Working hard.

I'm on my way to Week #6 of my class and I'm happy to report that I'm still alive! I did better than I expected on my first paper, so let's hope this pattern keeps up for my next 4 papers and my final course paper. I'm also extremely excited about this coming week as there is no class due to Thanksgiving long weekend. I'm hoping to get ahead (crazy) in my readings, and start thinking about my final course paper.... because I have no clue what to do for that yet. But maybe I'll just panic... later.

Ever since school started in September, I knew I'd be in for a long ride filled with sleepless nights, stress and lack of energy. I was determined to be in good shape and have a healthy body to keep up with work and school. Actually, I've been feeling out of shape since I got married (marriage leads to laziness?! whuh.), so starting school with full time work this fall was more than enough reasons to finally kick myself in the derrière and do something to get myself in shape and in good health. The other reason was that apparently I'm in the higher risk group in terms of getting diabetes (since that runs in both my parents' families), so I gotta watch out for that. I'm no expert in fitness, healthy living or nutritional science, but I've been doing the following in the past year that I think are good for me (I hope they are!).

• Decrease sugar intake in my diet (None of the sugar-free stuff with aspartame crap, etc. No sugar means no sugar!). Examples: drinking water, tea or unsweetened beverages instead of juices, pop. Or I try to dilute my juices with water if I really need juice! When I bake, I just do half (or even less) the sugar amount required.
  
• More protein, vegetables and fruits in my diet (I'm not a big fan of fruits for some odd reason, so this requires discipline on my part)
• Decrease carb intake (I'm a sucker for carbs of all sorts... so this is going to take ALOT of discipline).
• Go multi-grain whenever possible!
• Decrease amount of fatty and junk food intake - bye bye fried goodies, nummy chips, chicken wings.... have I mentioned I'm a huge fan of savory snacks!? :(
• Always eat breakfast
  
• Plenty of fluids throughout the day
• No over-eating. Smaller meals throughout the day with healthy snacks or fruits in between meals if I get hungry
• Cook at home and avoid eating out too much (this has been easy, since we already eat at home most of the time).
  

I try not to cut out certain foods, but only have smaller portions or limit myself if they are not within the "good" food group. I've also been hitting the gym 2-3 times a week at work since mid-September. It's pretty awesome because my employee monthly pass only costs me $20 and it's all-you-can-workout-in-a-month! It's good opportunity for me to get out of the office once in a awhile since I have the bad habit of working through my lunch and not take any breaks. I also go for walks around my neighborhood on the weekends whenever possible, but lately it's been walking around the malls because of the gloomy weather we've been getting (and for the next 6 months). Sigh.

Hopefully, I'll be able to keep this up. So far, I've been feeling great. Although I must say at times it's been tough. There's always this evil, repetitive voice inside your head saying things like...

"You already exercised yesterday, give yourself a break!"
"This big plate of pasta is yummeh! Eat it, you'll feel so happy after eating it and you can work it off later!"
"Hello, I'm a big bowl of rice. If you don't eat me now you'll just crave me more later!"
"It's ok, you gotta enjoy life once in awhile. Eat this slice of gooey cheesy pizza for the ultimate satisfaction in life."

meh.

Oh, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm really thankful for Mr.C, my families, my friends who care for me, and mostly, the Big Guy upstairs for loving me.