Write vs. Might

I almost took a swig of my husband's Dr. Pepper 10 this morning. Almost. Theoretically, as a wellness teacher, I am vehemently opposed to all forms of soda, especially those containing fake sugar with whacky chemical side effects.  As a single girl, I knew better than to drink the stuff. But I married a Southern boy from Alabama, where Dr. Pepper and sweet tea are preferred to water by a ratio of 999:1. I would like to think of myself as a victim of Jon's attempt to brainwash me into becoming a real Southern lady. That soda was just part of a larger ploy that includes learning to enjoy BBQ date nights, accepting the fact that watermelon can be salted and potato salad can be warm, and adopting Crimson Tide football as a second religion.  While we have made a lot of breaks from the bad habits of our youth, the complete and utter elimination of the bubbly (that's Baptist-speak for "soda," since we don't do champagne) hasn't been one of them. Honestly, I'd found it sneaking into my diet way more than I'd care to admit here on paper.

Which is exactly why I took a pass on it today. You see, today I am starting to keep a food journal for the first time in a long time, in partnership with my health class students who are doing the same. This week, we are just supposed to practice writing down everything we eat and drink so we know where to clean up our habits next week. But there was NO WAY I was going to let them see that I--their revered, beloved, disciplined, amazing health class teacher (I just spoke in, like, a thousand hyperboles there)-- had a random swig of soda on Day One of food journaling. Besides, I already know with the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, I will have plenty of examples for them of what NOT to do when trying to lose weight. I've got to save face where I can, my friends.


Apparently, I'm not the only one who will change their food decisions just so they look good on paper. It looks like there may be more to this ego-trip than meets the eye. The big wigs at Kaiser Pemanente Hospital conducted a study in 2008 which showed that those who kept a food diary lost twice as much weight as their less literary counterparts.  Why? Because it's so easy to think you're doing all right with your food until you see it  written down in black and white. One of my students said it best: "If you don't write it down, it didn't happen." That bag of Cheetos? Don't know what you're talking about...  Cookies for dinner? A second slice of cake? Not my problem... But, while you can pretend that those unrecorded forays into the fridge didn't happen, that Shakira song with those lyrics, "My hips don't lie," will come back to bite you in the...um, hips.

And just in case you have a personal grudge against Kaiser Permanente and refuse to validate their study, I'll give you the results of a similar study: this one showed that you had a measly 20% chance of succeeding in your weight-loss goals if you didn't keep some sort of a food journal. Right now,  while I am pursuing a vanity goal of getting down to my wedding weight for our fifth anniversary in April, I value the 80% chance of success that journaling gives me. But, I've been meaning to work on this goal for awhile; I just haven't gotten around to it. I've put it off until it was convenient, which basically meant I let myself cheat when the Spirit led me, because there was zero accountability to myself or anyone else for what happened.  I absolutely know that writing it down makes all the difference between starting on that goal today and putting it off until some other time. I either "write" now or I "might"  start on the goal tomorrow.

Well, food isn't the only thing worth making lists of. I am off to accomplish the other tasks on my to-do list today. Which no longer includes Steak N Shake Happy Hour.

Bonus Tip: Looking for a techie way to keep a food journal? Try MyFitnessPal.com, which even offers a great app that tracks your daily GL intake! If you don't know what GL is, you clearly didn't pay attention to my previous post. And you are probably at Steak N Shake drinking that half-priced milkshake.

New Year's Resolutions Stink

I want to lose weight. I want to be healthy. I want to look good in my swimsuit this summer. I want....oh, look! Snickers are on sale!

Have you ever wondered why we even bother with resolutions anymore? I mean, there are a lot of things I *want* (Snickers not always being at the bottom of that list), but a lot fewer things that I am actually willing to *work* toward getting. (Snickers being an exception to this rule as well. And, yes, I do realize that this is a health blog...I'm getting to that point soon.)  The pros tell us that most resolutions are abandoned by January 9. For those of you who are better than that, what do you get for actually staying true to your resolutions, anyway? The ability to check off tasks from a made-up list and look back at the end of the year to pretend that you did something that mattered, if only to you? It's kind of a lame payoff.


Don't get me wrong. Even with the title "New Year's Resolutions Stink," I really don't hate goals or people who set the bar high for themselves and make the rest of us look like losers. To be truthful, my husband and I are some of the most neurotically goal-driven people I know. We actually passed up a trip to Hawaii because it didn't get us closer to our ultimate goal of seeing all seven continents before starting a family. Retrospectively, it was the single most idiotic decision we've ever made regarding vacations. And the hubs is a chronic overachiever. Case in point: As soon as he broke a 10-minute-mile in running, he decided to train for a triathlon. Normal people don't do that. So, when I say that resolutions stink, please hear me from an it-takes-one-to-know-one perspective.


I've found that it's nice to have those short term goals, but, in the end, it's what you do with the rest of your life that matters. If trying to beat your best record in a 5K helps you get out there and move on a daily basis, great! But if you achieve that goal in February and surf the couch for the rest of the year, I kind of don't get the point.  I help people lose weight through a twelve-week class I teach, and, while I am proud of all my girls who experience short-term success, what excites me most is seeing them long after class is dismissed, maintaining their weight because they have decided that some of the new habits they developed during those twelve weeks are worth hanging onto in their real lives, as well. Maybe they decided that walking a few minutes every day was almost as easy as watching TV; or that turkey burgers really do leave you feeling better than mystery meat from the fast-food restaurant; or that skipping a starch during dinner every now and again isn't a cardinal sin. It's the little decisions they make on a daily basis that add up for lasting results and leave them better off in the long run, and that's what counts.


So that's what this blog is here for: to share sustainable swaps you can make to keep you and your family healthier, to give you a little encouragement by example (not always guaranteed to be a positive one!), and to see if we can't start to change the health situation in our country without magic diet pills or weight loss competitions, but by learning to enjoy what it means to be healthy day in and day out.


And that's probably why I waited until mid-January to start writing this blog. I didn't wake up on January 1 and think to myself, "Hmm...what should I do this year? I know! I will write a blog!" It's been a long time coming. Now that I've finally got around to it, I'm kind of here to stay. Because I want this to be a much bigger part of my life than any temporary resolution ever could. Remember, I said they stink.