Phase 2: Installing a Stop Sign Over My Trap

I think that most would agree that getting healthy, or being healthy, typically involves two components: diet and exercise. For those of us that are built like a brick house - well, maybe not brick...more like an over-stuffed pillow house - it is going to be in our best interests to get those two components working together, to achieve maximum results. My ideal "maximum results" would be to drop some LBs, and some inches. I know over the last few weeks of working out, I have dropped a few inches. I haven't dropped nearly as many pounds as I would have thought I would, working as hard as I do at the gym. But how is that possible, you ask? Oh yeah. It is because I cannot seem to consistently stop myself from hoovering crap I shouldn't be eating down my piehole!

Now I have been going to the gym diligently (minus my 4-day sick stint last week. Anti-Shout out to Phlegm and congestion!) for the last month+. I have adjusted my day to plan for the amount of time I spend there, and even...dare I say it...knock on wood...look forward to going! It is unbelievable. But now the time has come to take on a new challenge. Well, maybe not new. It's an old challenge...that keeps coming up. Now it is time to retake on the challenge of eating well, affectionately named "Phase 2", while simultaneously going to the gym and workin' it. This is not to say that I have been eating nothing but bad for the last few weeks. I have eaten well...some of the time. But I have also had many moments where I did not. I haven't eaten much "fast food" - which is usually my nemesis. Pizza has been my biggest culprit. But no more! 

I have spent the last 2 days digging through my cookbooks and magazines, and have decided on the first 5 things I am going to make. I will definitely share them with you, if they are delicious. It was while reading through the recipes that something dawned on me. I think I might hate cooking. I know I hate baking. I was banned from baking as a kid because I was so sick of it by the time I got the cookie dough mixed up, that I wouldn't take the time to make individual cookies. 

I fear the same goes for cooking. I tend to make things that can be ready in 5 minutes, with minimal ingredients, that are very easy to make - which means I eat about 5 things...repeatedly. No wonder I'm not super-jazzed about eating well! It is time for me to get over it, and expand my horizons. There is no time like the present to figure out a way to enjoy, or at least tolerate, more involved food preparation.


It's time to add the nutrition phase into my life on a much more frequent, permanent, basis. I would never call my time at the gym wasted, but I could do things outside the gym to make it more beneficial. It is time to stop thinking it's OK to eat what I want because I went to the gym. Life for this fat girl doesn't work that way.