It's All A Mental Game

It's amazing how much discipline I can have for myself. It gets easier and easier to think towards the goal of eating better. I'm being realistic about just what it is that I want to do.

I'm not just making a goal that I am losing weight. It's broad and unrealistic, especially if I am going to measure just by how much I weigh. We hear over and over again that your weight will go down then up if you exercise because you drop fat and then start gaining muscle. So my more realistic goal is that I want to drop body fat. Currently I sit at 20%, which isn't terrible, but it's not great either, especially because I have risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. I would like to get it down to 15%, which is about what an athletic man should be at.

I find that I am not craving sugar as much as I used to. That was actually something I used to do when I was younger was cut back on the sugar (sodas especially) and I would drop off some of the weight. Well I'm combining that with eating a lower fat diet, and I find that mentally I'm not trying to reach for the cookies, cake, and other sweet stuff. I still crave sometimes after a meal, but a stick of sugar free Orbit gum takes care of it. Anything to trick the body a bit, and I get fresh breath as well, it's a win-win.

I whipped up a great stir fry last night, I took some cooked chicken and threw it into the wok with green peppers, green onions, bean sprouts, some cilantro, and salsa. It was great, especially wrapped up in a tortilla. For a side dish I had some Mac n Cheese. I'm not totally beating myself up over eating the mac and cheese, simply because I treated it like a side dish and did not eat the whole box like I would in the past. I even had some for lunch today, and there's enough leftover for another meal.

That's the one thing that's going to suck about being in the new apartment, the stove is electric, and my wok is for a gas stove. Maybe I'll have to find someone nearby that I can have dinner with often. I do have a propane gas burner that was supposed to be used with a turkey fryer, but obviously I can't use it inside nor anywhere near my apartment.

Besides the nutrition, I am saving money because I'm not eating out as much as I used to. I have started tracking my expenses by using Wesabe. It's easy to put my bank transactions into the system, and I can tag the transactions to see where they're going. They also let you set goals, so I actually have a goal about spending less than $50 a month on eating out, and a goal to spend less than $20 a month in the cafeteria here at work. So far I'm doing well towards meeting those goals.

There's more to say, but this has gone on long enough so I'll leave it here for the moment.