Taking Care of Ourselves - Update

I wrote for the 1st time about living healthy back in October and I thought I'd give you an update as to how I've been doing. With the Christmas holiday I didn't finish the year as strongly as I would have liked to but I have made up for it since the beginning of the year.

The biggest commitment that I did make before Christmas was to give up soda completely. Today is my 77th day of living soda free and I do have say it was incredibly difficult for me! I have reached the point that I'm not dreaming about soda anymore and a lot of the craving has left me. However there are still times (like at Outback last night when our friends were eating the Aussie Cheese Fries) that I do still REALLY want a Pepsi. For me it was a combination of the calories (I drank regular not diet), the caffeine, as well as how bad I know soda really is for me that made me give it up. I know some people can limit themselves to one a week but I don't have that much will power. What has helped is that I'm doing this with a friend of mine with the grand prize being lunch at a very expensive restaurant here in town. Like my husband says, I don't have the will power to do it myself but I'm stubborn enough that I won't give in to my friend.

Since the beginning of the year my diet friend and I upped the ante to limit desserts until we have earned them. To earn a dessert requires 4 hours of working out. It's been about six weeks and I've earned two while my friend has only earned . We really need to motivate ourselves so we've made it a little harder. To earn a dessert you know much work out 4 hours within a seven day period and only the 1st person to reach 4 hours gets the dessert. So far it's worked pretty good, we started on Friday and I already have two hours in (today is Sunday). I do have to say that with limited desserts you really question whether it's worth it or not. I haven't had any yet because nothing has been 'worthy' of my sacrifice.

Since the beginning of the year I'm down about 6 pounds (total of about 25 pounds since last March) so I feel like I'm doing pretty good. I'm really trying hard not to focus on the number and focus more on healthy eating (I'm trying to eat mostly whole, natural foods without preservatives) and exercise.

I would really encourage any one who is serious about changing their lifestyle to find a friend to make the change with. In the past I haven't really had the will power by myself to make the change but having a friend to encourage me and go through the process has really helped a lot.

If you're trying to make changes to your diet and excercise habits I'd love to hear from you.