Measuring it all

Last Sunday I talked about my constant attempt to eat healthy and lose a few pounds.  And last Sunday I set myself up for success.  I wasn't 100% successful, I still made not such great choices, but I made them knowing that it was OK. In fact, I stuck to my plan in the face of being asked to go get something for lunch that I LOVE...I still stuck to my plan. So that felt good.

I only got 1 work out in last week even though I had plenty of time and opportunity. The lazy won last week. In fact, the ONE work out I got was a 30 minute walk that I almost cancelled because I didn't bring my shoes with me. The gal I was walking with said, let's just walk in our flip flops and see how far we get. So we did. Knowing my feet hurt on a good day I thought for sure they'd hurt after that...turns out they did not.

So why was last week so easy for me? Because I planned. I swear the best way to make myself even remotely close to being successful is to plan.

Last Sunday I went grocery shopping with a very specific list. I had a very specific meal plan for the week and I took the time to do all the prep work.  Instead of letting myself when hungry determining the serving size, I pre-packaged all my meals into serving sizes. For example, hummus. I love hummus. I'm sure I assume I only eat 2 T in a sitting but can bet I eat more. So I put 2 T of hummus in containers and had that with my carrots. I also measured out all my ham for my sandwiches - 2 oz of ham is quite a bit it turns out.

By the end of the week I was happy with my decisions. Found areas to improve and felt motivated enough to move forward. I lost no weight last week, but at the end of the day, that's a number. And I think that the real success comes from sticking "mostly" to a plan AND even having the plan.

I did a lot of thinking about failure last week to. Failure on all levels, not just weight loss. And wondered how we can set up future generations of girls to not feel failure around every corner. I think there's a future blog in my thoughts so I'll just leave it there.

This week is going to be much of the same. I've got my grocery list ready, my work out clothes on, my menu printed, my recipes printed...and I'm good to go. It's a sunny, beautiful (and hot) day today and there's promise in the air.