching their money, when we were going out to eat, I would sometimes pick food by the best deal for the dollar rather than best fuel for my body.

I'm posting this to be accountable. I know so many people struggle with it - and I hope that you can find something, no matter how small it is, from this that helps you.

To help my protions, about a week ago I actually started this, but I would spend some time preparing food for meals ahead of time. Cooking it if possible so that it just needs a microwave reheat to eat. This week I have continued it, but added the calorie count. One thing I got from my sister a while back was planning dinners out for the week. I found it does 2 things. #1 - saves you money when you go to the grocery because you know what you need to buy and not shopping for food there. And #2 lets me plan a healthy food (easy to calculate calorie). Sometimes this is hard to do, and other times I don't have enough days in the week for things I think of...lol.

I had my first calorie problem yesterday while riding my bike. I ate breakfast, mid morning snack, and lunch and headed in to ride the bike trainer for 3 hours. Well - 2 hours in I ran out of gas. I had no more energy... I couldn't turn the pedals over with barely any resistance on them. I did not eat enough before to complete it. I did eat a mini Clif Bar and a Clif Mojo bar during the ride.. but they just probably bandaided the situation. But I was done at 2 hours 26 mins... I had burnt over 1,000 calories. Way more than I had eaten all day. Lesson learned....

Ok here is a picture of the menu board we use...


And here is the frig... food precooked and packed, ready to go...


I am losing weight already - my goal is to lose it without losing muscle....

Life is a Journey...