It's Time To Start Clearing The Clutter!

The little hitch in my resolution giddy-up from my leg burn has finally healed enough that I can confidently say this:  it's time to start clearing the clutter at our house.

Today, we start on Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet.

For breakfast, we'll be having a veggie omelet, loaded with peppers, onions, and for Mr. ReddHedd some mushrooms (not for me, though), a little reduced-fat sharp cheddar, and a bit of salsa on top.  Plus a glass of V-8 juice and copious amounts of coffee, no doubt.  Lunch will be a chef's salad, with some cubed leftover chicken, diced ham, sliced boiled egg, chopped cucumber, tomato, celery, and lettuce topped with a homemade Dijon vinaigrette.  And dinner will be turkey burgers and oven-roasted green beans, cherry tomatoes, and onion. 

UPDATE:  Forgot to say that dessert tonight will be 1/2 cup each of part skim ricotta mixed with cocoa powder, a little vanilla, some natural peanut butter, and a couple of packets of Splenda, and topped with a Tbsp. sugar free whipped topping. 

Phase 1 is the most restrictive part of the diet -- it's designed to clear out the excess ick in your system so that your body can start with a clean slate to eat healthier foods.  It's a bit carbohydrate restricted, but unlike Atkins you have to watch saturated fats and only eat leaner meats and veggies -- it's not a bacon free-for-all, in other words.  We'll stick to this for a couple of weeks to clear out all the holiday sugar rush and then will broaden back out to include whole grains, fruits and other healthy carb choices.

And our hope is that this will not be a "diet" for us for a short period of time, but will instead become the way we eat as a lifestyle for the rest of our lives.

We need this.  The Peanut needs to see us do this and, more importantly, she needs to adopt healthier food choices and understand why it is important for her as well.

My plan?  We go from the first couple of weeks of Phase 1 on South Beach to a broader, liveable and far healthier lifestyle and diet.  I'll be pulling recipes and ideas from the following after this first couple of weeks:

-- The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook: Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean

-- Eating For Life

-- The New Sonoma Diet: Trimmer Waist, More Energy in Just 10 Days

-- Mediterranean Light: Delicious Recipes from the World's Healthiest Cuisine

-- The Mediterranean Diabetes Cookbook (ADA)

-- The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook: 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less

There are more, but you get the idea: healthy, whole foods, mostly veggies on the plate, leaner meats, and lots of fiber from beans and grains as well.  The way we ought to have been eating all along.


My goal is to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, until I reach my goal weight of 135 pounds -- which, according to all the charts on health is what my optimal weight ought to be.  I haven't seen that as a weight since law school, to be frank, but I'm going to try my hardest to get there because it would mean a whole lot less pressure on my joints and a much healthier me going forward.

Now that my leg has begun to really heal, I can begin to contemplate adding exercise back into the daily routine in a week or two.  (I just took the daily bandages off this past weekend, but it's still pretty raw and sore and they told me not to do anything beyond some stretching for another week or two after that.  So I can perhaps get away with a little pilates or yoga starting this week -- I'm going to try and we'll see how it goes.

The ultimate goal is at least 30 minutes of some exercise every day.  With the still-healing leg, that may take another month to get fully going, but I will get there.

How am I going to tackle the projects I want to work on in the house?  One room at a time.  I'm going to set a timer and do 30 minutes at a stretch every single day, and we'll see how many of those segments I can pile up -- and how much of a dent concentrated effort makes for me.

Same with writing:  each day, I will sit down and get myself "on the page" for a concentrated period of time.  Every single day.  And my rule is that if I have not done it, I cannot go to bed -- it is that important to me that I no longer allow myself to duck this out of fear.

So, those are my goals for my Clear The Clutter Club participation this year.  (Yes, that's the name that won in our little poll.)  How I thought I'd structure this is a check-in on Mondays and then again on Thursdays, so we get a little momentum going and support from the start.  Will that work for everyone?

Let me know about your goals, too.  Or what problems you have in trying to come up with ways to accomplish what you ultimately want to do -- and we can help brainstorm a way to make them happen.  Talk to me:  what's your "clear the clutter" resolution?