Day 33 - Healthy Lifestyle Vs. Dieting

Many of you have already expressed your opinion on how you feel about living a healthy lifestyle versus being on an official diet. I've heard from many people that they think committing to live a healthy lifestyle is much more important than being skinny. Eating healthy fresh foods, exercising regularly and taking care of yourself in general are all extremely important and should be a part of everyone's life ALL of the time, not just when you want to lose weight.

I started this resolution exclaiming I just wanted to lose weight. I want to get down to a lower weight, then worry about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But with my busy life with time constraints and stressors everywhere, I'm starting to realize "dieting" may not be the best idea. I have also just joined Team In Training to train to run/walk a half-marathon, who highly suggests NOT dieting while training. This is because you are pushing your body to gradually run more and more miles. Therefore, the coaches want to make sure you have enough calories to handle those extra miles and strains on your body.

With all of this said, I am not dieting like I had originally planned. But that doesn't mean I'm eating everything I want. I am absolutely eating healthier. For example, this morning I had steel cut oats (yes Chris, I finally took your advice) and for lunch I'm having Nutrisystem chili. But I also let myself have a piece of brownie someone brought in as a treat. I'm not obsessing over the calorie counts right now. As my body gets more adjusted to the miles and I feel more comfortable, I might start counting calories again, but my TRUE hope is that if I stick with this TNT training program and do my strength training, I will STILL lose weight and get toned up.

At this point, I have not gained any weight since stopping my calorie counting about 10 days ago. I MAY have lost about 1 pound, but my scale is not digital and those little lines are hard to see with my aging eyes. HA HA! If I start to GAIN weight, I will definitely start counting calories again.

As for my training, it officially began on 2/1. I'm only doing 2 miles for my run/walks this week, but they have gone well. I have been able to run OVER half of the time! VERY good for me. And at our group training, the coach said my form looked good which is great to hear because it was NOT good in my last attempts at training. I actually felt really good at Saturday's training (although, I may need to look into seeing a urologist about the possibility of surgery).

Tonight, despite my ups and downs in success, I am getting a massage! This is my first "reward" of any kind really for the work I've done so far. I can't wait!

Finishing with a good quote that I need to keep in mind. Healthy lifestyle will get me there in the end. All I need is patience.