Resolutions

Happy New Year! 2010 was a pretty good year for our little family. I even managed to follow through with one of my resolutions (a first for me)... I quit smoking! It has been six months since I made the decision to no longer be a slave to the nicotine and set an example for my kids whom I hope never, ever start that nasty habit!

As proud as I am of this accomplishment, I did manage to gain about 20 pounds in the process of quitting. Partially because of the not smoking anymore and partially because I used not smoking anymore as an excuse to snack. So this year's resolution ties into conquering last year's... I want to change my life through the food that I eat.

I have the worst relationship with food. I eat garbage and lots of it. When I "diet", I still eat junk... just less of it. I manage to lose weight, but I feel like crap because my body is not getting the fuel it needs. So I give up on the diet and go back to my usual, unhealthy patterns. My resolution for this year is to eat more natural, non-processed foods.

I don't know if there is a specific diet out there to give this venture of mine a label, but here are the basic ideas that I am hoping to adhere to and should naturally result in some weight-loss:

* Eat as close to the "source" as possible. What this means to me is eating things from nature... veggies, fruits, meat, eggs, nuts, milk. I am researching and expanding what this will include since I honestly don't know the difference between what is and isn't *natural*.

* I'm also trying to maintain the 40:30:30 ratio in my diet. This is something I discovered through an app I have on my ipod. It relates to the balance of foods in your diet, 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat are the daily goals. I use Tap & Track on my ipod and it shows me a pie chart of my daily intake percentages. I find it keeps me from blowing my whole diet out of whack with too much fat or sugar or starch.

* Maintain a calorie intake between 1250 and 1500 daily. I am hoping this will be easier than with my past dieting experience since I don't see myself gorging on green beans and apples. I guess it could happen...

It seems simple to keep things, well, simple in terms of what I plan to eat, but I know it is going to be hard. The donuts my kids were eating this morning smelled so. flippin'. good. I just need to take it one day (meal) at a time and realize that my success with this resolution will also set a life long example for my donut-scarfing, cookie-crazy babies. 6yr-old-girl has been begging me to slice open the pineapple that came in with all of the other fresh fruits and veggies in preparation for my big switch.

I also plan to share a food log and photos here, maybe even a weekly weigh-in report; at least in the beginning while this is all new to me. Hopefully, by the end of this year, it will be second nature to eat naturally and I won't need to think (obsess) about it so much.

Breakfast: hard boiled egg, orange, tea & honey

Lunch: steamed broccoli/cauliflower/carrots, walnuts, dried cranberries

Dinner: green beans, boneless/skinless chicken breast, white corn/black bean salsa

Daily totals: 1220 calories, 48% carbs (150g), 32% fat (46g), 20% protein (62g). I know I need to do better getting enough protein, but this is probably more than I have eaten in months. I told you, my diet is garbage (sugar, sugar and more sugar). I'm feeling good about day one right now and hope to see some positive changes to my overall health in the weeks and months to come.