Step by Step, Three Choices: Day 4

Thursday, September 24th

1 - I bought a few 'Full Bars' today. Supposedly, they're a healthy snack bar to eat 30 minutes before a meal to make you feel somewhat full so that you eat less. My problem has usually been the types of food I eat, and not as much the quantity or portions. But, I'll give them a try anyhow. I had an "Apple Caramel Crisp" Full Bar for breakfast, and it wasn't too bad. After waking up at 7:30 and eating the bar around 9:30, I wasn't hungry for lunch until about 1:15. Not bad! (Check out www.fullbar.com for more info. Rest assured, this isn't a paid endorsement. It's not an endorsement at all; I don't know if I even like them yet.) :-)

2 - I spent 20 of my 30 lunch break minutes walking around my new work 'hood (NoHo). I picked up lunch at 'wichcraft. I got the soup & sandwich combo which was TINY. I'm talking supermodel food. The tiny friggin' finger sandwich was delicious. (Multigrain bread with goat cheese, walnut pesto (very little oil), watercress, celery, avocado.) The soup was tiny and average. It was a watery split pea soup with "olive oil croutons". There were 2 little croutons, so I wasn't worried about them being unhealthy. I haven't been able to find calorie counts online anywhere, but I'm fairly sure that these didn't have crazy hidden fats. Even so, the portions were so small that I'm not worried. So to clarify: Today's #2 Choice was a decent walk and mini-sized food portions.

3 - This is harder than I thought. Anyone have any tips to make me reach three healthy choices each day?

Step by Step, Three Choices: Day 3

Wednesday, September 23rd

1 - I had a meeting on the 3rd floor, and to get back to my desk on the 10th floor, I decided to take the stairs. That may not sound like much, but walk seven flights in a large office building, and you'll say otherwise. (That is, after you spend four minutes heaving, gasping for air.)

2 - It was one of my manager's birthday today, so my department had cupcakes. They looked delicious. Whole Foods dark chocolate cupcakes with a butter cream frosting, plus a little smiley face perched atop made from white chocolate. As I stood in the group of folks waiting to grab one, I remembered how it was tough to come up with 'three little steps' yesterday for the blog entry, and I walked away. Let's just hope that next time they don't test my strength with jumbo crispy chocolate chip walnut cookies. Mmmm-mmm!

3 -I had Japanese food for dinner tonight. Normally when I get take-out from my favorite place (Kodama, for all the New Yorkers reading this), I get one roll and the 'Kodama Chicken' box. The box has chicken, rice, steamed broccoli/carrots, and two tiny shrimp shumais. I'm usually able to finish the entire box, but tonight I stopped myself halfway through. I could have eaten more, but I was also okay with stopping. The leftovers won't be enough for another meal, but certainly it'll be a fairly healthy snack in a day or two. We're getting somewhere!

Step by Step, Three Choices: Day 2

Tuesday, September 22nd

Keep in mind these are SMALL triumphs, people. Don't expect enormous breakthroughs. This is all about the day to day little things.

1 - My friend Jess convinced me (I swear it wasn't my idea!) to get Red Mango (www.redmango.com) tonight while she was over visiting. I have cut way back on my addiction in recent weeks, but I'm proud to say that quite possibly for the first time ever, instead of getting the 'Regular' (Medium), I ordered a small. She and Fabricio said something crazy to the effect that with dessert, it's the taste you crave, not the quantity. You aren't eating to feel full, it's just the flavor that you want. While I feel like I basically knew this already (I mean, duh, right?), it sort of blew my mind a little bit. Like, "Ohhhhh, yeah that's true!".

2 - I can't come up with a number two, so I'm going to say that the second good thing I did was that I learned the dessert thing from Jess & Fabricio.

3 - Today was "Waffle Day" in my office. (Yes, you heard right. Meetup is an amazing place to work, though this is just one of the reasons.) The options included buttermilk Eggos, syrup, powdered sugar, Reddi-Whip, chocolate chips, sweet cream butter, the WORKS. I chose two small organic whole wheat belgian waffles that were high in fiber. I covered them with sliced strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and a drizzle of lite syrup. Score one major point for me!

Step by Step: Three Choices, Day 1

Monday, September 21st

1 - Ate a healthy breakfast of oatmeal with a banana. I have been skipping breakfast recently, but I know that it's the best way to kick-start my metabolism each morning.

2 - Had a Subway sandwich for lunch and skipped the cheese. I skip the cheese 70% of the time, but had I not been doing this 'three good things a day' post, I probably would have gone for it.

3 - Went to a friend's birthday dinner and drank nothing but water. No booze for me!

What small triumphs or changes have you made recently?

"The Real Thing"

I've got to start keeping it real, so here's the deal. As you've seen from my previous entries, I usually try to spend a lot of time working on each of them. I've been giving them appropriate names using song titles, quotes, etc., and just generally being OCD about the whole thing. However, the pressure I foolishly put on myself to make the blog captivating has in turn made it stagnate. I need to post on a very regular basis to make this work. (And also to keep you, my treasured readers, coming back).

I was eating dinner with my wonderful friend Katie (let's not talk about what we ate!), and she gave me the sweet yet serious wake-up call I needed. I owe it to myself and all of you to keep this thing going, and to truly give it a shot to see where it takes me. I could use every excuse out there as to why I haven't kept up with this or a proper eating plan, but excuses are not what this is about. That's not to say that I'm doing horribly, as I have fully stopped the upswing of weight I was gaining. Now I've got to work to get that pendulum swinging back down in the right direction.

My plan to keep this blog active is to post at least every other day with a simple new feature titled "Step by Step: Three Choices A Day". Every day or two, I will make a post listing three positive and concrete actions I did (or did not do) in order to get one step closer to my ultimate goal. The pyramids were built stone by stone, and each one counted. The more I start to make good choices, the easier it will be to turn them into habits, and then finally a way of life.

I'm also cooking up some ideas for some other entries. I still have a rant in me about the way clothing is sized, and I will be interviewing a Zumba instructor as well. I've been trying to make it to Zumba at least once a week. It hasn't always happened, but sometimes it's happened twice in one week...so it's a start! But anyhow, more on that later. Thanks for sticking with me on this, folks. I warned you in the beginning that it wasn't going to be easy...but I'm going to do my best to keep it interesting!

"I'm the real thing, in stereo. I got a little highs, I got a little lows. Follow this melodic flow, I could make it shine, I could make it glow..."

(Ok, so I'll still try to use my song title entry sometimes. I'm not willing to give it up altogether!)