Resolutions

So I've made a few resolutions this year. Usually I attempt to make and keep some, but they rarely stick.  I have always said that the best way to set yourself on the right path to starting a goal, is starting it immediately rather than saying "I'll start tomorrow" or "I'll start next week...".   I have often said those things myself and I find that if I am truly honest with myself, the reason for delaying a start is usually that I am not that committed to the goal. I know that if I were truly committed, I would start right now because I know that I need to start right now not making excuses.  If I start right now, then I will be able to overcome whatever obstacles I face by taking it one day at a time. If I have to have that one last indulgence before making a change, how does that teach me to resist temptations?  Although, I do see some merit in (for some) making a plan and sticking with it before diving headfirst. I have done it both ways. I just know if I have to have my steak dinner with the loaded potato before I can go on a "diet" I am probably not going to last very long before I want another when the opportunity arises. I was thinking back, and the way I remember doing it before successfully was tracking every single thing I ate while I was out onto a sheet of paper, even if it was one cracker, and putting it to my food tracker when i got home.

 The thinking was this: Say 5 crackers is a serving (who eats 5 crackers??? Seriously??) Anyways, if 5 crackers is a serving and you look at the back of the package to see the calories and fat etc. And you think, wow...for some reason these ritz crackers are really high in fat. I better just eat 1. So you open the package and eat 1. But it's so good you think I'll just have one more. 2 crackers is hardly anything, right?  Then you don't eat any more and you go about your day. A few hours later your kids want a snack, so you spread some peanut butter on some crackers for them, and you have a lick of the pb off the spoon, out of habit, and that makes you want just a smidge more on a cracker. You decide to indulge yourself, it's only one after all right? Later on, after lunch, they request some cheese and crackers. (Sorry for the example...we really have been eating a lot of Ritz crackers around here lately, haha) You decide to make yourself just one little mini cheese cracker sandwich. A piece of low fat cheese (healthy, right?) sandwiched between two ritz crackers.  By this time, you have completely forgotten about the other crackers you snacked on throughout the day.  Now it's added up to a whole serving.  At the end of the day, you are really craving a little frozen yogurt, so you enter in your foods you have eaten for the day, only to find out you are very very close to going over as it is and you have just enough calories and fat left for a small serving of frozen yogurt. Then it hits you. You forgot about all the crackers and little bits of snacking you ate throughout the day. It has added up. If you had tracked as you went about your day, you wouldn't have been let down just now, and probably wouldn't have snacked so much knowing that you it was all adding up.  Now, is snacking bad? No!!  And those 5 crackers are not a big deal. I am just using it as an example because I know it applies to me specifically. That has happened more than one. I lost nearly 50 pounds before I had Jonah through hard work, exercise, and eating right. But I gained it all back and then some when I got pregnant. I felt like being pregnant was an excuse to eat whatever I wanted, even when I knew that wasn't right.  This time, I am stronger. I am praying for the strength to not make excuses, or be lazy.  I won't lie. I do get out of breath from exercising each night. It's fun for a little while and then it becomes work. My whole family has been playing Just Dance 3 on the xbox and it is a great cardio workout. But it's tough for me. I am not coordinated and it's not easy for me to keep up with the choreography. I'm pretty bad out of shape. But I'm making an honest effort. I know that the more I do it, the easier it will be (and then I will have to push myself more!) and as I shed the pounds it will be much more normal to just get that exercise in as a part of my day.  Right now it feels more like a challenge.  The biggest challenge for me though is the food though.  I LOVE cooking, especially rich southern cooking. Fried chicken strips, bacon, butter, LOTS of bread, etc....oh my goodness. I could spend all day checking out different recipes on Pinterest. I know there are plenty of healthy recipes out there too, and I will probably have to start researching those too....but it's just how I was raised. Eat that chicken, and then have a second helping. Did you get enough to eat? It's just ingrained in us, as a way to show we cared, to feed those we love with all these good tasting (horrible for you) foods. So those are the foods I love.  I am going to have to work at cultivating a new love for healthier foods. I have no problem with veggies, as long as they are coated in butter, fried, or over salted! But I know that has to change.  I know especially at our house, we have a tendency to have large servings and then go back for seconds if there is enough left. So what I've started doing is not making enough for that. I just make enough for everyone to have one normal size serving, and one extra for hubs for lunch the next day.  That seems to be helping. Also, I need to try to work on the bread thing. We are bread lovers around here. Most nights I try to have some homemade yeast rolls ready to go with dinner.  I guess that's one of the things we need to change! I don't see us kicking the bread habit any time soon (as I am not of the school of thought to cut out bread all together anyways).  I do see us however, switching from homemade white breads to homemade whole grain breads.  We already eat only wheat store bought sandwich bread. That sounds like something for me to do today....research healthier scratch recipes.

What resolutions have you made? Are you trying to get healthier too? What are you doing to get yourself and your family on the right track?