On Planning Ahead

Anyone reading is welcomed and encouraged to send me their weekly weight so we can track together and motivate each other to lose weight. "Alex - Projected" would be my weight loss of 40 pounds by my birthday on 6/12/11, at a steady 1.9 pounds per week. "Alex - Actual" is my actual weight loss. I can also post your weight anonymously under a name of your choosing! Also you may have noticed that the numbers under "Judy" don't correspond to the graph. She's opted to only send her weight changes, so we'll track from an arbitrary starting point of 190 pounds (because it fit nicely in the graph). You're al welcome to pursue this option as well if you don't want to give your actual weight. We'll make a nice colored line on the graph for you too!

This was one of those weeks where I realized the importance of something that's so completely obvious and simple, that I had to kick myself a little for not realizing it sooner. It was much like the times I realized that "kitten kaboodle" was actually "kit and kaboodle", "all intensive purposes" was "all intents and purposes", and lastly, I could never figure out why in the song "Home on the Range", the word "seldom" was itself, a discouraging word ("where seldom is heard, a discouraging word..."). It's amazing anybody gave me a college degree, because I didn't realize that last one until I was IN college :)

So my realization started this week when I decided I deserved a nice 12 oz. boneless NY strip steak for dinner one night. With all the fixings, my meaty masterpiece clocked in at about 20 Weight Watchers points, out of my 49 points for the day. So what did I do to be able to eat this steak guilt free? I made more healthy choices for the rest of the day, and kept under the 29 remaining points! Duuuuuhhhhhhhh. Now I know this might seam obvious, but I think it's the first time I've put any thought in the morning to how many points I'd be eating for dinner. Usually I get to dinnertime, see how many points I have left, and then make/order whatever I'm in the mood for (usually whether or not it stays within my daily points). Here I had figured out a way to both eat a delicious steak, AND not go over my daily points. Genius!

This got me thinking about other ways that different types of planning ahead can make weight loss easier and healthier:

1. Order your groceries for the week in advance: I know I've mentioned it before, but having healthy food in the house prevents you from running out to get an unhealthy snack, or ordering an unhealthy meal. While some people go as far as planning their daily or weekly menus in advance (which I encourage if it works for you), I just like to always have some breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack foods around the house that I don't have to feel guilty about eating.
2. Plan your exercise into your calendar: I've only started doing this in the last week or two, since I joined a boxing gym, but it's been a HUGE help in actually getting myself to go to the gym. Also, in an odd bit of reverse psychology, I've realized that BECAUSE my new gym is about an hour round trip commute, it makes me want to go there MORE than I want to go to the gym in my building. Seems odd, right? I think it's like a fraternity hazing thing, where I value going to my new gym more BECAUSE I have to go out of my way to get there and plan in advance when I'll have time to go. Also, boxing's a kickass workout.
3. Plan your weekend eating/drinking in advance: If you know you're headed to a restaurant Friday or Saturday night, take a look at the menu first to get an idea of what you might like to eat. If you live in NYC, I recommend http://www.menupages.com for restaurant menus. Then calculate in advance how many points you think you'll eat (including drinks, bread, appetizers, entrées and dessert) and eat within the remaining points for the rest of the day. OR if you know you'll be having a particularly large, heavy meal, make an effort to go to the gym that day to offset some of the calories! This goes for drinking too. If you know you want to get completely shit-faced on a Saturday night, figure out how many drinks that takes (hopefully after college you'll know the magic number), calculate up the points, and eat within your remaining points that day.

For anyone keeping track, I'm now a total of 4.6 pounds lighter than when I started, with 35.3 pounds to go. This averages out to losing about 3.5 pounds a week for the next 10 weeks, so we'll see how that goes :) Honestly, if I could get down to 200 (which would mean losing another 17.6 pound by my birthday), I would be thrilled. And of course now that I'm boxing, I'll be building muscle too... sure we'll go with that excuse :)

'Till next week!

----Alex