Happy New Year!

I have the most cliche New Year's resolution in the world this year.....I want to lose a few pounds. Well, more than a few. If I can do it, really do it and get the weight off I need to in order to be healthy, I will need to shed about 100 pounds.

I don't know if I can do it, I'm scared to try again after so many years of failures but I have to keep trying. I want a more active life, one where my knees and back don't hurt constantly. I want to shop outside the "plus" section of department stores. I want to explore hobbies and interests beyond what's on my plate. I want to be a good example for my 3 beautiful children. I want to avoid disease where I can and be here for my grandchildren.

I have a plan to shed the weight. It's a plan that I made up by piecing information together from other diet and exercise plans. I've spent years thinking about and processing the specific reasons why I eat too much. I formulated a plan that would work and it actually has worked well for me before. I will talk about what happened the last time I used this plan and why I think it will work now in another post, but today, on New Year's Day 2011, I just want to introduce my new blog and outline the first Stage of my plan. My plan is in 3 stages, I will start with Stage One on Monday January 3rd, 2011.

Stage One:

Breakfast: eggs, oatmeal or granola and fruit**
Lunch: Lean Cuisine, salad
Dinner: Lean Cuisine, salad or extra veges
Snacks: 2 per day of unlimited fruit & veges with 4oz whole milk yogurt or 1 handful of nuts, 1 T. peanut butter or 1-2oz of cheese.

**I don't list specific amounts because I have never had a problem with overeating at breakfast

I also have what I call my Parachute Plan. What is that? Well, it's what I have planned for what I will eat when I feel like I'm losing control. It's a last resort thing. It's when I've tried to talk myself out of eating, when I prayed, when I've tried changing activities, chewed gum, etc, etc. It's for those times (mostly hormonal, monthly times) when I'm about to lose focus on my goal, go through the nearest drive-thru and order the biggest meal they have. In the past I found that there is only one healthy thing that I can eat that will satisfy the craving in a healthy way. I will keep a few Luna Bars and Balance Bars on hand for these times. The chocolate in these bars satisfies the craving and the protein seems to fill me up and keep me from binging.My goal with this stage of my meal plan is to get my portions under control. Last year I found that even when I ate healthy foods I ate too much of them and couldn't lose much weight. Having pre-made meals that are tasty and portioned out for me really helps keep me on track. My plan is to utilize this meal plan from now until my birthday in February. At that time I will evaluate my plan, decide if it's working and whether or not I'm ready for Stage 2 where I start portioning my own meals.

I hope this blog will help me stay on track. I also hope this can be a place of inspiration for those who struggle with their weight. I would like to post other people's stories on this blog of how they overcame obesity. If you are in process of losing weight or have lost weight successfully I would love to post your story here! If you invented your own method of weight loss that worked for you I'd love to post that here too. You can email me stories of weight loss success and original methods of weight loss at storiesfromthescale@gmail.com.