Failure? Maybe not...

My first inclination was to declare yesterday a failure.  Just like the day before.  But the more I really examine what happened yesterday, the more I can see that there are 2 VERY important things to realize about myself... and these 2 things are going to be VITAL in my weight loss efforts.

1. My BIGGEST diet weakness is from the time I get home until I am through making dinner.  I get SO hungry and I don't care about anything but feeding that hunger.  It doesn't help that my kids are all over me wanting attention.  And they want a small snack before dinner... that's where I'm searching the kitchen to find them something quick and I stumble upon leftover pizza or that forgotten box of ding-dongs.  It's so easy to just pop a few things in my mouth as I'm making their snack and even easier to keep eating as I'm putting together our dinner.  SO now I realize just how many stupid calories I am consuming during this time.  SO here are some of my ideas to stop this from happening:

• Have healthy, pre-made and ready-to-grab snacks ready for me when I get home so I can avoid wandering the kitchen finding stupid things to eat.
• Pre-make dinner the night before or morning of.  A casserole assembled and refrigerated overnight... or a crock-pot dinner to simmer all day keeps me out of the kitchen (mostly) when I get home from work.
• Eat a quick yogurt or piece of fruit before I leave work so my stomach isn't empty and all sense of reason goes out the window when I get home.
• I also need to realize that eating is NOT a pastime.  It isn't something to do because I'm bored.  I've heard ideas about chewing gum or drinking ice water when these cravings and out of control behaviors hit, so I'm going to do a little more research about this and see if I can't find something that will work better for me. :)

2. I am never going to make time to exercise in the evening.  I have too many other things going on and it just isn't going to happen. Kids, dinner, baby, husband, exhaustion... too many other things I want to do.  And I admit, nothing feels as good as getting home, taking off work clothes and getting into comfy clothes to lounge around in.  Once that happens, the exercise clothes are never going to come out that night. So my only 2 options are:

•  Get up in the early morning and exercise in our exercise room that has yet to see me in it.  We have an exercise room in our house and I haven't even used it since we moved in in June.  NO EXCUSE!  I hate getting up in the morning, but once I'm up, it isn't so bad.  And I always feel so good after I get up and get that out of the way.  Half hour on the treadmill, and then 15 minutes doing the strength exercises in my last post.  45 minutes total.  Every morning.  I can do that.  I can!
• I can also exercise at work.  On nice days, we have a great walking path I can use.  Half hour with my iPod... nice break form work and it gets me outside and gets the blood pumping.  Win-win.  On bad weather days, I can do stairs in my building or walk the halls.  Heck, even stretching exercises at my desk is something.  I just need to do it!!!!!

So yesterday was NOT a failure, it brought to light 2 things I can work on.  Because I can do this!!!!!