Wagon Jumpers - September 21 - 27th, 2008 (Group Closed - Short Waiting List Available)
Welcome
(We currently have 28 active members, and 2 invitation with no waiting list, if you are interested in being the first on the waiting list, read below and e-mail me if interested)
Welcome to the Wagon Jumpers weekly thread. We are a group of CC members who have identified that one of our main challenges with achieving our weight loss, maintenance or general health goals is consistency.
This thread is designed to encourage long term commitment to our goals by publicly declaring them and asking the other members of this thread to hold us accountable.
Each member on this thread (listed below) has agreed to check into the thread at least once per week. If any member does not check in by the end of the week, we ask all members to politely and positively PM that member and encourage them to make a post and stay on track (or get back on track).
If you would like to be a member of this thread please see the guidelines below and send me a PM if you are still interested (there may be a waiting list).
Why is the participation capped?
The original idea of Wagon Jumpers was to create a close community where participants could get to know each other and hopefully form virtual-life and perhaps even physical-life bonds to create a support network as they attempted long term weight loss.
Over the first few weeks we experimented with an "open to all" concept and found that the thread became too long and confusing and as a result no one got to know each other and it became too much work for many members.
With a mid sized group (30) I am hoping to maintain the community and supportive goals of the original thread, and have enough people that if we are not all daily posters (as the only requirement is a weekly post) that the thread is still motivational and has new content day to day.
Interested in Joining?
General Guidelines for Joining
1. Are you a wagon jumper?
Do you know how to loose weight, you often have success but then you find yourself loosing interest in your plan, or sabotaging your plan. It's not the "how" to loose weight that is the problem, it's the "how" to stay motivated.
2. Do you have a long way to go?
This group is designed so that members can get to know each other and support each other. Ideally you are planning to be a CC member and part of this forum for at least 6 months or more to achieve your goals and hopefully stay in motivation for a further 6 months or more.
Yes. This is, a long term plan.
Still interested? Send Supersized a PM.
Wagon Jumpers Participants
Week 20 Riders - Congratulations on 5 Months!:
Supersized (myself)
Week 19 Riders:
Defrog3 - Injured, may not post - Check in Sep 27, 08
Week 17 Riders:
Week 16 Riders - Congratulations on 4 Months!:
Week 14 Riders:
Week 13 Riders:
Week 12 Riders - Congratulations on 3 Months!
Week 10 Riders:
Week 8 Riders - Congratulations on 2 Months!
Week 5 Riders:
Week 4 Riders - Congratulations on 1 Month!:
Week 3 Riders:
Week 2 Riders:
Week 1 Riders:
New:
Missing In Action:
Missing In Action - 1 Week:
Missing In Action - 2 Weeks:
Current Membership: 29
Current Waiting List: 0
Outstanding Wait List Invites: 0
12 WEEK CONSISTENCY GOALS
(as set w/o July 27th, 2008)
By October 19th, I will be...
2/3 of the way through phase II of my plan. That is have 4 weeks left until I can say that I have been eating at 1500 cal & exercising 4x/week at 2hrs/day for 12 consecutive weeks.
Drinking 100oz fluid daily, at least 3 trips a week to the gym and 2 trips will include strength training!
Running 3 times a week consistently. I will also be drinking 4 500ml bottles of water every day in 12 weeks.
Doing 30+ minutes of cardio 3-4x a week and weights 2-3x and not hating it or ending up sore every single day. I'm also going to try to be drinking 64-100oz of water or crystal light daily. Last but not least, I'm going to save up for a new pair of workout shoes and some new comfy exercise socks, which I will hopefully be using by then.
Or be on course to meet each of my monthly biking goals (August 240 miles, September 350 miles, and October 280 miles), and I will have done the 60 mile course of the NYC MS Bike Tour on 10/5/08, despite the nasty 2 mile hill that's right in the middle of the course!
Going to the gym for 1 1/2 hours 5x per week. Cardio for 45 min and strength training for 45 min.
I plan to have made going to the gym 3 times a week a habit.
I will be working out 3 evenings a week.
Working out 5 days a week.
Journaling my food intake daily and drinking a quart of water a day.
I will update my logs accurately and consistently, and exercise regularly; cardio 3x/week and strength training 3x/week
Working out 5x week. These exercise will include biking, running, dance lessons, weights, etc. I will be eating 24 grams of fiber consistent 1500-2000.
