Works For Me

It's week 5 of the Get Hawt challenge, and the blog topic for this week is "what works for you" with regards to fitness and well-being.  I'm wrapping up my second full week of changes to diet and exercise; tomorrow morning will be my second weigh-in.  When I saw the topic for this week, my initial reaction was "aww, too bad, I won't know until Saturday if anything is working for me".

I've come to realize that's not necessarily true. There has been a noticeable change in my energy level this week.  I've been sleeping great, waking up before the alarm every day except this morning, something I haven't done in a long time.  I've been following the Two Hundred Situps program religiously, and today I did 107 situps.  ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN SITUPS!  Are you kidding me?  Should I mention the 71 pushups that I did after that?  This is phenomenal stuff for me.  Even better - it's getting easier to do them!

The hardest thing is the food.  I am trying very hard to stick to good foods, fruits, vegetables, fish.  I'm trying not to be a calorie-counter, but I am using calories as a guide to what's really bad.  Some things have surprised me at their calorie count, both good and bad.  Some things that I thought were acceptable are surprisingly heavy in calories.  Some things that I knew were bad are INCREDIBLY bad.  1400 calories from a cheeseburger and fries???  I had no idea.  To make it worse, there are temptations everywhere.  Brownies at work.  Free-flowing soda in every restaurant.  Cookies on the kitchen counter.  Co-workers wanting you to go to a burger joint for lunch.  You don't want to be rude. but you know that if you go you're going to eat something you shouldn't have.

It's obvious to me that what I'm doing is working.  I'm learning how to eat, I'm learning WHAT to eat, I'm learning easy ways to get some exercise, and I'm starting to feel the rewards.  I haven't had soda in three days, and I resisted the siren call of the cheeseburger today.  I wouldn't have cared three weeks ago.  I call that progress.