Prologue

I, Alyssa, am a food-a-holic. I love food. I love to cook. I love to talk about food. And I especially love to eat. In a certain way, I'm lucky. I've been blessed so far that I've not had any major health problems because of this and I'm only overweight and not obese. But I've decided that this year, 2007, I need to change my attitude about how I live my life. I've always pretty much been a "life's short, have dessert" kind of girl. It's time for me to be a "life's short, let's do something" kind of girl. So in 2007 I'm resolving to stop dieting, stop eating dessert first and stop worrying about the number on the scale (so much). I'm making changes because my health depends on it.

I'll get to the changes in a minute, but I feel like I need to give some back story here. I'm 5' 6" and currently (during Christmas time) weigh 180 lbs. I'm usually at about 175. Which puts my current BMI somewhere between 28 and 29. Firmly in the overweight, but not obese category. I have asthma and eczema. I have weighed as much as 196lbs post-college. The least I can ever remember weighing was 135lbs and I was playing basketball (so running approximately 5-10 miles a day and biking 5-10 miles a day) and was 14 years old. I thought I was fat then. I've never really found a happy medium.

I was raised Polish Catholic. This means I grew up eating sausage, sausage and more sausage. Oh and potatoes. My mother is a great meat and potatoes cook and my father thinks noodles are a vegetable. My family loves to talk about food. This is what we do when we get together. "oh, this is a great piece of cheesecake, but it's not as good as the cheesecake you made last year." "these are some great cookies, but they could use more nuts." I spent a few hours as a kid helping my mother cook and bake. I love to cook and I especially love to bake. I actually love to spend 3 hours making a cake from scratch.

I say all of this not to over share, but really as a baseline of where I'm coming from and what my goals are. As a kid, I was an a bit of an athlete so I never worried about what I ate and my parents, while they limited sugar and pop, also served hearty meals with pasta as a consistent side (though I don't blame them for this, I was a picky eater and I've heard many a story about the great whole wheat pizza debacle of 1976, long before I was born). I lived on chicken nuggets and pizza in college. I like my food to taste good. I don't mind if it's healthy, but I'm still skeptical of most veggies. I did manage to lose about 20 lbs after college, so I have made strides toward being healthier, but I'm a long way from doing my best.

So, my point is this: in 2007 my new goal is to be a healthier person. Weight loss is not my goal, but I won't lie and say that I won't hope it's a pleasant side effect. I will eat balanced meals, exercise 6 days a week and treat sweets and fast food as a condiment or rarity. Since people who make radical changes all at once tend to fail, my goal is to make incremental changes, with a new plan each month so I don't get bored. I also hope to run a 5K in March. By the end of 2007, my goal to be exercising 6 days a week with at least 30 minutes of activity 7 days a week. This exercise will include 3 days of cardio and 3 days of strength training. Along with this, I will be eating better. This is a goal not just because I want to be healthier, but I hope along with dietary changes I can get the eczema and asthma to disappear or at least not be bothersome. Oh, and avoid the heart disease and high blood pressure that run in the family.

It's a big goal. I plan to accomplish it. This blog is to help me be accountable. And hopefully to keep me on track when I stumble.