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The goals I have worked the most actively toward in the past two weeks since my last post are my health (ie., losing weight) and working on my writing in anticipation of the upcoming contest.

In my last post, I wrote that I began taking vitamins and a daily detox.  I’ve taken them almost every day, but I’ll admit I’ve missed a few days.  In a perfect world, I would take them at breakfast so they would be a good beginning to my day.  However, these supplements need to be taken with a meal, and I generally don’t have time to eat breakfast until I arrive at the office.  As liquid supplements, they need to be refrigerated, and although we have a community fridge in the kitchen area, I’m not so sure I trust them there.  Plus, I don’t want other people to see what I’m taking.  It’s my business, not theirs.  So the only option I’m left with is taking them at dinner, which is usually a bit of a commotion, since I haven’t seen Del or the kids all day.  I spend dinner hearing all about everyone’s day and answering homework questions, so I sometimes get distracted and forget to take them.  I do think I have noticed a bit of a difference with them, though.  I could feel myself dragging the next morning after one of the nights that I forgot to take my multivitamin.  Now the lesson here is not to take supplements when you’re too tired, though, or you will make a mistake like I did when I read the directions on the daily cleanse that said to start off with a triple dose of 3 oz. (6 table spoons).  I saw the “6″ and without thinking, I drank 6 oz. – a double triple dose!  Fortunately for me, I didn’t have any kind of reactions from taking so much more than I was supposed to.

I saw an episode of Dr. Oz, and he recommend eating chia seeds to help with weight loss (and if you’re humming the “cha cha cha chia, cha cha cha chia” pets song in your head, you’re absolutely right, only these are the seeds before they sprout into the actual plant).  Those suckers are expensive, let me tell you!  But luckily, I was able to find a package for $9, and when I asked the guy at Whole Foods what the difference was between the two, he said he couldn’t find any and advised me to go with the cheaper one.  According to the Dr. Oz web site, the seeds expand to about 12 times their weight.  I’ve been taking a table spoon a day, which contains about 5 grams of fiber, and I’ve noticed a big difference.  I eat it in the morning mixed in my Bear Mush (health food Cream of Wheat) and a handful of dehydrated fruit.  It keeps me full, and  I don’t snack as much.  I notice I’ve lost a lot of my cravings for chocolate (and I’m a serious chocoholic!).

I’ve also changed my exercise habits.  As I’ve said in previous posts, I have access to a gym at my workplace.  I’ve been working out on my lunch breaks and eating my lunch at my desk.  When I first joined the gym, I started working out 3 times a week.  Now that I’ve started going at lunchtime, it’s become more of a habit, so now I go 4-5 times a week.  I’ve also started taking more group exercise classes instead of just hopping on the elliptical every time.  I actually enjoy the classes a lot more than I imagined I would, and the different classes vary my schedule enough to keep it from getting boring.  I’ve got spinning on Monday, yoga on Tuesday, the elliptical on Wednesday, Zumba on Thursday, and my absolute favorite class, Cardio Funk, on Friday.  I’ve even started scheduling lunches with friends around the classes so I won’t miss a class I really like.

So far, depending on which day I step on the scale, I’ve lost I’ve lost 1 – 3 lbs., but the last few times I’ve weighed myself, it’s been consistent with a 3 lb. loss.

Today I added a new supplement — Evening Primrose, which is a natural source of GLA (Gamma-Linolenic Acid).  According to Dr. Oz, GLA can cause your fat cells to release excess fat.  It’s also an anti-inflammatory and contains Omega-6 fatty acids.  Dr. Oz suggests giving it a month to see if you notice any results.  So, hopefully, on March 12, I will posting about how much weight I’ve lost!

The weight loss would also have a financial benefit.  At work, they’ll pay me and Del both $100 each if we can either attain a healthy BMI or at least reduce our BMI by 10% by September.  For me, that would be about 20 lbs.  And I could use the $100 to buy my hopefully skinnier self some new clothes.

As far as the writing’s concerned, I’ve written 6 pages so far based on the storylines I’ve developed for each character, but decided to stop doing that until I had the order of each story element in place.  Of course it didn’t help that I accidentally erased part of what I had written because I didn’t realize when I reorderd the index cards on my writing program, that it would actually move certain scenes around, and if I deleted an index card, the scene associated with it also deleted. (I didn’t realize I had any scenes associate with it — I thought the index cards and the writing portion were independent of each other.)  But writing programs can be super expensive, so I guess I can’t really complain, considering this one was available as a free download.  I’ve gotten almost all the character’s scenes broken down, so once I finish that, I’ll print up the index cards, place them in the order I want, and go from there.  I still need make sure I’m working at a steady enough pace so that I finish with enough time to allow others to give me feedback and make revisions.

So even though I’ve still got a lot of work ahead of me, I feel like I’m managing things pretty well.  Maybe it’s all the exercise that’s keeping me calm enough to plow through everything .