Goals Update

From Feb. 17:

Goal: swim a mile in at most an hour at the gym.
Deadline? Hmmm. How about by June.

I have done this twice! I don't plan to stop. In fact, I think I need to start swimming more, possibly 2000 yards, which is a mile and a quarter, give or take.

From Feb. 19:

Anyway, here is what I decided will happen:

1. Replacing the pasta I eat with rice. I can have pasta on occasion, but for the most part, I'm making the switch to rice. Essentially the same amount of prep/cook time and can be eaten with most of the same things as the pasta can.

I think I have done fairly well with this. I used to buy 2-4 lbs of pasta every two weeks. Now I have 2-4 lbs of pasta sitting on my counter because I didn't eat it all from the last time I went grocery shopping and bought more thinking I was out. That will probably last me a month or two, at least. Rice is also more cost-effective, I think. You get more servings of rice for the same amount of money.

2. Look into getting a GF grill. When I cook chicken now, it has to be done in a skillet, so I end up using butter. Now, the butter I use is pretty much the best butter you could possibly get in terms of healthiness. It's a diet butter with omega 3 and made with olive oil. But, still, if I get the GF grill, I can cook it with no butter and no butter is better than even the best, healthiest butter.

Technically, I didn't buy the GF, I used my credit card rewards points to get it. I have it, nonetheless, and have used it! Yay!

3. Try out some new recipes that Ben and I talked about. He wants to eat more veggies, so we talked about which ones he likes. I like vegetables for the most part, with a few exceptions. We came up with tomatoes, corn, potatoes, green beans and edamame. I decided I could take some of the ingredients of my sauce (the tomatoes and tomato sauce), dilute it and add the above mentioned foods to make sort of a vegetable soup. We even discussed putting in some rice with it, rather than noodles. Talking about the rice got me thinking about another way we could prepare almost the same ingredients. We both love the Mongolian Barbecues and I thought if we cook the foods we talked about and put it over rice, it could be like a vegetarian entree.

I did this. It came out pretty well, though I did need to add some chili meat. It was too bland and wasn't very well put together without it. I think if I ever make a vegetarian version of it, I'll use beans instead to help give it the same consistency.

4. Start a food journal. I am really not looking forward to it, because I know it will take a lot of work to remember to write down what I eat, but I think it will be important. A couple that we are close friends with are participating in a saving contest through their bank and one of the things the savings coaches had them do at the beginning was make a spending log. That way, they could track the money they were spending and identify areas where they were spending money frivolously and where they could cut their spending without making huge sacrifices. I think of this as something similar. I think that if I write down what I eat each day, I will be able to identify where I can change what I eat, how much I eat or cut out certain types of food without making huge sacrifices.

I guess, technically, I did do this, but then I stopped. That's why I didn't cross it out, because I'm not sticking to it. Maybe once things have settled with the other strategies I'm trying, I'll pick it up again if necessary.

From March 1:

Considering I've lost about a pound in three weeks, let's say ten pounds by the end of the summer. That gives me until September 1, my brother's birthday. (I'm not going by school calendars or by seasonal calendars. I consider the summer over at the end of August.) That is exactly six months. Twenty four weeks. Hopefully it is a reasonable goal.

Since I haven't weighed myself, I don't know how well this is going, but I'd be willing to bet not very well. It is possible, though. However, I am now down to thirteen or fourteen weeks to have it done by Sep. 1. Like I said, it is possible.