In the Beginning, There Was Change

My husband's work benefits offer two programs that I've started to use over the last month.  One is called Hinge Health, and is an online resource that focuses on doable, at-home physical therapy to help heal, well your hinges.  Years of over lifting and over work have left me with back pain, so I'm in the "Back Therapy" program.   The other program is Omada, which is an online weight loss program.  I highly recommend both programs, if it's something your insurance company offers.  If not, you might check into the out of pocket cost, it may be worth it.

One thing I realized, is that the all or nothing mentality that I normally try to do where weight loss is concerned, just doesn't work.  Moderation really is the key, who knew?  I've determined that nothing is going to be "off limits", but things will have to be limited.

Along those same lines, I also realized that "just one cup of coffee" or just "one plate at dinner" is open ended based on the size of dinner plates and coffee cups.  A quick, easy fix was that I traded my regular coffee cup (on the right) for the coffee cup that came with my dinnerware set.

Honestly, I don't like coffee, I like flavored creamers.  With this whopping big cup, I was getting way too much creamer and its accompanying sugar.  Not to mention, all that extra caffeine wasn't helping my blood pressure any.  The smaller size lets me enjoy a cup of coffee and the creamer, but in moderation.  I was drinking 2-3 of the big cups a day.  Now, I'm at 1 of the small cups in the morning, and possibly a decaf later in the day.

I also bought myself a really cute, 8.75" dinner plate.  It's sitting on top of our regular dinner plate in the photo below, to show you the difference in size.  This automatically helps with portion sizes when the plate just doesn't hold as much.  I try to aim for at least half the plate being vegetables of some sort.

I got a pedometer at Aldi's that worked for a week and then stopped.  Then Omada sent me a fancy, nice one.  I realized that the one at Aldi's wasn't working much to begin with as it never got over 1000 steps, and I knew that couldn't be right.  My first goal is to get to 7,000 steps daily, on a consistent basis and then we'll go from there.

Try making little changes that you can live with. Life is too short to be in bondage to "can't have".