A wise man once said, “You want to go into forty the way you want to come out of it”. Ok, it was Bill Rancic. And he may have been quoting someone else, but for some reason it has stuck with me for years.
I’ve documented occasionally my desire to be thinner, healthier, stronger, more energetic (see here and here and here). In each of those posts, I’m pretty sure I promised updates to keep myself accountable. I didn’t update because I never succeeded. I’m heavier now and eating more poorly and exercising less than ever.
I’ll be forty in 3 months. I’d love to lose 20 lbs and be stronger and more energetic by my birthday. Why? Because being chunky is not fun. I love clothes, but not when I’m chunky. I don’t want to sort of not want to go to Great Wolf Lodge with my kids because I don’t want to wear a bathing suit. I don’t want to take naps every Saturday and Sunday. That’s a lie. I love naps. Revision, I don’t want to *need* to take a nap every Saturday and Sunday. I want to wear cute things now that I FINALLY know what cute things are. Most of the time. I admit, sometimes my clothing choices are questionable.
So, if I want ALL of those things, why can’t I just do it? I don’t have any medical reasons to not lose weight. I only have the reason of “I want to eat cookies and brownies now and I don’t care what effect that may have on my health”. Basically it’s like being a two year old when it comes to food.
I’m choosing a restrictive diet that I’ve done before and had success with. I know the pitfalls of restrictive diets, but I need something that will give me some strict guidelines and a plan and not many choices. And also a cheat day. You know, for the two year old. It’s the Four Hour Body diet. Google it if you’re interested. I don’t want to link to it because I don’t want to say I’m recommending it for anyone but me. Not that it is unhealthy, I just think it’s probably not for everyone. It’s similar to Paleo, low sugar, no dairy, no grains. But also NO fruit (weird and I don’t know why, but I’m not a fruit lover, so it doesn’t bug me). So that leaves lean meats, eggs, tons of veggies and beans. And the beloved cheat day. One day a week that you MUST cheat. I’m talking apple turnovers, fried foods, brownies, all of it.
I started planning today and I came up with a list of foods I will plan to eat.
Eggs (boil or scrambled or deviled), lean meat, beans, veggies, a little peanut butter for a pick me up and a couple of semi sweet chocolate chips at the end of the day. And variations of these, of course. Egg bakes, chilis, soups. But for the most part, I want to keep it super simple and keep the fancy stuff for cheat day. I did prep a bunch of chicken for the week and I do want to share that recipe with you because it came out DELICIOUS.
Spiced Chicken
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 lb Chicken Cutlets
1 T Olive Oil
1. Heat up the olive oil on medium high while preparing the chicken
2. Pound out the chicken cutlets
3. Mix together spices
4. Sprinkle each side of the cutlets with the spice mixture
5. Cook cutlets until done
These came out really delicious. It will help to know I have them to eat all week. Provided my husband and kids keep their hands off of them!
I know there is another facet to this and that is exercising. I’m committing to doing 20 minutes on the elliptical every day AND choosing one fun looking exercise pin to try each day. I know I have set myself up for failure here. But, going with the keeping it simple theme, I want to just commit to every day instead of some concocted schedule that I will get confused by. Just do it everyday. If I miss one, no biggie. Do it tomorrow. Just don’t miss two in a row.
And, lastly, I’m going to experiment with keeping a running diary of this thing. It will be somewhere on the blog. It will be short, probably, and it will be hard numbers, info about what I ate and what I did for exercising. And probably a LOT of complaining at first.
Alright. That’s that. Let’s do it.
If you’d like to follow my progress click the graphic below!