I finally have Good Habits! Week 1

I have been on this site for awhile but today I finally felt like getting involved. lol

I have been struggling to give up several bad habits for a (LONG) while now and this week I finally feel confident in my ability to live a healthy lifestyle. I originally went from a completely unhealthy lifestyle (over-snacking on junk food AND not exercising) to incorporating slow changes--having LESS junk food, switching to diet soda, walking more, adding vegetables to my meals.

This week I have managed to incorporate ALL of my healthy changes and I feel fantastic! Both in the literal my body just feels better but the mental high of being success feels good too. I'm silly-proud of myself for finally getting to the point I wanted to get to.

I had some SERIOUS crutches that I was really falling apart trying to get rid of (I don't even like Diet Coke but it was like asking me to give up an arm. I HAD to have it. All day long. Because I had to have SOME form of soda) but this week I DID IT. I have always drank water as well (so I was a wee bit healthy) but this week I FINALLY ditched the soda. And that makes me crazy happy.

I am a notorious vegetable hater but this week I have had salad for lunch (real salads, with multiple vegetables, not the "salads" I used to have that consisted mostly of meat, cheese and dressing) as well as more salad to start dinner with extra vegetables on the side. In fact my MAIN meals all week have been vegetable based which is really extraordinary if you had seen how I previously ate.

I've also managed to exercise for a full week (for the past few years I would exercise for a couple days then stop---for weeks. Once I even went a whole month before restarting). Apparently my combination involves body weight exercises and hilarious old dance DVDs. Just a week or two ago I was barely making it out of bed before noon. Every single day this week I have been up at 5am.

Voluntarily.

(Well, honestly, not that first day. But I promised myself I could go back to bed. But I didn't. And I've kept going.)

I know that this is only a week and there is more work ahead but I wanted to post to celebrate the fact that even small changes matter and the important part is to keep going. I know these things seem insignificant but when added together they are most definitely the foundation of my healthier lifestyle. And that's AWESOME!


I now move on to my second challenge...actually TRACKING my eating. The second reason I posted is so if anyone wants to be friends please feel free to add me and if anyone cares to take the time to start reading my food diary (not immediately I have one thing on there) to give me tips or hints on how I can keep doing better PLEASE write me back and let me know. I am open to all comments and would love to learn how I can do better. One of the things I already noticed is that I haven't honestly tracked my calories (not through deception but oversight). For example, I use bottled lemon juice in my water and I never realized that it was an extra 50 calories per day. That's not necessarily a big deal but on the days I didn't exercise or ate a lot of junk food having an extra 50 calories really adds up. And that is something I would never have noticed had it not been for MyFitnessPal.

Thanks for reading!