Cutting Back

School started last week, and that meant adjusting to a new schedule. I was very spoiled with all of the free time I had this summer to work out. I worked out around an hour each day, 6days a week, for the whole summer, and I loved it. (I still can’t believe that I love exercise!). Now I don’t have nearly as much free time, and I have a very odd schedule, with 3 hour breaks in the middle of the day on some days, and back-to-back classes on others. Last week I really struggled with working out 6 times because if I didn’t do it in the morning (which on MWF wasn’t happening with 8 am classes), then I was so tired in the afternoon that it was all I could do to get in 30-45 minutes of exercise.

I’ve decided to try something different this week: I’m cutting back on exercise. I have been exercising for 6 days a week since I began this whole journey on Jan. 21, and maybe it’s past time for me to step it back a little bit. I don’t want exercise to be my whole life or become an obsession, so right now the plan is to go to 4 days a week, with 45-60 minute workouts each time. I know that realistically speaking I won’t be able to maintain a 6-day workout schedule forever, so I need to work on more manageable workouts and focus more on my calories. I’ve allowed myself to be pretty lax with my eating in some ways because I know the calories I burn through exercise help make up for what I eat, but if I want to truly be healthy, I have to get control of my eating habits. I still eat out of boredom, still eat more than I should at times, and still prefer cookies to vegetables. BUT I have these moments of weakness with much less frequency than before, and a lot of times I find that I just can’t let myself eat something if I know I’ll regret it later. That’s HUGE for me. When I think about all of the junk I ate while in college and in grad school, I just cringe. I don’t want to go back to that habitual gluttony! I can’t tell you how much just logging everything I eat every day helps me; if you are struggling with eating, definitely try logging everything that goes into your mouth. It really becomes a sort of accountability system! And if you join SparkPeople, you can track the amount of calories each item has. (Have I mentioned how much I love SparkPeople? Because it’s amazing!)

Thus concludes my weight loss ramblings. 🙂 (Oh, except to mention that I’m .8 pounds away from losing 40 pounds!!)