The Diet Game Plan

You have good intentions when it comes to your eating habits, so why is it so hard to resist when temptation comes calling? You know you shouldn't order those fries, or eat that cookie, so what is it that is going wrong?

For me, if I can't resist, its because I don't have a game plan. When I plan my meals a day ahead, or plan a whole week at once, all of a sudden, temptations aren't as tempting.

When I know exactly when I am going to eat next and what I am going to be eating, politely refusing becomes so much easier. Instead of thinking "maybe I will skip dinner" to make up for your temptation, you can think "I can wait for my garden burger and salad" or whatever its going to be.

Getting rid of the meal limbo is like a coach planning out the week for his players. He isn't going to just come up with something on the spot; he makes sure that his players are well prepared by balancing different workouts each day. Be your own meal coach.

Occasionally things will come up and you will need to change your plan, but being flexible is okay. At least you are making a decision about what meal is best instead of playing the "omg what should I do" game.

Not only does planning ahead make it easier to resist temptation, it makes it easier to go grocery shopping, it makes it easier to stay within your calorie range and it makes it easier to eat out.

I will save eating out for another blog, but trust me when I say planning ahead is a lifesaver.

The Stress Balance

As you probably know, I am a college student. This last week, ALL of my papers were due, ALL of my art projects were due, and sleep did not factor in. While I generally think that sleep is overrated, going days with minimum levels of sleep is, well, exhausting. My brain was fried, and my body was achy.

Your body basically has three reservoirs of energy: emotional, physical, and mental. When you are perfectly awake and balanced you should theoretically be completely satisfied in all three of these sectors. When you wear yourself out in only one of these areas, your life will start to feel out of sync.

For example, when you go through a breakup, you feel emotionally drained. You probably sit around moping, eating ice cream and watching sappy movies. You exhaust yourself emotionally, but physically and mentally you have too much energy. To balance this out, you should probably go exercise, or take a class. Keeping yourself "busy" is what gets you over the emotional troubles.

The same goes for stress related to school. I mentally wore myself out without physically wearing myself out. Even when I had time to exercise, it would not have been safe since my brain was so out of it. I really needed to catch up on my sleep and then get to the gym.

This upcoming week is finals. To stay mentally alert, I have decided that to stay healthy (since I have a habit of becoming ill just towards the end of finals), I am going to start out my days with the gym and a run. Emotionally, I will be fine since my wonderful boy friend is a constant source of strength for me.

My goals for this upcoming week are to:

• get enough sleep


• exercise daily


• study effectively


• Stay on track with my eating

Good luck to all who are graduating!

Weight-loss to date: down to 152.4lbs from 157lbs (2.5lbs gained from lowest point, but still down 4.5lbs)
Current BMI: 27