The Blog

I’m going on, yet another, diet. Will it be the last one? I don’t know, but I hope so. I am 35 years old and started my first diet and life-long obsession/struggle with my weight at age 12. I wanted to lose 5 pounds back then, and I’m STILL trying to lose those 5 pounds, plus a few more.

I think I have a fairly positive body image now, compared to 5, 10, even 20 years ago. I used to look in the mirror and see someone much heavier than what I really was. Now I see myself as smaller and am sometimes quite shocked by the size of my clothing or the number on the scale. Could I really be this size? I FEEL good (most of the time). I just want to look the way I feel.

I want lose about 35 pounds. This time around it’s more for health reasons than vanity, although that does play a role. But I have a family history of diabetes and heart disease and I don’t want to succumb to those diseases like many of my family members and those in my community. I want to set a good example of a healthy lifestyle for my children. And I want my daughters to have a mother who feels good about herself and her body, so that they can see what self-love really looks like. I’ll be successful with this diet this time because I feel my motives are in the right place.

But I LOVE food. Like, really, really love it. I love to cook, and if I wasn’t a professional photographer, I would love to try my hand as a chef. Cooking is a passion of mine. So the challenge now will be to try new recipes that are low fat, lower calorie, higher in protein and good carbs. We’ll see how that goes. I hear those guys over at Lean Cuisine are pretty good too

And so it begins. I went grocery shopping yesterday and filled my cart with lean meats, fresh veggies, bottled water, non-fat yogurt, and healthy snack choices. I like to give myself realistic goals, and I would really love to lose 20 lbs before a vacation to Florida in July. If I stick with a plan of 2 lbs per week, then that goal will be easily attainable.

We’ll see what happens. It’s much easier for me to stick to a diet when I know people are ‘watching’ so stay tuned for regular updates. I’ll post new recipes I may come across, the meal plan I decide to follow, my exercise regime, and of course, the ups and downs of being on the 239842nd diet of my life. I hope you follow along!

Posted by Chantal in Health, Women's Issues |

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Health, Women's Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.