is this thing on?

Looks like my last post was the ill-fated 30 days of food, wherein I was unfortunately forced to conclude that as soon as I am at work, my best plans to take pictures of everything I eat get foiled. I’ve been tempted, lately, to ease back into a dinner-only shot, as I’ve been bringing Lean Pockets and soup for meals at work (and god knows that would make for a boring parade of pictures!) … it’s something I’m toying with. I need some accountability though as tightening up some areas of my diet (actual food caloric intake) has been fine while other, more crucial areas (alcohol, late night snacking) have continued unchecked.

Some positive steps I have taken:

– Stopped drinking hard alcohol completely. Instead of actual shots, I take “shots” of wine which equal out to about a cup and a half over the course of the night
– Learned to drink black coffee. Artificial sweeteners concern me, particularly when considering how many diet drinks I was drinking for caffeine throughout the day, but every time I tried to switch to coffee, I found myself wasting calories on creamer and sugar. I’m finally able to drink it black and save myself sweeteners and calories in the process.

And not a step I have “taken” but I’ve found myself much more tolerant to cheese, which allows for things like “eating Lean Pockets for breakfast.”

It’s been a rough couple of months though, emotionally, and I’ve been teetering around 147 despite my (admittedly half-assed) efforts. I’m pondering a membership at the community center, which has an excellent gym, but in the mean time I have some goals I’d like to work on for myself. These include:

– Switching to NA beer. I don’t actually get drunk anymore, off of two beers and some shots of wine per night, but wasting 200 calories on a high percentage beer is ridiculous when I’m trying to lose weight. I think starting with NA and keeping the wine in is a good first step to tapering off completely.
– DOING TURBO JAM. After a month of moving and not exercising, I got on our elliptical and it immediately broke. I’m going to try to fix it myself, but barring that, I need to get moving again and Turbo Jam is the quickest and easiest way to do that. I haven’t ventured into some of the 40 minute exercises and I really should. Finding some other programs to alternate with would probably be a good idea.
– Continuing to bring low calorie meals to work. That’s simple enough!

I’ll check in tomorrow with a weigh-in and we’ll go from there …