On your marks!

Ready…

Go!

You would think that getting started on a fitness and health plan would be a simple 1-2-3 kind of process:

1. Recognize you are out of shape and living unhealthy lifestyle
2. Decide to do something about it.
3. Do it!

Yeh, right.  Dream on boyo!

Week One (kinda) Back on Jenny Craig

Last week, on Dec 15, 2011 I finally kept an appointment at my local Jenny Craig Center.  It had been 4 1/2 months since my last visit.  Eighteen weeks of falling back into old habits of eating out and eating unhealthy.  Oh my!

So, I confessed my sins.

“Forgive me Jenny, for I have indulged mightily and with wild abandon in the high fat fried fast foods.”  I did six push ups and a “hail Jenny”, weighed in and bought a week’s worth of Jenny Craig food.  And as a reward for my penitence, the prodigal son was welcomed back into the fold with a “Welcome Back” email:

Uhmmm… for those just joining us on the journey through the weird, wacky and mostly wonderful way my brain works…  I didn’t really have to do any push ups at the Jenny Craig Center.  And there is no such thing as a “Hail Jenny.”  This here would be whatcha call a “literary allusion” whereby you compare a fairly mundane activity to a more significant activity recognized by just about everybody in a given society and thereby create a condition called “humor” by the unexpected confluence of the two activities which would normally not be mentioned in the same breath.  See I do have a college degree.  But I digress…  😉  I love digressing…  [*GRIN*]

With the best of intentions, and a full week worth of Jenny Craig food I set out upon my “first week back.”

Que the foreboding music please… Yep.  You guessed it.  DRAMA, enters stage left.

Stress and chaos parachuted into my life; my truck decided that it just didn’t want to play nice any more.  If you’re just now joining the story in mid-episode, check the Related Links section for all the gory details but here is a short recap:

1. Old truck makes nasty “I’m dying” sound
2. Tony panics and crunches numbers
3. Tony decides new truck is now a MUST
4. Tony is a proud owner of a shiny new 2009 Toyota Tacoma named “Tonks“.   Yes, I named my truck.

So much for the first week on Jenny Craig.  Don’t you hate it when real life messes with your well laid plans?  I think some dude named Murphy did a study about that once. But I could be wrong.  😉

Nonetheless, I did watch more carefully what I ate this past week loosing a full pound when I had my weigh-in at the JC Center yesterday.  And I lost Body Fat this past week as well.

Getting Ready for the “new” New Week One

Ok, so I still have a week of Jenny Food.  Oh Gee… look Christmas is this weekend.  So uhm…  We’ll start “week one” on Monday.  That actually works out better since it will give me this weekend to do some “prep work” around the house to get things ready for my first week back on the Jenny Craig menu.  Because when you start a change like this it isn’t just about eating a new menu.  It is about making it possible to switch over to the new menu and stick with it without falling into old habits.   Here is my checklist for the “prep work” needed to get ready for Week One:

• Clean out pantry and fridge of any non-menu, non-healthy foods
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• Literally clean out the pantry and fridge, as in scrub, dust, wipe and “clean.”  Can’t you just picture me in an apron and a bottle of 409?  LOL
  ..
• Go through the dishes cabinet, straighten and organize the dishes which somehow have gotten all messy and disorganized.
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• Check the seals on all the plastic “storage containers” that I have; toss the ones that don’t seal well any more.
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• Make sure I have snack sized zip lock bags.
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• Make a shopping list for the “fresh foods” grocery items I need from Whole Foods (e.g. salad mix, mushrooms, other veggies, fruits, etc.) to compliment the Jenny Craig food.

So it isn’t just a simple matter of following the menu for Week One.  You have to have everything staged and in place for the first day.  At this stage of the game, even the slightest speed bump or obstacle can derail things and set you back to square one.

See ya on the dance floor!

Related Links / Articles

Driveshaft drama sequence:

• 12/18/2011 Driveshaft Drama or “Getting Healthy Requires a Budget” (www.txcowboydancer.wordpress.com)
• 12/19/2011 Driveshaft Drama…the continuing saga… (www.txcowboydancer.wordpress.com)
• 12/20/2011 Driveshaft Drama… Preview of Coming Attractions (www.txcowboydancer.wordpress.com)
• 12/22/2011 Driveshaft Drama, the final chapter: I’m a Papa! (www.txcowboydancer.wordpress.com)
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• Toyota Tacoma (www.toyota.com)
• Nymphadora Tonks (harrypotter.wikia.com)
• Jenny Craig (www.jennycraig.com)