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Friday, February 21, 2014

Making your own Diet agenda, a rough how to

If you fail to plan then you plan to fail- Not sure who said that

A goal without a plan is a dream- have to look that one up too-

What I'm getting at is this: I finally realised what these saying mean. Yes really, I do.
I want to lose weight. And I have been going about it all wrong, and up until now I have hardly anything to show for it. You really do need to plan every little detail.
-Not only what will I eat and when. I tough that would be enough, but it wasn't.
-You have to check how many calories you need to maintain your currant weight, and every time you've lost around 3 to 4 kilos. Take maintenance calories minus 500 to lose.
-You have to plan when will I workout
-Who will watch my kid(s) (if you have any).
-You have to plan time for yourself/Friends/family/Partner
-You have to plan when will you do your shopping/errands/etc
-You have to plan EVERYTHING (OK at least I do)

Then there is the "emergency" planning:
-What should I do when I'm frustrated
-What should I do when I'm stressed
-What should I do when I'm bored
-What should I do when I feel like celebrating
-What should I do when I feel depressed
and so on and so forth.

If you really think about it it is a lot of planning and thinking that you have to do.
You have to really think about who you trust to support you. You don't need a saboteur. You have to realise that the one that is a big help now might be a drag later. (Here is the key word "might"). You have to remotivate yourself over and over again. You have to give yourself regular pep talks. You have to remember why you started in the first place. You have to think about your goal and what it means and what it might change in your life. You have to be realistic about it. Just because you reach that ultimate goal weight doesn't mean your life will magically change for the better.
You have to realise that losing weight is a lot of hard work, this isn't a easy task. You have to plan that it will cost money. Not a fortune but it will cost some. You need new clothes, shoes, underwear, etc, Healthy foods and some vitamins. For that you will also save money. You'll get sick less, you'll save on fast food, you'll save on insurance, in some catalogues you'll save because you need a smaller size etc.
You need to think up a reward system for yourself. At what stages you want to reward yourself and with what. It helps trust me.

After realising all of this, I sat down last night and started to plan things out. It took me a total of 5 hours thanks to my little girl to get it all done, but now I'm very happy with my results.
I choose a 2013 agenda that I had laying around. I bought it at the end of 2012 for the new work year, and didn't need it after all. You can use a notebook, spiral bound notebook, old diary or whatever suits you.
I grabbed a pencil and notebook, and started planning. Grocery shopping every Monday and Thursday, Friends and family visits on either Saturday/Sunday or Wednesdays. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays are fitness days, Saturday Nights are Date nights.
Next was agenda, wake up time, bed time, cleaning and daily cleaning chore, when to leave the house and for what I'm off for (Friends/errands/shopping etc), time to drive home, sports, dinner, TV time etc, etc
Then cleaning agenda, I made this a little easier on myself I checked pinterest and choose the best one for me on there and just redid a few things.
Sports agenda: at what time, list of sports I love, workouts I need to do, how long and shower afterwards, with babysitter.
Time for myself, I can't really plan this, I take the times when my little one is sleeping. For that I listed what I can do at that time. Blogging, knitting, reading, etc.
Next reward system. That was a little tricky. I figured I need to lose a total of 42 kilos for starters. I broke that down into 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% 25%, 30%, and end goal, then again into 3 kilo parts in between to keep motivation going. And again in U130, U120, U110 and U100 Kilos (U=under). Loads of reward possibilities. For small ones I have under 1 dollar ideas, for the major ones I have bigger things planned like small trips, massages, manicures etc. You need to figure out what rewards motivate you..
Last but not least meal plans and what day to make new ones. I choose Sunday to make new ones since I have all the food advertising and sales by then, that way I can choose stuff that is on sale to make.

Oh and a important day! When you week restarts and you weigh in! I choose Saturday for that. That way I can enjoy date night and make up for it the rest of the week. No guilt trips!

After doing all that planning I put it all into my agenda. Ignoring the dates just using the days that where listed I wrote it all down. Sometimes using a extra post it note to keep everything in the day needed. At the end where the addresses are usually listed I wrote down my goal list with space for when it was reached and rewards for that goal.

I set aside a part of the agenda for my thoughts, and my emergency contact lists. Who to call or talk to when I need support, what to do against boredom etc, breathing exercises against stress and frustration, and motivational quotes for those depressing times. (A little tip from me sparkpeople.com has a help button that is just great! I love it! Joining is free.)

Now all I have to do is decorate the thing as I go. Nothing more, nothing less. Stickers, magazine cut outs etc. You will go back and look at how far you've come from time to time. You'll want to look at the meal plans you've designed, the work outs you started, what really helped and what didn't. So take your time and plan well.

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