A Vegan Challenge

Hello all!  I'm on Day Two of a 6 week challenge I've embarked upon.  I'm going vegan for the next six weeks.  There are some rules involved and they are:

1.  All plant based foods.
2.  At least 10 minutes of scheduled exercise daily (walking around Wal-Mart doesn't count).
3.  Drink at least 64 oz of water a day.
4.  Track AND stay in points range daily. 

Yesterday, I successfully followed all three rules.  I ate a ton of veg and fruit.  I felt great yesterday.  Today I'm feeling pretty crummy, but I suspect that has more to do with the weather than anything else. 

During this challenge, I'm writing down some of my observations about what I notice in my body.  Friday night, before bed, I wrote out a list of all the things I notice about how my body is not functioning properly.  These include, but are not limited to:

• painful sciatica running down my left leg...back after years relatively pain free
• plantar fascitis in my left foot (my left side loves me)
• dry patches all over my legs
• swelling in my feet and calves
• frequent fatigue
• frequent headaches
• achy knees

I could go on for days, I'm sure!  My starting weight was 338.2.  3 pounds higher than my starting weight on Weight Watchers back in August.  Lovely!

And because I'm feeling brave, here is a photo of me (notice, I'm hiding my face) from 3 weeks ago...

 Please excuse the crazy mess in my room!

I'm going to do my best to update as frequently as possible over the next 6 weeks.  I have no doubt in my mind that I will see this through.

Hello!  Just wanted to pop in with a couple of things.  Firstly, I *DID* go on a walk on Tuesday.  I'm thinking I'll go out for another one today in just a bit.

Secondly, I had a flash of genius earlier and thought...wouldn't it be cool if there were some journaling prompts out there somewhere for weight loss?  That would be so awesome!  And lo and behold, a google search turned up this cool freebie PDF, so I've decided for the next month, I'm going to write in a little journal and respond to a prompt each day.  I think that will go so far in helping me stay focused on what I'm doing, but also helping me to maybe get to the bottom of why I can't seem to get a grasp on things.

I hope to check back in later today with some thoughts on that first prompt, but for the meantime, have a great day!

Happy New Year!

It's a new day, a new year and time for people to make lots of promises to themselves that by January 31, most of them will completely forget!

I know I've been guilty of that in many a year.

I'm not going to call this a resolution, but a goal:  My goal is to post here at least 5 out of 7 days a week.  If I post more, fantastic.  If I post less, I won't beat myself up over it. 

That said...I'm still going to Weight Watchers, but I'm not doing well at all.  I'm also still going to therapy and something my therapist strongly recommended at my last session was that I start writing everything I eat down.  Independent of WW's tracking, so I pulled out an old unused journal and started doing just that.

And today, I'm going on a walk.  No pressure.  No time frame in mind.  Just a walk to get some movement into my day.

I have a new plan for work lunches.  I'm currently on break, as I'm a teacher, so starting next Monday...I'm going back to my daily salads and what I would like to try to do is have 5 salad containers, have my salads premade - one for each day of the week.  I'll do this on Sunday so that all I have to do is pull the salad out of the fridge and throw it in my bag and off I go.  I'm also planning on having anything that I'm topping my salad with - dressing, veggie burgers, etc, ready to go and knowing what I will have with my salad each day.  This will definitely help me keep lunchtime on track and help me get those veggies in.

Sooooo...that said, I'm off!  Happy (and Healthy!) new year, everyone!