21 days

I need to go on a diet. Despite the ambivalence I wrote about not long ago, I can't ignore the fact that my clothes are getting too tight. It doesn't help matters that I am a fairly petite person who gains weight primarily in my waistline (what waistline?!).

The thing is, I eat quite well and I do exercise regularly. I blame the 6-week chocolate, croissant, and cheese binge that was our house-swap last winter. Not quite sure how it's just finally settling around my middle now, but these are details I don't need to work out.

What I do need is to kick things up a notch here, since adults supposedly gain a pound a year just by doing everything exactly the same as we've been doing it (ah, the joys of the over-35 metabolism).

So, I have devised a plan. It goes like this:

• Exercise every single day for an hour. This is through a combination of yoga and pilates classes during the week, and then things like family bike rides and home exercise on the weekends. Bonus for extras like going on a long walk on a day when I did a yoga class.
  
  
  
• Eliminate the following from my diet: refined sugar, most flour, most alcohol. Why “most”? Because I'm human and as soon as you take away all the good stuff, I buck. I'm a baking fool, after all. So there will still be an occasional homemade pizza, or a glass of wine on a night when I'm likely to hurt someone without it! But mostly I'm enjoying fresh fruits and veggies, brown rice, eggs, tofu, seafood, and some dairy.
  

Why 21 days? Because that's when we leave for our vacation to U.C. Santa Barbara Family Camp. (I'd be lying if I didn't mention that the thought of being surrounded by 18-year-old U.C. students was motivation enough!) 21 days seems manageable, and it seems long enough to see some results.

Why am I writing about it here, instead of giving you a lovely muffin recipe? Accountability, of course! And because, since misery loves company, I thought I'd see if anyone wanted to join me? If you're local, perhaps we could do some exercising together. If you're virtual, we could share recipes, successes, failures (it helps to plan ahead!), whatever.

Who's in?

P.S. I don't own a scale, so I'm not using weight as a measurement of success here. I just want my pants to fit comfortably around my waist again!

P.P.S. I started this plan on Monday, so I'm wrapping up day 2 now.