Monday, February 13, 2012

A Diet for the Whole Family...

This past weekend our dog, Tori, was having a bit of an issue with her back leg so we decided to take her in to the vet to make sure nothing was too wrong. She's getting up there in years (she turns 9 this year!) and has been a bit of an overweight lady ("I'm big boned!") for most of her life, so it's probably better to be safe than sorry. I should note, my wife is the more caring one as I had a bit more of the "Tori will tough it out, she doesn't need a vet!" attitude when discussing going to the vet. She won out, however, which was probably a good thing. I tend to dislike doctors of both the human and animal variety... so I'm usually colored in one direction when it comes to these decisions (and it is also no doubt why I ended up suffering from pneumonia for 6 weeks instead of a couple).  Anyways...

It turns out Tori is pretty good. They think it may have actually been an equilibrium issue since she was continually falling in one direction and was fine the next day. But while we were at the vet, we noted Tori's weight was creeping back up. We'd done a relatively good job of keeping her on a diet and getting her exercise, but the winter and Tori's sad eyes at the dinner table knocked us a bit off track the past couple of months. Since Tori has gained a bit of weight and she has notable arthritis in her back legs, the vet stressed that it would do her a ton of good to shed 10 or more pounds. So we're going to work on getting her slimmed back down the next few months, no matter how good she is at making puppy eyes a mealtime!

Then, as Kristi and I thought about it, we've both also gotten a bit lazy and haven't eaten as well as we should or exercised as much as we should. It probably wouldn't hurt for us to make an attempt to lose a bit of weight too. So the genius idea struck us to have all three of us (myself, Kristi, and Tori) try to actively lose some weight; we'll all shoot for losing 10 pounds.

Obviously Tori will have it the hardest being the lightest of the 3 and I should, theoretically, have it the easiest as I am the heaviest, but I think I also have the worst diet of the 3 and have next to no will power when it comes to snacks, especially chocolate ones... or Oreos... or ice cream... or chips... or pizza... crap... I'm starting to realize this is going to suck.

So, in order to keep me a bit honest in this whole process, I'm hoping to check in on occasion here on how my diet and exercise regiment is coming. I figure if we're forcing Tori to do it, the least I can do is try to do it with her. With that, my goal in the next couple of months is to drop from 215 lbs down to 205, with a stretch goal of breaking back under 200. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate this. A lot.

1 comment:

Fen said...

It isn't easy but one really pretty simple way to cut out calories is to change the size of the plates you eat off of and to use a smaller fork. Seems silly but the smaller plate looks more full and the smaller fork forces you to take more bites tricking your brain into thinking you are eating more.

Good luck!