I have to admit, I have been "Joelle" this week. (Biggest Loser NBC) I have not been eating as well as I should (my husband marked Ben & Jerry's down to $1.50 at the store) and I haven't exercised once because I've been too busy. I have just stopped exclusively nursing my 10 ½ month old son so I've been engorged. Is that enough excuses for you? When I'm in the moment one excuse sounds rational, but when I just listed all my excuses I sounded like a whiner. If someone used these excuses on me to justify their mistakes I would have told them to decide whether or not they want to make excuses or progress. If progress is what I want then I have to make a way to get there. It's not going to come to me. Sooooooo, I'm going to list my goals as well and ask if I can be accountable to all of you to call me out on my excuses. Here goes. Now the nursing thing will make me fluctuate for a while until my milk is completely gone, but that shouldn't take more than a week or so if I remember correctly. After that I will be able to make progress a little more easily.

In the mean time I will go for a walk every day. Light or dark, rain or shine.

I will not eat more than one non-nutritional item every day. (treats, crackers, chips, soda, etc.)

I will not eat after 7:00 pm. (Oprah tip)

I will not eat fast food more than once a week. (Family movie night we have pizza and I'm indulging in that!=)

I will work my way back to my previous fitness level. My Firm workouts kick my butt when I'm in shape! There's no telling what they'd do to me now but I will work my way back to completing each dvd that I have.

I will find ways to reward myself other than ice cream! I love it and it must love me because it sticks to me and doesn't want to go away.

I will eat at least 3 servings of raw veggies every day as well as cooked servings.

I will drink only water. No straight fruit juice (too few nutritional benefits that don't out-way the sugar), soda, etc. (I don't like milk)

This sounds like a lot of new goals, but really they emulate the lifestyle I once lived. Of course I only had a 9 month old baby at the time and no money to buy unnecessary food items. Now I've got four kids and a pantry full of kid snacks. Anyway, I'm going to take this a little at a time in order to build better patterns. I want to look good in my formal dress that I wore on my honeymoon. Mostly though, I want to look good naked. The right clothes can camouflage my trouble spots from other peoples' view, but I want to know that I look good, not just my clothes.