The Weekly Update

The past week was a difficult one in terms of continuing my ethic of exercise. I only did three days this week, although each day remained a minimum of 45 minutes and at least 2 miles on the treadmill. In some respects I think I have hit a plateau, or a wall if you prefer, in my progress of walking faster or longer. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, I just need to make sure that I don't let it affect my motivation to exercise in the first place. Even if I don't make significant progress on that front, doing the routine each morning, or at least most of the days of the week, I will make progress towards living a more healthy life. I am hopeful that this week will be better and I will get back to at least 5 days, but part of me knows that having three days being my lowest number since I started this about 6 or 7 weeks ago, is a good sign that a commitment to exercise it becoming a larger part of my life.

While I was somewhat disappointed in my exercise this past week, I felt like I had one of my better weeks on the food front. I made a lot of healthier choices, reduced the number of calories I was eating, and ate better foods, particularly fruit, than what I usually do. The most significant change has come from avoiding dining out for dinner too often, and by taking my lunch to work. In retrospect, I can see how what I would eat for lunch when I would go out was truly detracting from my overall health. On many days, my lunch meal was my largest meal of the day. Now, after making a small breakfast (typically a bowl of cereal) part of the morning routine, I take a deli sandwich (usually chicken or turkey, with light mayo, mustard, on whole wheat bread – no cheese, which is hard for me), along with an apple and some yogurt. Some days this past week, as I noticed I was getting hungry mid afternoon, which led to wanting to dine out because I knew I would get more food, I decided to take a second apple to eat. That worked out really well, and when I stick to my breakfast, what I take for lunch, and what I plan for dinner, I usually still have a few hundred calories left to have a snack later in the evening if I wish, which I try to make some type of fruit if we have it around. I don't intend to count calories all the time, but its been educating to learn more about my eating habits, and just trying to make better decisions in general in how much I am eating and what I am eating.

There's obviously still a long way to go, but I have noticed some small changes that indicate forward progress. Nothing as monumental as clothes fitting better, but it seems that my face, particularly my neck, may have thinned a little bit, and my fingers tend to be a little thinner as my wedding ring slides off much easier, and sometimes accidentally. At some point, if this continues, I might have to stop wearing it for awhile or get it resized pretty quickly. That's probably still a ways off, but it will be a nice thing to do, a little symbol, a token act so to speak, of the progress that's been made.