Previous Threads:
Wagon Jumpers September 14-20th, 2008
Wagon Jumpers September 7-13th, 2008
Wagon Jumpers August 31 - September 6th, 2008
Wagon Jumpers August 24 - 30th, 2008
Wagon Jumpers August 17 - 23rd, 2008
Wagon Jumpers August 10 - 16th, 2008
Wagon Jumpers August 2 - 9th, 2008
Wagon Jumpers July 27 - August 2nd, 2008
Wagon Jumpers July 20 - 26th, 2008
Wagon Jumpers July 6 - July 21st, 2008 (another, two week special!)
Wagon Jumpers June 22 - July 5th, 2008 (two week special!)
Wagon Jumpers June 15-21, 2008
Wagon Jumpers May 25 - 31, 2008
Wagon Jumpers May 18 - 24, 2008
Wagon Jumpers Week 1 (May 4 - 10)
Wagon Jumpers - Anyone Need a Lift? (initial thread)
As always all members are encouraged to tag this thread so that it is easy to find.
THIS WEEK'S TOPIC
I'm borrowing from one of my favourite blogs HealthHabits. He is doing a series on "Why Can't I Loose This Fat?" and in his most recent post he out lined his three pillars for successful fitness plans.
First he began by explaining that there are a variety of reasons that we gain weight (hormonal, lifestyle, dietary and emotional among others), therefore there need to be a variety of paths that we use to loose weight. The three his is tackling are:
Path 1 - nutrition
Path 2 - exercise
Path 3 - Mental / Emotional / Spiritual Strategies.
I think as wagon jumpers we are fairly familiar with our needs for path 1 and path 2, our challenge is meeting path 3. If you want some more tips on path 1 and path 2 please follow his blog.
This week's topic is about path 3:
What are your mental, emotional and/or spiritual strategies to meet your health and wellness goals?
Weekly Check-In
I successfully completed week 1 of my 12 week plan this past week! Yay! The goal this week is to complete week 2. I am feeling in control and motivated. I am really glad to be back at the gym. It's brought my energy levels and mood right back up.
I spent yesterday on the campaign trail walking a good part of the main streets of the ridings and I was sore afterwards, but not as much as I would have been prior to my trying to get back in shape.
This week is also the first week that I've had this odd dual vision of my physical self. I am very happy and somewhat blow away by the changes in my body. How much stronger I feel, the jaw line in my face much more pronounced, a significant reduction in my bell, butt and thighs. There is definitely a dramatic physical difference between size 20 and size 14. At the same time this weekend was the first time in a long time where I've been walking around and still 'feeling fat'. So, I find myself both proud of myself for my accomplishments thus far, and motivated to keep going because I definitely do not feel as though I am done yet.
This Week's Topic
Beginning 31 weeks ago is the first time I decided to really focus on the mental and emotional side of health and fitness in a bid to finally be successful at my health and fitness goals which I have tried to achieve many times previous but have generally failed.
I always blamed that failure on a lack of willpower. However when I assessed my patterns I discovered it was less a lack of willpower and more a lack of realistic expectations. Despite telling myself that I wasn't being unrealistic I couldn't help thinking I should loose weight and size faster, like I was giving up things and I would get frustrated, negative and quit.
Strategy 1: Slow & Steady Wins the Race
Uh, not that this is a race. A marathon may be a better analogy and it's with myself. In my prior attempts I had immediately dropped my calories to 1,500 (or lower) knocked myself out at the gym for a few hours every day and quickly burnt out.
This time, I forced myself to take it slow. I figured out how many calories I was eating on average, then slowly slowly slowly reduced them 100 calories on average per week. Same method for the work outs starting with only 30 min once a week until I reached 2 hours 4 times a week and not more than that.
Goal: To ease myself into good habits, to let them develop, let myself make mistakes and not let it be the end of the plan, just a delay of a week or a day until I reached my mini-goal.
Result: I think it worked, I lost six sizes much to my surprise and even when I 'binge' now it's less than my previous average daily intake. I am also letting go of the all-or-nothing mentality.
Strategy 2: Consistency is Key
I used to always have a few great days, one or two 'meh' days and maybe one I'd rather not talk about. I felt like I had put so much energy in on the great days I'd have trouble understanding why I wasn't getting results. I'd try to tell myself that one day one bad day didn't matter, but realistically when that one bad day was really bad and it happened every 5 days I was sabotaging myself.
I first had to decide what I could realistically maintain as a diet level. Then agree that this 'diet' was a calorie based diet and not a food restriction. I can have any foods if they fit into the daily calories.
Now I just work on building the consistency.
