I know how to do both of these, it's just putting them together and keeping them together on a consistent basis is I mess it up. This summer, I am really resolving to do it. While I've done it, and not done it, for years - this time, I've got a few other factors in play:
1) I'm 38. I'm eighteen months from 40 and I know if I don't start really doing the right thing, then I'm going to be staring at some health problems down the road. It's no longer a question of vanity. My dad has a pacemaker and a full familiy history of heart disease (both his brothers have had heart surgery and their dad died from a massive heart attack at the age of 68).
My mother's family has a crazy cancer gene: her dad died from lymphoma, her brother died from brain cancer, and my mom herself has gone two separate rounds with two separate types twenty years apart (and beat them both - but she's a superhero). In other words, when it comes to genetics, I've got one hell of a target on my back without adding any lifestyle stuff to it. Specifically, the extra 50-60 pounds I've been carrying for as long as I can remember.
2) I'm 38 and never in my life have I ever felt comfortable in my own skin. I hate mirrors, cameras, and any function that I have to appear wearing anything other than jeans and a T-shirt (in summer) and jeans and a sweater (in winter). I don't wear dresses because they don't hang right on my apple-shaped frame. I don't wear matching outfits because the top may be huge and the bottom tight or vice versa. I don't wear skirts because without the streamlining effect of pantyhose, I'm not comfortable with how my bare legs look (and we all know pantyhose are a style no-no these days). I was raised in South Florida, a mere fifteen minutes from the beach, but I haven't worn a swimsuit without a T-shirt and shorts over it in public OR private since I was 10. I'm sick of it.
I'd like to be able to put on any of the above outfits and feel like I can go out in public without someone thinking "Damn, girl, don't you know better?" So that's the place where I am. I dropped 10 lbs in November thanks to a nasty bout of pneumonia (bad) but by at least trying to do the right thing foodwise and getting a couple of nights of excercise in a week, I've managed to maintain that loss within a 2-3 lbs margin for the last six months.
So now, with summer and the abundance of free time its going to bring (i.e. I won't be exhausted from an 10-hour day at school), I'm rededicating myself whole-heartedly to healthier eating and a decent excercise plan. I've toyed with the 12-week Body-For-Life plan for several years, but never really tried it out for real. However, I have all the equipment to do the workouts at home and an L.A. Fitness membership for anything different I want to try (like machines and classes). I also play on a roller derby league, so practices are a component that keep the excercise interesting. Excercise, I think, will be easy.
As for the food, that's going to be the million dollar challenge. I live with a straight-up carnivore who refuses to each vegetables in any way, shape or form, so after years of trying to create healthy meals within HIS parameters, I know full well that doesn't work. So he and I will have to eat separately. Which means I will have to plan, shop, cook and keep track of my food intake without any help whatsoever from my partner. And while this journey would be a thousand times easier with his support and participation, I have resigned myself that it won't happen. My support will have to come from somewhere else. I've been a Weight Watchers online member for years, but with the free time of summer, I'm going to have to start going back to meetings.
So I'm going to do the Body-For-Life plan, sticking to the excercise and following it's protien-carb-fruit/vegetables ratio for my meals, but count its points via Weight Watchers to make sure my portions don't get out of control. The main goal? To finish the 12 weeks of BFL and see what happens. While I'll be looking at results (duh!), mainly I want to see if I can stick to it on a consistent basis for the two and a half months of summer. I want to be proud of what I can do. And I want to finally see if the person I always wanted to be is even possible.
