It's been a minute... (the importance of tracking)

Although I continue to log in regularly, I haven't really been tracking anything but fitness minutes. I certainly haven't been blogging, logging my food or taking measurements. And boy oh boy does it show. So far, I'm only up five pounds, which could be a lot worse, but considering I just ran a marathon a few weeks ago, I should have lost weight recently.

Training for the marathon gave me the feeling that I could eat pretty much anything. I was hungry a lot more of the time but I wasn't forcing myself to eat whole foods as much as I should have so I just grabbed processed snacks that were unhealthy. And then I also ate unhealthy meals and lots of treats. And I let drinking become an everyday occurrence instead of a special thing.

The damage is done, and it surely would have been worse if I hadn't been running so much. But I'm recognizing and owning the slip up. I didn't watch what I ate or try to enjoy healthier foods. I'm so happy that working out has become a big habit for me. Now I need to focus some of that ambition on food. You can't out train a bad diet.

I started to really reshape my thoughts over the weekend, deciding to cut out alcohol on week days if I'm at home. Usually I would have a glass of wine (or two) or beer (or two) with dinner, but I'm cutting that all out. Water or tea for me Sunday through Thursday. Then today I actually stepped on a scale and took measurements. Up in everything from my last real recording in May. Time to quit slacking and make sh*t happen!!

Goals:
Continue to work out as much as I have. Five days a week, at least 30 minutes each time
Snack healthy. Continue to work in whole foods and step away from some processed stuff
Meal plan. Eat out FAR less.
Lose 5 pounds by New Year's, and then another ten pounds over 2014. I will hit my goal weight by my 30th birthday (12/24/2015)

I'm going to focus on not drinking my calories this week (alcohol, coffee drinks etc) while starting to track most meals and next week I will get back into tracking all meals. I'm pretty sure no one like nutrition tracking but it sure is effective...