Step One Taken: What's Up With All of the Math???

See this? This is the shopping cart I am going to need to get all of this stuff on my list. Last night, I went through the P90X Nutrition Guide. And I calculated my caloric needs for the program to determine that I am a Level 3. Of course the more you weigh, the more they say you need and they actually caution you about eating too little with the demands of the program. I multiplied this number by that number. I subtracted this from that. I added 'em all together and came up with this extreme number. I was starting to think that there is no way I can consume that many calories and lose weight when I remembered that I am essentially breastfeeding and therefore my body uses 1000 calories per day just by making milk. So instead of adding this to the number derived from the provided formula, I am just going to go with what I got.

Of course just when I was tired of doing the math, I got to the diet plan. There are 3 "approaches". One gives you a strict meal plan for every meal and snack for a week while another gives portion sizes and lists of acceptable foods and it is up to you to keep track to ensure you are getting acceptable and appropriate proportions of carbs, proteins, and fats. No thanks. Just tell me what to do to get hot, please. I'll do it, I swear! So the meal plan then! That's the approach for me.

Except for the big problem...

Food Allergies!
So I went through the plan, one meal and recipe and snack at a time. And for each ingredient I could not have, I had to revert to the list to find an acceptable and equivalent substitution that would still taste okay with the other ingredients or dishes. This involved counting and dividing and comparing just a little too much. I hate my allergies. Years ago, I called Jenny Craig, wanting to get started on it, and the sales rep actually told me no, to try something else, because there was no way to do their program and avoid issues with my allergies. Seriously!

But anyhow, I did it! I made the next step. Go Me!

I Have a Plan. I Think.

I ordered P90X after some prodding from my husband. We're going to take this journey together. Have you seen this insanity? It looks like torture. Or what I imagine torture to be like, since I don't think I've ever truly experienced it. At least it looks crazy-hard. So I cannot just fling myself into it with reckless abandon. I have to take baby steps.
>Read the books that come with it for diet and fitness.
>Set a date.
>Purge my house of all junk. Seriously, I think I may cry. I'm pretty sure my Diet Mountain Dew is not a part of this plan. Nor is my fat-and-sugar-laden coffee creamers. I think I could live without anything else. But these two? I may have to enter a period of mourning for them. It will be ugly.
>Create a plan of attack for quick meals and snacks. Otherwise, with my crazy schedule, Mickey D's will be too hard to resist.
>Create a calendar for the fitness aspect of it all.
> Since I will be doing this in my home, I need to acquire some equipment. A yoga mat and blocks. Resistance bands and dumbells.
>Organize a workout-friendly zone in the house. Seriously, I am already likely to kill myself. I don't need to have the risk of tripping over toys added to this.
> And the final, most obvious step? Actually get started.

Here we go.

The Calm Before the Storm

I'm Andi, and I'm fat! There, I said it! But I won't be for long. Because I am going to get Hott! I swear it, I will.
I've got a long way to go. I want to lose 100 pounds. It's going to be so difficult because I have some roadblocks.
> I fricken hate exercise. Except for yoga. And swimming.
> I work all of the time, it seems.
> I have a kid who will violently protest when I try to make changes work for the whole family.
> If it is healthy, I am allergic to it. I swear.
> If it is healthy and I'm, by some miracle, not allergic to it, I absolutely hate it.
> My diet staples include pizza, burgers, fries, chicken tenders. Yep.
> I'm out of shape, but not as badly as one would think from my size.
> I'm an instant-gratification type of girl. This slow work-in-progress thing kind of sucks.
> It's all about convenience, baby! Diets aren't convenient. Drive-thrus are.
> I am sort of nursing a baby and can't cut my caloric intake too much lest my child starve. I promise this is true. What better advertisement for breastfeeding than that, huh? Unless my fat cells can be burned to make adequate supplies of milk. If that is the case, I'm also going to be able to feed a Third-World Village.

Okay so WTF is up with this blog? Well, it's for me and not you, but if you want to read along, by all means, welcome! But expect some whining. And some profanity. Maybe some tears and some failures. And, I hope, some success.

So what next? Some good old-fashioned planning.