Goal: To reward myself for recording accurate achievements towards a consistency goal, not a weight loss goal. In doing this, if I am no loosing weight I should be able to look back at my consistency and see why.
Strategy 3: Listen to My Body
Over so many failed diets I had become very detached from my body and how it speaks to me. I know that I should not be tired, achy, gassy, bloated, crampy, low-energy, depressed, moody all the time.
The only way I could think to achieve this goal was to throw out the scale. As long as success was measured by a number on a scale that did not take into consideration natural body fluctuations, growth periods, and muscle mass then I could not focus on what my body was doing.
Loosing the scale quickly made me focus on results like increased energy, positive mood swings, better digestion, and natural whole food cravings (not junk cravings)
Result: My body does talk to me very loudly and I can now see dramatic differences in my mood, digestion, sleep and energy levels when I am eating and exercising right as compared to when I am not.
the strategies are, first of all, things that are developing now, and are in no way polished. what works for me - but still not 100% of the time - is
- reminding myself how much better it is to be not-so-overweight, how much more energy and happiness it brings
- buying new nice clothes
- avoiding aisles with unhealthy food, not frequenting fast food restaurant
The reason why i was so successful with my journey from January - May was because i listened to my body. I ignored cravings and I only snacked if i was hungry. Somewhere along the line i lost my willpower and i have got to get it back before i start packing on holiday pounds.
I ditched my scale last month and the first week or two was a bit rocky, but i got it together and ended up losing 3 lbs.
I think i need to ditch the scale again. I feel like i am just settling with the progress i've made so far and i'm giving up on myself.
We'll i am not going to give up - i am tired of starting things and not finishing them.
I need to start listening to myself, my body. I need to take a second to ask myself if i am really hungry before i try to stray from the day's meal plan.
I just might end up ditching the scale for another month :)
Supersized, I definitely agree with your strategies. I think you should write a book on this -- your ideas are so organized, you've learned from mistakes and changed habits, you're consistent, and you delved deep into why things weren't working before. I agree with pretty much everything you say and you've helped me realize some important things about weight loss. So, thank you very much!
Anyway, my strategies are:
- whenever I consider eating something that is not in my plan, I always remind myself of my long term goal of being thinner, more comfortable wearing any clothes I like, looking good in a bathing suit, and being better at track.
- reminding myself that I have enough other things in life to be stressed out about, and the way I look does not need to be one of them.
- I have a list of quotes posted up on my wall that I often read over for motivation:
- "Just remember, this is for myself. I want to be happy with myself. I want to reach a goal and do something good for myself. I want to accomplish this."
- "I need to give myself reason to not hate myself."
- "Thinking is not the same as doing. Take more action."
- "No matter what kind of curveball I have to catch today, I'll simply make do!"
- “Eat only when you must and exercise whenever you can.”
- “If you stay committed, you'll be rewarded greatly.”
- “You only truly fail when you stop trying”
- “What your mind can conceive, and believe, you can achieve!”
- “Eat to live, don't live to eat”
I think I need to work on listening to my body more. Even though I have been quite consistent with sticking to my meal plans, I seem to always be full even though I'm staying within my calorie goal. I need to work on eating more calorie-dense foods so I don't have to force myself to keep eating just to reach my goal.
MIA! Sorry ladies! I haven't had the time to sit and write lengthy journals or posts. I've been suffering from allergies and NOTHING is taking it away. By the time I'm off work and get finished playing "mom-taxi" to the girls activities I'm exhausted. I'm still trying to find a "schedule" to continue my healthy life style. I've got a new plan, here it is:
Friday 140lbs. I want to lose 1-2 pounds a week for a total loss of 5lbs. Then I'll be assessing this bod of mine. 140 was my initial goal and I've lost 31 in the last year. I thought 140 was going to take me back to my pre-children body but it still has that loose baby pudge of grossness!!!
I plan to stop forcing my girls to stay out with me at the gym until 7pm. They aren't getting dinner or showers down until 8:30, they are exhausted and a pain in my ass. Our new schedule:
Mon: 5:30-6:30pm while they are at dance I will be at the gym
Tuesday-Thursday: 5:30-6:30am while they sleep in I'll be at the gym
Friday: rest
Saturday or Sunday: One of these days I'll work out
Mon-Friday I will walk 30 minutes at lunch.
If this schedule doesn't work out I am considering taking an hour lunch and working out then staying 30 mins over to make up the time.
I'm still pounding the water. Avoiding booze during the week. Increasing my fruit and veggie intake. Eating under 1700 cals. Eating 1400 on days that I can't get to the gym.
