Finding balance in a chaotic world

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Fit

Amy and I had one major goal while on the cruise: Do not gain weight. When we took our honeymoon cruise we discovered that we put on about 8 pounds in the course of a week. That also started a downhill weight gain that lasted years. So this time around, we were not going to gain weight. It turned out to be not as difficult as I thought it would be. The primary thing was we did not eat everything that was available to us. We ate reasonable amounts and stopped eating when we felt full. We also stayed active on the cruise, even going as far as taking a spinning class. The end result: Amy stayed current and I actually lost a couple of pounds. Woot!

 

Motivation to not eat too much was actually pretty easy to find. There were a lot of overweight people on the ship. I mean a lot. It seems so much more effort to move around when you are heavy; fitting into airplane seats looks difficult, dealing with stairs, getting into cars, everything. Not wanting to go through that again, I decided to work harder on losing weight.

 

Here’s my problem, though. The only times I’ve successfully lost a significant amount of weight (10+ pounds) is when I have some emotionally distressing crisis in my life. I’ve never successfully lost weight by diet and exercise and that concerns me. Part of the reason is that I really like food, and the other issue is that exercise is really boring to me.

 

Two things have changed for me that give me hope that I will lose that last 10-12 pounds that are bothering me. First, I’ve finally made the mental adjustment that I eat too much. I’ve known for a while that it isn’t that I eat poorly; it is that I eat too much food. I used to tell myself that I’ll take one helping of food and then I can get another if I’m still hungry. Of course I always got another, never checking to see if I’m hungry. The end result is that I eat past when I’m full and then I feel bloated, lessening my enjoyment of the extra food. It finally penetrated my thick skull that by eating only what I want, I actually enjoy my food more. So I’m eating less but enjoying it more.

 

Part two is that Amy came home with Wii Fit the other day. I played around with a little over the past few days and I think this can help me with my weight goals. The yoga and strength training things will certainly make some difference, but for me the real gain is the effortless measuring. I stand on the balance board and it tells me my BMI and weight. It tracks my goals and shows my progress. All I have to do is stand there and tell it to. I know there are plenty of other devices and software that will do the same thing, but this is fun and it is right there in the living room whenever I want it. What gets measured gets acted upon.

 

So I’ve put up a goal to lose 10 pounds by the end of the year. Wii Fit will help me track and as long as I can keep my motivation up, I should make it or possibly exceed it. Wish me luck.