Fit Day and some goals

Hello friends -
I guess I should introduce myself a little better for those who don't know me. My name is Ruth Arteaga and I know Jen and her family from their time living here in Quito, Ecuador and ministering together with HCJB Global.

I am married to Santiago Arteaga - my wonderful Ecuadorian husband. He works in the ISD department at HCJB.

And we have our baby boy, Nathan, born Dec. 25, 2007. Yes, a gift from God! He was born with some complications and needed surgery two days after birth. He's doing really well now and only needs to be on oxygen while he's sleeping. God has been good to us.

Now on to some things I have been thinking about this morning. I took some time to fiddle around on the FitDay site and really liked it. I like the whole calorie counter thing. It makes things so easy and I can see that it will help me to see the big picture on my eating habits.

This month, I want to focus on making it a habit to enter my food into the FitDay counter and work on lowering my calorie intake. I'm sure that it is just crazy off the charts . . . so as I figure out how to lower my calorie intake by taking a good look at what I'm eating and how many calories it's costing me, I'll also work on becoming more active - taking walks at least 3 times a week.

I was thinking about the calorie counter and also about all the diet plans out there. I guess in the past few years, I've been so focused on trying to find a "plan" - a quick fix - something that will magically just bring the pounds off with hardly no effort on my own or perhaps some perfect formula that will make it all better. Thinking that if I just find that magic plan or formula, the pounds will come off quickly. Well, this morning I was thinking - it's really simple (and something that we all know anyway) - basically I need to eat less calories than I use in a day and the pounds will start coming off. That's all there is to it - no one is going to wave a magic wand over me and Poof! the pounds drop off! No - I need to learn to be disciplined and realize that I have a responsibility to eat right.

So to start me on this disciplined path, for this month I'm going to focus on the FitDay tools and try to use it every day to take a good hard look at what I'm eating and how I can start cutting calories and start burning calories.