I am going to stop the excuses and get this binging and laziness under control.
STRATEGIES VS. TACTICS
I've been reading over the posts and it looks like we have a lot of good tactics being developed. Tactics are essential to strategy, but, they often fall down on their own.
What is a 'Tactic'?
A tactic is a tool that you use, in this case, to make a change. For example, posting inspirational quotes on the fridge so you see them may help you not reach in for a second serving. Tossing the scale, calorie ranges, exercise plans etc...
What is a 'Strategy'?
A strategy is a whole behaviour plan consisting of the behaviour you want to change, a series of tactics deployed to create the change and a desired result.
For example:
Behaviour: I tend to snack at night when I'm relaxing, I want to change this behaviour to avoid going over cal every night and not mindlessly snack all night.
Tactics for Change: To avoid snacking at night I will:
- Do the dishes after dinner so that I have a clean kitchen and would have to dirty it to get a snack.
- Post inspirational quotes on the fridge to remind myself of my goals and why I do not want to snack.
- Keep a journal of my evening cravings and write next to each of them why I think I'm having that craving other than hunger.
- Drink a pot of tea if I can't beat the craving and see if I'm still hungry.
Desired Result: To stop snacking at night and to recognize what my craving triggers are at night when I want to snack.
Isn't Weight Loss My Strategy?
Yes, and no. Overall we all have a weight loss, or health and fitness goal, but within we each have behavioural reasons that we haven't reached those goals.
The weight loss and diet industry work very hard and spend a lot of money to convince us that it's simple will power that we lack.
If we just:
... exercised more
... ate less
... tried that supplement
... used their program
... read this best selling inspirational book
THEN we would have the will power to meet our goals.
The secret is that it's not a will power thing.... okay, well not entirely. To get the willpower you need you need to identify your behavioural patterns and triggers so that you can say: I am not meeting my goals because:
... I snack at night
.... I only meet my exercise goal half of the time
... I guesstimate on my food and don't always log properly
... I can't find time to meet my goals
... I don't prioritize my goals
... I'm inconsistent in my efforts
Then work on a strategy to change the behaviour you can change.
Ka2007 What behavioural change are you trying to affect? I think the first two that you list are motivational reasons to stay on program, and the third is a tactic to avoid impulse purchasing junk packaged foods. Think about what behaviours are blocking you from meeting your goals and then what you can do to change those behaviours.
MsMeg I have to admit I'm a bit worried about what the results will be when I get my scale back. Not in terms of the numbers but in terms of if I go back to a cycle of getting angry at the scale for not showing me results when my actions are not meriting results. I can also relate to the stalling. I totally stalled after I finished my phase I and it took me about 3-4 weeks to get going again. I hope I'm back in it for all of my phase II now.
Sarah What behaviours are you trying to affect? Snacking is one I'm guessing, have you asked yourself why you snack? Consider keeping a craving journal for a week or two if you can identify what you are watching or doing when you have a craving, and if you are really hungry, if not why you are craving that will go a long way to helping you with your cravings then just trying to stand on pure will power alone.
SkinnybyJune9th Welcome Back! My allergies were really kicking my butt last week as well, seems odd I'm not usually a fall allergy person. Have you considered setting some fitness goals instead of weight goals. I'm guessing that especially after kids your body changes quite a bit. I know I'm not going to have the same muscle to fat ratio of my early 20's, so I'm trying to ignore the scale and concentrate on what my body can do and how it looks to me. If you are so close to the number on the scale you want, it may be time to focus on the body alone.
Good schedule btw. Let us know how the weekends shape up.
I made it to the gym this morning, that is huge improvement for me over the past few weeks, making it to the gym on a Monday morning. I truly hate Monday's. I did pretty well this weekend, completely on cal on Saturday and tonnes of walking on the campaign trail. Sunday was off cal but I can make that up over the week. Week 2 of phase II was where I tripped and fell last time, so I've got a bit of extra motivation to let myself know I can do this.
I'm still struggling with my split-psychology on being proud of the size that I've lost and fitness that I've gained as well as still looking at my body and seeing all this fat that I want off. I'm trying to view this psychology as a motivational force. I just have to watch that it doesn't swing too far to the negative because that de-motivates me and makes me feel like I can't achieve anything.
Sorry that I've been MIA these past few weeks! I started a home business and I've been putting all my effort into getting it off the ground. Time consuming to say the least. Needless to say, my weight loss efforts have been but on the backburner. It's time to get going again though!
