New year, old me.

Yup. That's right. It's the new year. Welcome to 2009. Time for resolutions that won't be kept, and people to flood the gym for 2 months before giving up.

And yes, this year, I'm doing the same. Well, hopefully for longer than 2 months, but let's be realistic here: I hate exercising. Always have, probably always will. I realize it's necessary for weight loss, though, so...back to the gym I will be going. But first, I'm going to spend some time getting my food straightened out. Because BOTH are needed for me to lose weight (though, my dear, darling, PITA of a husband doesn't seem to get this concept).

The first 2 weeks of this year, I'm going to go kinda easy. We leave for Disney World on the 16th. No sense getting great habits and going hard core only to "blow it" on vacation and start over from scratch anyway. So, we will start with getting my caloric intake into a normal range...ie-stop gaining, but not start losing yet. How will this help? Gradual changes. Easier to handle a drop of 500-1000 calories (I'm guessing-but probably not far off) than a drop of 1500-2000 a day. I found a basal metabolic rate calculator, which says mine is 2247.48 (*cough240cough* pounds, 5'7", 29 twice, sedentary lifestyle). My first goal will be to eat 2000-2500 calories a day until we get home from our trip.

After MUCH debate, I can't bring myself to pay for a weight loss program again. I did Weight Watchers. 3 times, in fact. I did LA Weight Loss. I did the Curves Diet. I did Slim Fast. I did Special K. Are we noticing a trend here? I even did IE, which, I still believe in. And I realize I will be just hurting myself with yet another diet. But at the same time, I can't deal with none of my pants fitting. I'm tired of it. And I need to get some control. Because that's really all diets are: control mechanisms. So, it's back to Spark People I go. Free tracking software, basically. Yeah, they have a few tips, and it will set up a diet for you if you want it to. But this way, I can set mine up and not have to deal with someone else's idea of "detoxing", which just means setting you up for failure right from the start because they set unrealistic expectations. There. I said it. Diet programs set you up to fail by expecting you to cut so far back it's unrealistic for the first 2 weeks. Every plan I've been on does this.

You CAN NOT go from eating whatever you want to being so strict. Your body can't handle it. You get cranky and get cravings and will binge at the first opportunity. That's why diets that automatically set you up so you can "jump start" you weight loss with a 5 pound loss your first week are never good for the long haul. You are so deprived after the first few days, but you stick with it, because the scale is going down! YAY! But the minute that scale stops moving, or, god forbid, goes UP, it's over.

With that said: we are going to try the Lill Diet Plan. One of my own creation, taking things from everything else I have done. Here are the basics:

Week 1-2: Reduce caloric intake to 2000-2500/day. That's it. (est. loss: 0)
Week 3-4: Reduce caloric intake to 1700-2200/day. Go to the gym 1 day a week for 30 minutes. (est loss: <1 pound-2359 calories less)
Week 5-6: Maintain 1700-2200/day. Add 2nd day at the gym for 30 minutes. (est. loss: <1 poind-2617 calories less)
Week 7-8: Reduce caloric intake to 1500-2000. Maintain 2 days at the gym for 30 minutes. (est loss: >1 pound-4018 calories less)

At this point, I will evaluate. Don't want to get to far ahead of myself. I think 1500-2000 will be a good calorie range, though I may drop to 1200-1700, but no lower. And I may add a 3rd day at the gym, but I'm trying to be realistic. The planned exercise is swimming laps. I love to swim. I hate going to the gym, but I do love swimming. And once I'm in the pool, I'm fine.

A note on my calculations from above: all calorie drops are based on my first week and based on the minimums. So, for week 3-4, I estimated a drop from 2000 calories to 1700, or 300/day, 2100/week. Add in 259 burned swimming (that is at a leisurely pace), and that is how we got 2359 less than the week before. It actually works out to just over half a pound a week. At that point, I may still be losing water weight, too (fingers crossed!). All other calculations were based on the same idea.

Ok. That is the basis of the Lill Diet Plan. It's a work in progress. Who knows. Maybe someday I can sell it for millions and be the next Jillian Michaels. Or not. Anyway.

To keep tabs on me, I will be posting my food logs here. If I don't, smack me around, because it means I don't want to admit what I ate. But not admitting it doesn't change the fact that I ate it. I need accountability. Off to add my venti skim chai latte and banana loaf from Starbucks that I had this morning...