The Plan
This is a weight loss blog, and the genre has certain demands. So, let’s get to the deets:
- Start weight: 217
- 1st goal (5%) = 206
- 2nd goal (10%) = 195
- Ultimate goal: somewhere in the 140 neighborhood
- timeframe: a couple of years
I do not have the goal to lose weight quickly. Instead, my goal is to lose weight steadily while squeezing is as much living as possible on the way. My real concern is with building a foundation of habits that will allow me to maintain my weight for the rest of my life.
Pieces of the Plan:
- Inspiration and ideas
- Planning
- Monitoring actions: logging
- Monitoring effect: weigh in’s
- Review
1. Inspiration and ideas
I am always on the lookout for new ideas. A constant stream of new ideas keeps me inspired and continuously renews my motivation. I maintain an RSS reader that it chock full of blogs about exercise, healthy cooking, weight loss, fat acceptance, healthy living, exercise physiology and the latest science about weight loss, diet and nutrition. I use Evernote to grab things that might be useful to me later.
I also maintain this tumblr. All day when I have a moment, I will pull up my dashboard and take a look at where my fellow fitblrs are with their program. The tumblr community helps keep me engaged with my weight loss goals day in and day out.
2. Planning
The core of my planning is the weekly list of meals. Saturday mornings I go through my Evernote files looking for ideas for and then put together a list of meals for the week. From this, I make a grocery list and then head out to the farmer’s market and grocery store. One of the advantages of shopping at the farmer’s market is that it gives me a deadline for getting my grocery planning and shopping done. Deadlines are helpful for preventing procrastination.
3. Monitoring actions: logging
It is essential to keep track of your choices throughout the week. This has always posed a dilemma for me because calorie logging can be a huge chore, especially if you are like me and do a lot of cooking. Over time, I have developed a system that I call the casual log. I have a pretty good sense of what eating on plan feels like, and I usually know when I’ve overdone it. So I just keep track of my eating at this very broad level. Here is what my food log looks like:
I also keep an exercise log in the same spreadsheet:
4. Monitoring effects: daily weigh-ins
Most days I weigh myself on a body fat scale. I then log those weigh ins with FatWatch. Here is my chart for the past quarter:
5. Review
Every monday I post a check-in on my tumblr. This post includes a chart of my weigh-in’s, and my food and exercise logs. I write a review of how well I did with things that week. I identify any problem areas and set goals for the next week.
