My theory

I need more exercise and physical activity. However, I will never be able to exercise enough if I don't curb my side eating and cut my dinner portions. I'm pretty good with eating a light lunch and breakfast, and I don't snack that much if at all when I'm at work. It's when I get home at night that the problems begin. I eat too much dinner, then around 8:30 I start foraging. I'll get something salty, then sweet, then salty, then sweet, and so it goes. I may fit something healthy in there out of guilt, but that doesn't help.

So I've got two ideas. One, I'm gonna get up more and find things that I like and can do on a treadmill. You all know about my Lego Batman diet (I play Lego Batman while I walk on a treadmill), but I'm thinking I could also watch movies, especially now that we have Netflix on our Wii. I don't think I could read a book, like I've seen some people do at Marv Jenson's, but I've found a ton of podcasts I like and I've figured out how to work the SL County Library's NetLibrary to download MP3 and WMA audiobooks to my MP3 player.

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The other idea I have is I need to come up with the activities I like, but during which I don't eat, and differentiate those from activities during which I do eat. Partial lists:

Activities during which I DON'T eat: Playing board games (They're too expensive to allow food around); Painting Miniatures (mainly to spruce up my board games); Playing the Wii (There is no way to play the games I like with just one hand. Also, I tend to stand when I play); Reading (too much risk of getting food and/or greasy fingerprints on the pages); doing work around the house; walking on the treadmill.

Activities during which I DO eat: Watching movies, TV; Playing video games on anything but the Wii; playing card games.

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I'm still going to watch movies, and every once in a while there's a TV show I like, etc., but I'm thinking that now that I'm conscious of what activities drive me to snack, I can work on avoiding the urge. On top of that, if I can find more things I enjoy that can be done on a treadmill, I'll get more physical activity, even when it's butt cold or flamin' hot.

Hello

Hi guys! I have never used blogger so it might take me a while to figure things out. Yes sparkpeople.com is incredible! Love it. I love the emails I get with little tips regarding all things health. I get one every morning and I have found that reading them early in the morning (I have been getting up at 5 and to the gym by at least 5:45) gets me going and excited to go do something healthy. I feel like even that little 2 minute change in my morning routine has really been helping me.

SparkPeople - Emmy's favorite website

Emmy has found a great website for tracking your diet and exercise called sparkpeople.com. I think Lana is now using it, too. She can probably explain it better, but you enter in what you have eaten that day by simply searching for the foods. The website has info for a number of foods already, but if they don't have the food on there, you enter in what you know about the ingredients in terms of fat, calories, etc. This fat, calorie, etc. information is then shared across the website for others to use. 

For example, Emmy made borscht the other night and when she entered it in, there were roughly 20 different borscht recipes to pick from. She could have entered her own guess for how many fat, calories, etc. her borscht has, but all she had to do was simply select the one that was nearest her own. (And if they have borscht, they've gotta have lots of other stuff, too.)

It takes Emmy about 10 minutes each day to do this. I think most people can find that time if they really want to track their diet. Emmy has been tracking her diet like this for the last couple months and this, combined with exercise, has helped her lose weight at a healthy rate of 1-2 lbs per week.