I'm All About Commitment

...and not always in a good way.

I'm not a committed person. My brain is too scattered to do justice to my obligations. Plus, commitment takes effort. Anyone who is in a relationship or has kids understands that. But its those other obligations we put ourselves under. We writers are always committing ourselves to some writing goal. Moms habitually obligate themselves to some school or sport function for their kids. We make promises at work, pushing ourselves beyond what is required.

And then there are those commitments we make to ourselves which only benefit us. I think those are the hardest to make and maintain. I made the commitment to Weight Watchers. At first it was easy, my enthusiasm carried me through for the first few weeks. But I can feel myself falter. I'm not nearly as motivated as I was before. The fact that I have to pay $40 every month helps keep me somewhat committed. So now I'm committing myself to going to the gym and working out. Not something I adore, but I know if I can get myself committed to that activity, it will strengthen my commitment to weight loss.

My goal is turn those commitments into a part of my life. I want them to be so ingrained that I don't have to work on them anymore. Does that make sense? Why are good things such hard work?

And for something fun, I started a new blog. It's called Costco Junkie and celebrates my slavish devotion to the retail monster.

New Laptop

I got a new laptop for Mother's Day. I've been trying to milk mine for awhile, determined to get another year out of it, but I had to admit defeat. Last week the cd-rom drive died. I have an external dvd recorder that I plugged in and it worked fine. But that just solved one problem. I was all set to buy a Dell from Costco but Best Buy has a nice Toshiba on sale. It has 4G of RAM and a decent video card. Alas, I haven't had much time to play with it. And boy oh boy was I cursing myself as I was moving stuff from the old machine to the new. No organization whatsoever. And there was so much junk on my machine that I had no interest in moving but it has been a pain to sort through it. I'm about done.

I also got a really cool watch from Costco. It is a Timex Ironman that controls your iPod. Isn't that cool? Perfect for working out. Now if I'd only get my body to the gym.

This computer has made reading feeds much easier so that solves my problem with having a non-functioning blogroll sidebar. On the other hand, I can't get my feed to work on my own blog. There is definitely an issue I can't resolve and I'm not familiar enough with feeds to do too much. Bear with me, I'm sure I'll get it figured out someday.

There is Less of Me

I bit the bullet and finally admitted to myself I was never going to succeed on my own. Oh, I know what's good for me, I know what foods are going to help and hinder weight loss, but putting that knowledge into action has eluded me. So I signed up for Weight Watchers.

I've done this before. In fact, I've done it three times before. And I've succeeded as long as I followed the program. But as soon as I slacked off, the weight came back. So why should this time be successful? Obviously my initial interest in losing weight is for San Francisco this summer. Nothing like a big event to get one motivated. And while I won't be at goal, I should still lose enough to justify new clothes. My health is a concern. Although I don't have blood pressure problems, my cholesterol is high. As I get older, I notice my joints are aging, all the extra weight can't be helping. Being a mom makes me aware of what my children see. I don't want them to hear me preach about eating right and yet ignore that advice myself.

I don't go in for fad diets. I lived with a mother who did that and it did nothing but make her miserable. They never succeeded. She has been doing weight watchers off and on for years and while she hasn't been losing weight for awhile, she hasn't gained either.

Some days are tougher than others. I have to train myself to like vegetables. And drink water. Alcoholic beverages are loaded with empty calories, so I have said goodbye to my regular glass of wine. Which is not to say I've dropped those things entirely.

Its all about choices. What is the better choice at the moment? If I really want the glass of wine, that's fine, but I need to make a choice somewhere else in the day. It works out okay. I miss french fries. I REALLY miss Starbucks. My drink of choice is 3 points, and that's the non-fat version. But I'm working on a new mindset, trying to downplay the importance of those things, replacing them in my priority list with other things like uh, writing.

I'm at the point now where I really need to kick in with the exercise. I'm resistant. Its not the exercise, its the time it takes from my schedule. But if I really want to succeed I will make the concessions.

Is anyone else a Weight Watchers veteran? Maybe we should have our own RWA chapter.