As for this weeks topic, it's something I'll have to give some thought too. I know my biggest reasons for not losing weight(lack of consistant exercise, not planning and sticking to a healthy eating plan). The trick is figuring out what I can do and am willing to stick with long term to accomplish those tasks. I'll let you all know what I come up with later:)
Hi, I'm still having trouble reading long bunches of text on screen, so I'm skipping this week for now, too. BUT, overall, I'm feeling much better and I'm trying to be good nutrition wise. I've been maintaining this week.
Thanks to all who sent kind words in the past few days!
Denise
I completely understand the split-psychology. I wish I could see what others are seeing. I am unable to see my whole body in the refection, I can only see the negatives and as much as I struggle to step back and acknowledge how far I've come I can only see how far I need to keep going. I am definitely into strength training now that I've reached 5lbs from my ultimate goal. I want to be solid and strong.
I hate that I'm back on my couch today, still feeling horrible from my "allergies". I'm headed to take a nap then pick up my scripts from the doc.
Yes, supersized, the main behavior I am trying to affect is snacking at night just to reach my calorie goals. I have already started eating bigger breakfasts and lunches so I don't have as many cals left over at night. it seems that I eat as low-cal food as possible so i can eat more, but the volume of food I end up eating is too much and I feel way too full every night. That is why I want to try to eat more calorie dense foods and maybe eat real peanut butter for example, instead of 55-calorie PB2.
Today was kind of an odd day where I deviated from my food plan at school and ate some fries off my friend's tray and then bought a snack at the snack bar (it was raisin bran, so not too unhealthy). But I told myself that I still had the rest of the day to get on track, and I have indeed made up for my extra snacking early in the day already.
I am trying to kill two birds with one stone by procrastinating less with homework and therefore trying to get more sleep so I am not too tired the next day to exercise. Sleep and exercise are two important factors that contribute to weight loss, that I have not been doing so well with. I plan to work on those for the rest of this week as well as making a few dietary changes like eating less processed food and snacking less at night. Luckily, I know have interpersonal motivation to exercise because I will now be working out twice a week with others on the indoor track team to get ready for the upcoming season.
I seem to be at a bit of a plateau right now, but I am confident I know how to change this, so I have not lost all hope, and I am motivated to implement these small changes gradually.
I agree about the split-psychology thing. Instead of looking at myself in the mirror in disgust at how much more weight I need to lose to be happy with myself, I always make sure to smile at myself and remind myself that I have accomplished something thus far. It helps :)
my weekly check in:
I have maintained 6days of at least 40 mins of some kind of cardio exercise.
I was able to get 80 oz of water in on Saturday and about 20 on Sunday....and seeing how I have a mental block with my water intake on the weekends I am not going to call this a failure..
I have tried a new veggie that in the old days I would have sewed my mouth up before I tried it..well I did try and I liked it! (brussel sprouts...who knew? LOL)
This week's question...
Tactics I use to help me with emotional spiritual aspect of this journey....
I journal every day...even if it just the log and not how I am feeling at the time, I make sure I take the time to do that for myself so I can see what frame of "food" mind I was at any given day..I am not a huge change lover. It takes me time to process new info, and changes...even though life doesn't always afford me the chance to breath it in. I love pens and my journal is a rainbow of different colors and little drawings in the margins...thoughts that sometimes I feel I have to write down.
I also have an old picture of my DH and myself when we were dating taped on the wall ahead of my treadmill...so when I am sweating and walking, I use that photo to keep me on that blasted thing another mile because I actually liked the way I looked in that picture,and how I felt about my life at that time.
I also pray TONS! I read my bible or something online that gives me uplift everytime.
The behaviour change I am trying to affect is to be consistant with exercise. I feel better when I do, feel guilty/bad when I don't now. also to not think of food as a reward. It is a tool for my body to be able to do the things I like...reading, hugging my kids, playing with my dog.
another tactic is one Supersized mentioned above..I do not buy food that I know I will overindulge into the house. Ice Cream is the absolute worst food for me...I am not altogether fond of the lower fat/less calories type. So now if I get anything I stop at the local DQ and buy a small cone, log it and jump on the bike, treadmill or take Coco for a walk.
Got2getthin Welcome back! Sounds like your habits are a lot to do with consistency. Consistency of exercise, making a manageable plan that works for exercise and eating. I would suggest your mental strategy would need to work around building a plan that is manageable and fosters consistency before adding all of the elements.
Defrog Don't strain yourself, check in with us next week and I'll keep putting you on injury leave until we hear that you are better.
