Mission Statement

I eat crap and I'm overweight. I want to change that.

I don't want to go on a diet, I want to change my diet, make healthier choices on a regular basis and hope that better health and a smaller butt follow behind.

To that end, I have a reward system. Because I am five.

I have a box with 60 small envelopes (about the size of a trading card.) A friend filled them all with tiny goodies and trinkets. (I'm the type who uses all her quarters in gumball toy machines so this is perfect for me.) I also filled 60 envelopes for her and for each little personal goal we reach, we get to open one. Healthy choices! Tiny surprises! Beat that, Weight Watchers!

So here are my goals (subject to change.)

1) Exercise: A 30 minute session gets an envelope. Dog walking doesn't count. In fact, nothing that just happens to be exercise that I'm not doing for the reason of exercise counts. Dance Dance Revolution counts (and it's all I have right now 'cause I can't find my card to get into the apartment gym) but helping someone move boxes out of their attic would not count. Only one envelope a day for this. I can't open two envelopes if I exercise for an hour, or for 30 minutes twice. The most I see for this is three times a week, if that.

2) Dairy Free Days: I'm really trying to get away from dairy. Once I gave it up for three weeks and I lost four pounds. I'm not worrying about milk as an ingredient, just milk as the main ingredient. So any cheese, ranch based dressings, milk, or creams aren't allowed, but things that happen to have a little milk are okay. If I have to pour a big ol' cup of milk in it to make it, like instant potatoes, that counts as dairy (I'll probably be subbing soy or rice milk or something.) So no ice cream, no chocolate! Hopefully more fruits as snacks. I have to go a whole day without dairy to get an envelope. This'll be kinda hard when my boyfriend cooks, but I'm hoping to get at least three days a week out of this.

3) Whole Meals: One thing I really want to do is make more meals out of ingredients, as opposed to canned/frozen/boxed processed crap. So far that only thing I've really done is salads and rice with veggies. I'm trying to branch out, though, so I'm rewarding myself for everyone mostly whole meal I prepare. I'm not really sure how to define what I'll consider too much processed stuff as part of the meal. I'll just kinda know. This one I might be able to do once a day, but it'll probably be closer to three or four times a week. A lot of times I won't want to make something and instead I'll eat Spaghettio's or a frozen dinner that my boyfriend bought me because he thinks I'm starving or something. I'm hoping the idea of a reward will enourage me to suck it up and make a proper meal.

4) New Veggies: Okay, this may sound silly, but I really want to be a good example of a vegetarian. I've always been a boring eater, chicken and a starch with some cheese did me fine for every meal. I NEVER ate vegetables. And I don't want anyone to think I eat broccoli and rice all the time because that's the only meal that exists without meat and being a vegetarian means being totally deprived. Also, I keep seeing vegetarians online talk about the meals they make with all these vegetables I've never tried and they make them sound so good. Plus I figure if I find more vegetables that I like it'll make eating out a lot easier because I'll have more things to choose from. So every new vegetable gets a reward. And it has to be a real bite that's chewed and swallowed, not sticking the end of my tongue on it. I also have a side rule that if I don't like a vegetable on the first try I have to try it again prepared a different way. I doubt this'll happen more than once a week.