The Fit-Penga Plan - Part 1

Friends, it is with no small amount of pride that I write this post today. A post that I have waited five months to have the pleasure of writing.


I have reached my fitness goal!

Last time I wrote about how to best hide the size differences between Sak and I, and I mentioned the inclusion of some personal fitness goals. Where did these goals come from? Well, simply enough, they came from my Wii Fit.

The first weekend after becoming engaged, I stepped on the board/scale, and it spit out my weight and asked me to set a goal for a middle-of-the-road, normal BMI. Now we could talk about how BMI isn't necessarily a good measure of fitness, since it's height and weight ratio doesn't take into account muscle mass - but for all intents and purposes, it works okay for people like myself who have no muscles to impede the calculation.

Turns out I was on the very edge, floating between the "overweight" and "normal" cut-off line. 21 pounds would get me to the middle of the "normal" range. I balked at the number a little, threw in a bit of whining, but eventually got myself over to the library.

There I did some research, and came up with my plan. Like many wellness plans, it consists of two parts - diet and exercise.

Diet

I love to eat, so I was very perturbed by the idea of restricting my foodage. I ended up compromising with myself. Eat healthy, healthy, healthy at work (breakfast/lunch/snacks), and then eat something that makes me happier at home for dinner. This way I could get the benefit of healthy eating, while not restricting myself completely. And while my lunches have been somewhat boring (salads, low sodium veggie soups, etc.) for the past five months, it's not too bad. One plus being that I don't feel lethargic at 2:30 PM due to food-coma anymore.

For dinner, Sak decided he'd help me by joining me in the adventure of eating healthier. (Though he still has his not-so-secret stash of chocolate and Sky Flakes crackers he refuses to give up.)

Me: "Does this mean I can go on a sashimi diet? I think I could handle that."
Sak: "...No! We'd be totally broke!"

Mmmmmm(source)mmmm...

I won't lie - we are spending more on food. Leaner meats cost more, whole wheat costs more, veggies can add up if you buy them out of season. I'm chalking it up to the price of being healthy, but if we were smarter about checking ads for deals, we could probably avoid this problem.

My biggest food hurdle, however, was rice. We are big rice eaters, and used to make 2 cups a night to go with dinner. I pared it down to 1 cup, half of which consists of brown rice. Of that one cup, Sak gets 3/4, and I get 1/4. This was the hardest thing to do, and it still makes me somewhat sad. But like everything else, it's not too horrible, you get used to it over time.

That's it for the diet. Less rice, healthy lunches. Simple, no?

Did you start a wellness plan specifically because of your wedding? How do you keep things "on the healthy side"?