21 Days....

Thursday I read an entry on Janna's blog about this woman who basically transformed her life through diet and exercise in 21 days.  The idea being that it takes 21 days to get into a good habit.

She told herself, 21 days.  If in 21 days I don't feel better, I can go back to doing what I was doing before.

I'm constantly on the journey of self improvement, and I find I tend to either:

A) Fall flat on my face

or

B) Come up with all these wonderful ideas of new things to do, but just never follow through

Option B being the most popular.  I'm a HUGE culprit of starting something and not finishing it.

There are things I want out of my life...

I want to be healthy

I want to be organized

I want to be positive and be full of energy

I want to be happy


Am I going to get all of that in 21 days?  Well...probably not.

But I definitely can set some goals to help me get there, and I can get started with 21 days.

After reading Janna's post and finding that other bloggy friends were on board I sat down and thought about what I want to accomplish in 21 Days.

I will...

* Create a cleaning/organization plan and follow it.  This will be heavily influenced by www.flylady.com.

I have already started this, again...one of those things that I started, but didn't follow through with.  This is really important to me because I feel like I don't have a set routine for ANYTHING during the week.  I come home, eat and work out by either going to the gym or riding my bike.  I don't pick up after myself, I don't do my dishes, I don't take my garbage out...I save it all for a whole day on the weekend.  And if I'm busy that weekend?  It doesn't get done.  This causes me to be overwhelmed, stressed, embarrassed and frustrated that I let it get that way.  There has to be a better way, and routine is going to help.

* Start the C25K program.

Running is so scary to me, I always said, "I wouldn't even run if someone was coming after me to murder me!"  But you know what?  Running is great exercise, running is NEW exercise...and I'm getting bored.  Particularly with the gym (my bike I can ride for days).  So now that the weather is nice and I can run outside (I'm afraid to run on the treadmill) there's no excuse.  I'm envious of all of you wonderful ladies out there that are doing so well with this program, that I'm officially inspired.

* LOG EVERYTHING I EAT

I used to be SO good with this, and as time has gone on...I've just stopped doing it.  I need to get back into it and I need to be honest with myself about it.  I find that on the days I go off, those are the days I don't log.  It's an honesty thing and I think it's a good chunk of why my weight loss has staggered over the past two months.

*No fast food!

My goal for this week at TOPS was no fast food, and I need to continue it.  I found when I started to eat it again (after going a good four months without having ANY) I started craving it.  And I started allowing myself to have it, and that's a slippery slope to bad habits.  I'm extending this goal over 21 days.

And lastly...

*Have a good sleeping pattern.

This includes, going back to that waking up at least 30 minutes earlier than I already do idea that I started a month or so ago.  I really enjoyed that.  I enjoyed eating breakfast, watching GMA and getting some time to gather my thoughts before I head off to work.  And then, like everything else, I fell out of it.  I'm going to stick to it, and I'm going to keep it up on the weekends too by setting a "time to be up and out of bed on weekends" time.

So this is a lot to accomplish in 21 days.  I'm not expecting to have great success with it all, but I have myself SET UP for success.  I've researched FlyLady, I've set up my cleaning schedule, I've download the C25K app, I've printed out spreadsheets for my menu planning...

I started this over the weekend.  I enjoyed a fast food (including pizza) free weekend, kept track of everything I ate, shined my sink both nights and started C25K today (and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be!).

Checking in for Brandy's Fat Ass Friday real quick...

Starting weight: 192
Last week's weight: 165.5
Current weight: 165.0
Weight +GAIN / -LOSS this week: -.5
Total weight lost: -27.00

Oh...boo, hiss half a pound.  I banish you from my life!!!  To be fair, I had Chinese, pizza and who knows what else during that week, so I'll take the half a pound.  This week however, I did really well.  REALLY well.  And you know what?

1.5 til half way.

I feel like I've been saying this for months.

But I feel like this week, this is the week.  Tuesday, here I come!!

(sometimes I really wish I had a scale to reassure myself that I did well this week)!

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend.  I enjoyed a 18.5 mile bike ride yesterday and had a fairly lazy Sunday (although like I mentioned I did the C25K).

A couple of pictures from my biking destination yesterday...

The first two pictures are of Lake George, and the last is a picture of some wetlands that the bike trail crosses over...about halfway between where I started and Lake George.  I love the mountains, so I'm constantly trying to get pictures of them...I take more pictures of Lake George as a local than most tourists probably do!  The day was beautiful and warm (although a little windy at the lake) and it was a real enjoyable ride!