Weighing In

My son's "schools on the move" challenge finished at the end of March. We focused on eating more fruits and vegetables, having less screen time and doing more physical activity. Since he was doing this for school, I decided to really have all of us participate to help him. It was pretty easy to get it going. And once we did, it was even easier to keep it going for the two months.

Ashley and Anthony both do a lot of physical activity already, with Ashley in dance and Anthony in swim lessons. There wasn't much to change with that part, but we did do more of playing "just dance 1 & 2" on the wii as a family. We had a blast doing that, and it was fun to beat everyone at it! Ashley didn't like that too much, but I just told her that I have dance moves she never even knew.

We didn't have much difficulty with eating more fruits and vegetables. It's just something we always eat. But making sure we got 5 servings a day was a little more than I thought it would be. We did it though, for almost everyday in those two months. Since our vacation though, we've cut back on so much of the fruits and vegetables, but I'm getting it going again. I find it pretty easy to get back on track with better eating habits.

The hardest part of this challenge was the screen time. We did limit his t.v. time, but we allowed him to play his video games more on the weekends. He did really good during the week though. He stuck to his 2 hours those days and what I thought was awesome was he did that on his own. He set his timer and followed it. When the buzzer went off, he turned off the t.v. and found something else to do. But on the weekends, we gave him reward time for doing good in school, so we didn't follow the 2 hour limit on those days. But he definitely had less screen time than usual.

MY biggest focus during this time was better eating habits. I wouldn't say that I had bad eating habits, but I just wanted to have better choices with food. I really tried to follow the food pyramid completely, and I did...for about 1 week. I just found that it was SO MUCH FOOD. I seriously got sick of eating. So, instead, I just cut back on portion sizes. I ate smaller meals more often during the day. (As Mom and Dad would call it "grazing".) I probably had 4-5 meals a day, but really it felt more like snacks. I started eating breakfast again...regularly. (I had a bad habit of just having coffee before.) I still stuck to the proper food groups...whole grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy and proteins. But I limited my amount of meats and eggs. I ate more from the bean, nuts and seeds catagories. I also had more dairy than I ever have. I don't like milk so I ate more from the cheese and yogurt catagories. And, of course, I had already switched almost everything to the whole grains. I think by doing this I just increased my metabolism, so I was able to burn off calories just by following this. I didn't focus too much on exercise. Even going for a 15-minute walk wears me out like you wouldn't believe. I did, however, try to do more things around the house just so I wouldn't be sitting around.

Now, my goal was not to lose a lot of weight. It was just so I could feel better about myself. And it worked! I really do feel better. I hardly ever weigh myself. I don't like focusing on a number. I don't care what size I wear in clothes. Again, it's just a number. But, when I had my doctor appointments in January and April they weighed me. So I know from that I have lost 15 lbs. According to the charts for BMI (body mass index) I still need to lose 10 more lbs to not be considered overweight. Whatever. If I do, I do. If not, I'm not going to feel bad about myself. As long as I continue to feel good about how I eat, I'm completely happy.

So, I will continue to follow the food pyramid. It seems to be working for me. We'll see what the next 3 months do for me! :)