SkinnybyJune9th I think the interesting thing about the split psychology is that I do see what others are seeing. I can look at myself in the mirror now and think "wow" my _____ looks' great! And at the same time then say 'but there's a long way to go'.
I'm always a bit concerned about only seeing the negative as I find that psychology makes it easy to get demotivated. Remember that if you are 5 lbs from your goal you should be at a point where you can celebrate how you look, and if you end up obsessing on 5lbs then ask yourself what you want out of those 5lbs more than the number.
Sarah I love having exercise buddies, I find that when I know that someone is expecting me to show up there is no way I'm going to break that appointment. It's interesting that the denser foods and earlier eating are helping you at night. I'm the exact opposite, I know that I need to get to eating more in the morning, but I find that the way I make sure I don't snack is to leave room for a larger dinner. This is a habit I need to break.
Rpete Your first tactic of journaling how you are feeling is a great tactic to building exercise consistency, the others I would suggest are motivations to exercise rather than tactics to build consistency. Which are also necessary. Have you thought of setting mini-goal and reward systems. For example if you have a goal of exercising X times per week, if you do that consistently for 6 weeks then you get ________.
I'm proud of myself today. While I have been getting to the gym in the mornings I've been going later than I would have liked and arriving at work a bit late. Today I had a 9 am conference call and I really wanted to put the exercise off since I know I have an extra day this week what with having gone to the gym Monday. But, I got up at 6am, despite being woken up a bunch in the night, hit the gym and I'm done for the day.
I've also upped my cardio levels and free weights.
My calories are on track for the week, and I'm really excited to finish week 2 of my 12 weeks.
Mental Strategies to meet health goals: Take small bites, adding one tactic at a time until it is a habit. Like adding eating breakfast, or being conscious of protein, drinking water.
Emotional Strategies to meet health goals: Recall that going for a bike ride makes me happier than sitting on the couch through a movie that I won't remember in a week
Spiritual Strategies to meet health goals: Simply getting outside and under a tree or going for a walk along the Mall lifts my spirits.
hi, I fell off the wagon this past weekend, I'm now back up and ready to roll! I'm really trying to get back on track, but I need more determination so this week's topic definitely rang a bell.
What are your mental, emotional and/or spiritual strategies to meet your health and wellness goals?
I'm really trying to focus my energy in something else than food, and since I work better with minigoals I decided to stop eating in front of a screen for seven days in a row. I failed yesterday but today is a new day. My reward for accomplishing this is going to the movies and eat popcorn there. I'm thinking of sneaking my own though... (hehehe) popcorn at the movie theater usually is really oily and salty and I can't stand it anymore. Most desserts by now seem too sweet for me, and junk food tastes as if I'm eating a bucket of salt. Maybe my palate did change in the last few weeks, but I'm think japanese cuisine had it right: food is not the art of spices but of subtleness
Ahh, mental health! In order to try to keep mine - when it comes to food, at least - I will any small splurge with balance extra activity or extra careful eating. Today I was a little hormonal and blue feeling, and had skipped lunch because work was busy. When I got home, I was exhausted and starving. Pizza got ordered. Luckily, I know a place where I can get a spicy shrimp pizza with a thin multigrain crust and half the cheese. I can eat enough to be full, stay well within my calorie range and nutrient breakdown goals, and have lunch for tomorrow.
I've been getting to the gym so far this week, until today. A pilates video tonight will keep me on track, though, and I will be working up a good sweat tomorrow evening on the treadmill!
So far, I've been successful at lowering my fat intake to around 30% of my calories, and getting my protein higher. I'm going just keep paying attention to this, until the right kinds of choices get a little more natural 
Basically, it just comes down to mindfulness whenever I am around food. That way, I can make actual balanced choices that are in plan and don't leave me feeling guilty!
I'm kinda off the topic, but I've been in a time crunch the past couple weeks and haven't been able to read the posts as I'd like. Then today is the first day that I'm using the new forum (I have been a dyed-in-the-wool Old CC Forum Holdout) and I'm finding this new site sooooo stressful. Hopefully it will get easier after a few days...
Anyway, my positive change lately is that I've started walking with friends from work. They are faster walkers than I am, so to keep up the pace, I have to really exert some effort.. I'm finding it very motivating to have someone to walk with, though.
So you can keep track of what you eat - which enables you to analyze your foods and receive the following:
- Health Score of your overall diet
- Warning when you approach your daily calorie limit
- Overview of the good and bad nutrients