This is the second year in a row where I put "loose weight" on my goals…

As you can tell, I didn’t progress much last year. The last time I blogged was the end of November.

So here I am 3 months later. The ten pounds I lost… well I gained 5lbs back after the Holidays. I guess I’m still 5lbs ahead.

I put together 6 weeks of meal plans so I wouldn’t need to think about what to eat. Even put together shopping list. There is one downfall with all that… I hate cooking… I can’t stand being in the kitchen. After two weeks of spending about 2 hours a day in the kitchen prepping and cooking meals… I loose it.

Then it’s take out time. No way am I going back into that kitchen to cook. Given my circumstances, 2 hours a day for 14 days in a row is a breakthrough.

Then I realized maybe I’m focusing on the wrong thing here.

While organizing and cleaning up my office in Dec, I came across the notes from a mentor of mine many years ago. One of those note pages talked about habits. We are all disciplined to our current set of habits. You can’t get any more disciplined then you already are because your current set of habits feel comfortable and natural.

It also takes about 21 days to form a new habit. If you pick a pivotal habit, you’ll change a lot of other habits.

I wasn’t always overweight, so what happened. Illness caused me to gain weight. I’ll go into that story later.

I lost the habit of working out. Didn’t loose the habit of cooking.

I’m overweight and out of shape. It’s cold and snowy outside so the idea of walking didn’t appeal to me right now. Need something I could do that wouldn’t get interrupted by weather. The idea is to form the habit. What is the easiest way to do it.

Reading through The Fit Chic and Success Tip #10 caught my attention: Ease into Your Workout Program.

That’s when the light bulb came on. Don’t worry about food right now. Focus on regaining the habit of working out.

3 weeks ago I began working out.

First week.

Focus on doing something. Don’t worry about the length of time. First thing in the morning I did 50 stomach crunches. That’s all and at the end of the week I did 75. Taking Sunday off

Second week.

Work out for 5 minutes. I do the 75 stomach exercises and add a series of stretching exercises. Oh man, no more flexibility. WOW… Ouch… At one time I could sit spread eagle and touch my head to the floor. Keep stretching until the timer goes off. By the end of the week, I developed a set of series of stretching exercises that fill up the 5 minutes. I also gained more flexibility. Take Sunday off

Third week

This is were I am right now. I repeat the above and add 5 minutes of marching in place. Monday I could barely get through it. Huffing and puffing when the timer goes off. Today I’m not huffing and puffing as much. Still wiping me out. I notice feeling more energized in the morning.