Happy New Year!

First, here are those numbers from Tuesday (I forgot to post them):

weight: 209.2 lbs
fat percentage: 45.8%
hydration: 37.2%
muscle: 26.7%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2341

Yes, my weight went a little bit down after Christmas.  But I'm not celebrating.  I wasn't feeling good over the weekend and was careful with what I was eating (so most likely the slight loss is from that).  But I don't feel like I ate *too* much during Christmas, so that was good.

So now, onto 2016!

I have three main goals for the year:

1. Eat healthier.
2. Be more active.
3. Take better care of my diabetes.

These are ridiculously vague.  So let's break them down a bit more in the hopes that I will actually be able to succeed.

1. Eat healthier.

My original plan was to use the GI Diet again as of today.  But after being sick this week, and having a bunch of goodies from Christmas that need to be eaten, that's not realistic.  So maybe I will plan to start next week instead.

From there, I'm going to eat green light for at least a month.  Realistically though, I'm going to need to eat green light for longer than that.  If I lose 2 lbs a week, starting next week, it will take me until the end of May to get down 40lbs (which is my current goal).  If I remember correctly, you want to be losing only one to two lbs a week.  More than that is unhealthy weight loss.

I'm also going to need to come up with some strategies for times in there like Easter.  But I will worry about that later.

So my first plan of action is going to be to read through Rick Gallop's GI Diet book.  Then I will start formulating strategies for the rest of life.  In the meantime, I'm going to try to use up leftovers from Christmas (which includes some delicious baking from my parents and random other treats), and get through this week as best as I can; Saturday is my grandmother's birthday, so I'm going to aim to start eating green light foods only as of Monday, January 11th.

2. Be more active.

I keep thinking this is going to be the easier goal of the two.  I like being active, so no big deal.  Of course, the problems right now are two-fold: first, it's winter, which means it's much harder to motivate myself to go outside and walk.  And second, I am so busy that it's hard to fit everything in.

Well, let's start with seeing how much exercise I should be fitting into my life.  According to the CDA (in particular this PDF):

The Canadian Diabetes Association CPGs recommend 150 minutes of aerobic exercise and 3 sessions of resistance exercise per week. 

 Note: CPGs=Clinical Practice Guidelines

Ok, I thought 150 minutes sounded right.  But I wasn't even factoring in the strength training/resistance exercises.  So yikes!

So that breaks down to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise five days a week.  I know I'm nowhere near that.

But I could be.  If I walked to work, that's approximately 15 minutes one way.  I only usually have 3-4 shifts a week.  But that would mean that me walking to and from work three times a week would equal 90 minutes of aerobic exercise.  A fourth day equals 120 minutes.  So realistically, if I walk to work I would only need to fit in one more day (or two at most) of aerobic exercise a week.  And what fits that perfectly?  Swimming with my dad!  And don't forget, soon I'll hopefully be skiing as well (at least for the next few months).  So realistically, if I can get myself walking to and from work, I've got this part covered.

Okay, sounds easy.  But what about when it's legitimately too cold to go walking outside? I'm thinking that I'll have to go walk inside somewhere, like in the mall.  It's not ideal, but it will get me moving.  I wonder how many steps it is from one end of the mall to the next?  That's something I'll have to check out with my fitbit.

Alright, so what about the strength training?  Fitting things in three times during the week is going to be tough.  I'm also not quite sure how long/how much/what I should be doing.  So for the immediate future, I'm going to stick with yoga once a week while I look into it.  For January I'm going to focus on meeting that aerobic goal, then go from there.

I have some issues that are going to come up, too.  My current job is just a temporary job, possibly finished in February.  So I may have to readjust what I'm doing come February.  We'll have to see!

I am going to keep track of the exercise I'm doing though, just to see if I'm succeeding (and if there's any times that I'm having troubles).

3. Take better care of my diabetes.

Lately, I've felt like my glucose is fluctuating too much.  I've been too high lately, but I've also been going too low.  So what am I going to do about this?

For one thing, I have an appointment at the end of January with Diabetes Health.  So I'll be able to get some help from them.  Of course, I already know what I need to do.  I need to tighten up on my carbohydrate counting, eat better, and actually do some of the tests I despise doing (I'm looking at you, basal tests).  I don't want to overwhelm myself with everything I want to do, so for the month of January, I'm going to fit in those tests.  They may get in my way of being active, but I will try to balance them.  Hopefully then I'll be able to bring some good information with me to Diabetes Health at the end of the month.

Depending on how things are going, I'll also try to carbohydrate count better.  I just don't want to overwhelm myself with everything I'm trying to do.  So we'll see how that goes (but I'm not going to be upset if I fail at that this month).

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So there we have it.  This year I vow to take better care of myself.  And I have some concrete steps to take this January.  Wish me luck!  I will keep track of things as best as I can on here, and will see how things are going/come up with some new steps for February. :)