Making minor changes are making all the difference!!

[Duffpic]

Never knew how motivated I could be until I got my fitbit - it was the BEST Christmas present my husband could have given me!

Since January 1st I've lost the 8 pounds I gained over the holidays - just by walking on the treadmill 3 miles a day (at 2.6 miles per hour) and also "tweaking" my foods. I've also started to weight my food so that I'm getting a true feel for portion control

Making changes (to me) with my foods keeps me from feeling deprived. I've substituted my 2 generous glasses of wine every night to 1 light beer (I only have the wine Friday/Saturday night as a treat).  This saves me about 375 calories a day!  

I also am using the new Lean Quisine Markeplace (black box) dinners (watch the sodium content if you are sensative).  The ravioli/pastas are very filling if you make a big pile of fresh separate vegetables (like steamed broccoli) then put the LQ dinner on top.  I can barely finish!  A side salad is great to fill you up too!

As for dessert - I love a cookie, so I bought a box of Aldi's Specially Selected Continental Cookies and have 1 after dinner.  They are so good (80 calories for 2) and satisfy that "sugar" craving.

Walking has become a "desire" for the first time and I hit 17,000 steps last night - my goal is 15,000 a day.

[MarciM]

Congrats on your commitment to a healthier lifestyle. Sounds like you are off to a good start. At some point you might want to consider swapping out the processed package food for real natural food. Eating real and simple meals of 100% natural food will eventually make a HUGE difference in how you feel, energy level, restful sleep, digestion and so forth. There are some simple rules to get started, ask yourself, did this food exist 100 years ago, if yes, its ok to eat. You can also read the labels, are there more than five ingredient, this isn't a hard rule, but you use it as a gage. Can you pronounce all the ingredient and are they things you can find in a normal kitchen. Likely you don't have mushroom juice concentrate, one of the 20+ items listed in the Lean Quisine pasta. If you aren't ready to make that leap yet, just keep it in mind and work toward it. There a hundreds of great sites for clean eating, but if you need help finding them, I'm more than happy to send you some of my favorites. 

Good lunch on your personal journey.