Wednesday (aka-only 2 more days till Friday!)

Good morning! I am on day 5 of no soda and I am so LOVING it!! I have had to find a source of caffeine to get me through my day, but I found a much healthier source than Dr. Pepper. I have been drinking black tea, which has about 30mg of caffeine per 8 fl oz serving. Plus, since tea is made with water (duh!), I am also upping my water intake. That is helping me reach goal #3 (Increase water intake)! I feel so much better without soda in my diet. Also important, I am getting less sugar now. I feel much less jittery and I don't have the "slump" when it gets out of my system late morning/early afternoon. I also don't crave sweets as much without that sugar to rev up my sweet tooth. I'm not sure why that is, but I'll take it! :-) I do know, however, that increasing the amount of water I drink helps to cleanse my body and aids my metabolism and weight loss. Also, I thought it would be hard to start drinking more water, but it seems that the more water I drink, the thirstier I am. So that makes it easy to drink more water, because I am more thirsty! Of course, all the extra water makes me have to run to the little girls room more often, but I think I can handle that! (Lol)

I have been doing fairly well as far as eating right. I slip up a bit in the afternoons, and I am going to have to find a way get a hold of that. All the rest of the time, I do really good, though. For breakfast, I have been eating the cereal called "Optimum Slim" that is really good. It has 9 grams of both fiber and protein! I've been having lactose-free milk with it (Almond Breeze-Vanilla), which is super yummy. Today I have actually not been hungry at all yet, and it's been 4 1/2 hours. So I would say that the cereal is really filling! For lunch, I usually end up with a sandwich of some sort. Yesterday I had crunchy peanut butter (yay :-)) on Arnold's sandwich thins (wheat). The sandwich thins are fantastic! I love that they don't taste really course and grain-y, but they are really smooth and tasty. I also bought some carrots at the store that I have been munching on, as well as some cantaloupe and HONEYDEW MELON!! Can you tell that honeydew is my favorite fruit? Well, it is. I am really proud of myself for cooking dinner both nights so far this week. I made a beef-and-vegetable-skillet on Monday that had lots of veggies, and last night I made tacos with lean meat and went light on cheese (which is hard for me, because I love cheese). I have been watching my portion sizes too, because even healthy food can be bad if you eat too much of it.

I haven't stepped on the scale in about a week, so I'm not sure if any of this is making a difference in my weight. I do think that I look a (little) bit thinner, but that could just be wishful thinking! I will try to remember to weigh tomorrow morning and I'll post it then. I'm not too worried about weight right now though; I am focusing on just becoming more healthy overall. I think that if I start eating right and exercising regularly, weight loss will follow. Maybe taking the focus off losing weight in the beginning will be the key for me, and it will happen because I am focusing on being healthier. I know that I feel better, so that is one step in the right direction!

I would also like to talk about an article I found this morning. It is about how kids being overweight from (supposedly) school lunches is keeping them from enlisting in the military as they become old enough to. I think that childhood obesity is tragic, and can be avoided more often than not . I do agree that school lunches are, for the most part, extremely unhealthy. However, it is my opinion that the solution starts at home for most of these children (and adults, for that matter). Parents need to step up and teach their children to eat better and to get out of the house and exercise. Also, others in our society, such as teachers and other leaders, need to help get the point across. If parents made lunches for their children, they wouldn't have to complain about the school-offered meals. As caretakers though, schools should take the initiative and start offering healthier things to eat, as well as smaller portion sizes. Parents and leaders also need to set the example for children. If children are told to eat right, but they don't see an example set before them, it won't be effective. "Do as I say and not as I do" is never the right way to teach a lesson. Okay, I will get off my soapbox about that now. Here's the link to the article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_school_lunches_threat .

Wow, this one is pretty long, hopefully not too long.

Do something healthy for you today!