Day 5:

Food: Shredded Wheat cereal, potato salad, cole slaw, challah, beef and barley stew, 2 pieces chicken thigh, 1 piece fish fillet, some fruit, green beans, spinach

Exercise: around 45 minutes of Wii Fit and elliptical

Sleep: Fell asleep with kid, got up in middle of night to go to my own room, woken up by coughing (croup) from son

Work: Got my work from the office

Day 4:

Food: smoothie, fake crab and veggie stirfry, 1/2 serving pasta, chicken soup with carrots, challah, homemade hummus and guacamole, sauteed green beans, pesto baked spinach, 1 piece chicken thigh

Exercise: 20 min Wii Fit

Sleep: Adequate

Work: Not much done as I was home with kids

Family: Stayed home with 3 sick kids

Starting to lose a bit of weight....

I know it's still really early, but Wii Fit says that I'm down to 143 lbs and my BMI is now under 26.

I'll do measurements in another week or so.

Day 3:

Food: Fruit smoothie (just frozen fruit and juice), tea, omega-3 pasta with olive oil/garlic/basil/parmesan cheese, bite of salmon cake and articoke dip, baked salmon fillet, cucumber with guacamole

Exercise: Fell asleep again!

Sleep: Fell asleep @ 10 p.m. with kid #1, went back to my bed @ midnight, woke up with weird stomach @ 3 a.m. and stayed up for an hour, alarm off at 6 a.m. but stayed in bed until 7:30 a.m.

Work: Opened 2 new files, billed closer to goal

Family: Kids getting a bit sick, otherwise good. Still need to push up bedtime.

Goals: EXERCISE!! Also - not falling asleep with the kids, by getting them to bed earlier, then doing my stuff including exercise so that I stay asleep once I go to sleep.

Day 2:

Food: tea, chocolate milk, whole grain hummus wrap with bean sprouts and red pepper, hi-fibre trail mix, 1/2 serving omega-3 spaghetti, turkey meatballs in tomato sauce

Exercise: fell asleep instead

Sleep: good, except for waking up for an hour at 1:00 a.m.

Work: around 50% of billable goal (got distracted by computer issues), got some long-standing tasks out of the way

Family: #3 continues to improve in behaviour, esp. with the morning routine. Slowly bringing bedtimes forward.

Next goals: need to finally exercise, get a few more fruits and veggies, don't fall asleep with kids.

Day 1:

Food: cholocate milk, slice of bread, whole grain black bean and hummus wrap, cucumber and tomato with non-fat tzatziki, homemade pizza with skim milk cheese, caprese salad, white tea

Exercise: fell asleep instead

Sleep: got to sleep relatively early, woke up around 2:30 a.m. (guess I'm not used to normal sleep yet)

Work: didn't make billing goal, but did some successful consultations and managed to get some long-standing errands out of the way

Family: Got the kids in bed at a reasonable hour, actually remembered to send class snack in for my youngest. #3 has also been improving his behaviour - slowly but surely cutting down on the whining, and he actually got dressed by himself and skipped the morning tantrum.

To work on: Exercise, doing more at work

Progress today

Food: chocolate milk, slice of white bread, whole grain hummus wrap,

Sleep: Went to bed too late last night, but up at 7:15 a.m.

Exercise:

Work: 2 consultations, some billable work, did some errands that needed doing

Introduction - why I need a kick

I want to make some changes in my life, so that I can be healthier.

While I was always fairly slim in the past, my BMI is now over 25 and I’m officially “overweight”.

My bad habits look like this:

I wake up tired, forget about exercising, and get so rushed in the morning that I skip breakfast. If I get hungry, I grab some junk on the way to work.

I often work through lunch hour, and then get REALLY hungry by around 2 p.m. At this point, I start to feel the urge to rush out and grab fast food.

The fast food provides a temporary comfort and sugar rush – but I then feel sluggish and slightly gross. I don’t get as much accomplished after eating.

Since I’m feeling a bit sluggish and tired, I’m not as productive as I should be while I’m at work. I just want to relax – so I tend to waste time online.

Since I don’t get as much accomplished, I don’t stay on top of my billings and other work tasks, leading to stress.

I’m tired when I get home, so I’m not as efficient as I should be and I tend to fall asleep while putting kids to bed.

When I wake up, I get stressed about work not done, and then stay up late and don’t sleep well.

I finally get to sleep really late, and the pattern begins again.....

As you can see, excess weight is just a symptom of an unhealthy pattern – one that is leaving me tired and stressed.

So, my main areas of focus need to be:

Sleep

Diet (eliminating junk food, eating smaller portions throughout the day)

Exercise

Work

I know what I need to do....now, I actually have to do it!

My hope is that this blog will force me to be accountable, and commit to a long-term change in habits. Every day, I plan to post an update under these four categories, to force myself to stay on track. I’ll also report how I’m feeling, what seems to trigger success or failure, and any significant goals reached.

I'll also track a fifth category - family life. It's the one area that thankfully doesn't need much improvement. However, I'll track it because (a) I don't want to lose focus on the fact that it is the majority priority, (b) the fact that I'm often tired or stressed IS related to the fact that I'm a mother of 3, so if I'm showing lifestyle "debits" I can at least offset them with some family "credits", and (3) I need to feel that I'm doing something right.

Comments are welcome, although I reserve the right to delete spam or anything that's downright offensive.