First Post

I realized that if I kept waiting for the perfect first post, I'd never blog about anything. So here goes:

I'm Rebekah. I'm 19, a student at a community college, hoping to transfer in a couple of years to UW for a major in Psychology after I finish all the (cheap) prereqs I possibly can while living at home and babysitting part time. I have 3 cats and a dog, plus a few other pets that share my house but aren't mine. I'm a vegetarian. I know vegetarianism is defined in different ways by different people, but for me it means that I don't eat meat or fish, I read labels and avoid things like gelatin, and I also limit the eggs and dairy in my diet.

About the shrinking- I am currently about 50 lbs above a healthy weight for my body. At my very heaviest, I weighed 235 lbs. I followed Weight Watchers for several months in 2008 and lost about 30 lbs, then got tired of counting points and recording everything I ate. I stopped losing weight after that, gained a little over the holidays in 2008, and have maintained since then. Weight Watchers brought normal portions back into my life and restored my sense of balance. What I didn't like about WW was the amount of overprocessed...well, not even real food that was encouraged. I also reached a point where the meetings were just not helpful- all the "I've been so good this week" or "I was so bad!" all based on behavior with food just didn't suit me. Weight Watchers was perfect for me when I started losing weight because the plan is flexible enough to accomodate any type of diet, but it doesn't fit me in this stage of my life.

What does fit me? Well, my plan through January is all about being good to my body. There are 4 important parts. In order:

1) Getting adequate sleep. I am such a night owl, but it makes my mornings miserable! I've been so sleep deprived lately that I fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow. My goal for October is to get in the habit of going to bed at least 8 hours before I need to wake up in the morning. I will do this by logging 250 hours of sleep in October (8 hours x 31 days=248, +2 because I'll need to catch up from September).

2) Packing lunch. My last class is over at 10:30 most days, 11:30 on Tuesday/Thursday when I take step aerobics so I'm usually home at lunch time. The thing is, I make very poor lunch choices when I'm at home. The best thing I can do is pack lunch in the morning or the night before. It gives me good nutrition, a chance to take a picture for you, and frees me up to stay at school longer if I want to finish some work. I will pack 20 lunches in October.

3) Exercise! I spent the last 6 months training for and walking in the Seattle Breast Cancer 3-day. Especially near the end of the training, all that walking was grueling. I love high intensity exercise (something I just learned earlier this year), but I didn't have the energy after walking 10 miles on a Saturday. Now that it's over, I'm getting back to the intense exercise I love! I take a Tuesday/Thursday step aerobics class at school, which is my absolute favorite way to exercise. On the other weekdays, I'll be packing gym clothes and hitting the YMCA on my way home from school. I'll probably take the weekends off unless I find something fun and active to do. I will log 20 hours of exercise in October.

4) Plan ahead so I don't stress out. This is possibly the most important part of the plan, but I put it last because it's the hardest. I'm a huge procrastinator. I'll put off doing homework, cleaning, answering emails...and it serves no purpose other than causing stress in my life. I will spend 45 hours outside of class time studying and doing my homework in October. This is about 2 hours per weekday. Further, I will spend 10 hours in October cleaning and decluttering in my room and the other parts of the house I use.

My goals add up to 325 hours. There are 744 hours in October, so over half of that time will be unstructured, driving, in class, etc. My goals are highly manageable! I'm telling you as much as I'm telling myself that I have no excuse for not following through!