I commit...

I commit to doing these things. Every. Day.

1. I must ALWAYS stay within my calorie budget.
2. I must NEVER go to the grocery store alone.
3. I must reflect, daily, on my attitudes towards food an exercise. 
4. I must drink all of my water.
5. I will do my baseline exercise.

Notes...

1. My daily calorie budget will currently be set, for everyday, to 1750 +/- 100 calories. No more, no less. For every 500 calories I burn, I may add up to 250 calories. (This is to keep my metabolism up, and keep me from getting too hungry. A big trigger) Until further notice, there will be no exceptions. (Revisit this...)

2. This one is non-negotiable. It is my achilles heel. It is the thing that begins the downfall of every single day.

3. This will be done first thing in the morning. Either when I get up, or the moment I get to work.

4. For the moment, the water I am going for is 96 oz. Every day.

5. Baseline exercise, for right now, are the "pyramids" that my trainer gave me. Pyramids are defined below.

More notes...

Food Thoughts:
For the moment, I am not going to put any extra restrictions on what to eat, with these exceptions...
No sugar drinks. Zero soda, zero juice. Zero.
I must have at least 3 servings of fruits and 4 servings of vegetables. I can pretty much eat this as will, but this is a bare minimum.
I must cut treats down. I am not yet ready to admit that I have to be done with them...but there must be guidelines. This means that any "treat" is not a regular thing. In general, have a frickin' apple. When treats come up, they must be under 150 calories, no more than once per week.

I am going to examine how this works for sugar. If I cannot make this change work, then I will revisit. So - 4 weeks from today I will be revisiting this topic.

I will basically be following the eating that my trainer had given me - 1/2 of my food should be leafy and green. 1/4 some sort of good carb, 1/4 lean protein. And that is an estimate - but in general, WAY fewer carbs, most of those the "good" kind, more lean protein, and lots of non-processed plants.

Exercise thoughts...

In general, I am going to be shooting for some kind of strenuous exercise at least 30 minutes at least 5 times per week. And 6 (7?) days per week I want to hit the 10,000 step mark. I need to be careful with my exercise, as I don't want any injuries. But I also need to stop making excuses.

Still - there are days when I just know that this won't work. Deadline at work, sickness at home, the kids' school concert - these things will trip me up. But barring sickness, I have no excuse to not do pyramids every day.

Pyramids:

25 squats, 5 pushups

20 squats, 10 pushups

...

5 squats, 25 pushups

Basically, you start with 25 squats and 5 pushups, and every subsequent set you subtract 5 squats and add 5 pushups.

There are different types of squats - Sideways, forwards, wall sits, etc.

There are different types of pushups - standard, spider-man, plank, etc.

It doesn't take very long. And I truly believe that this is what allowed me to run as much as I did last year without having knee problems.

So there you go.

Or there I go, depending on how you look at it. I am kicking this off first thing in the morning.

Wish me luck...

-Silas