Michael Kirkbride's journal
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New parents Pam and Michael Kirkbride are trying to find time and energy for the gym and their pre-baby active lifestyle.
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(CNN) -- During the eight weeks of the New You Resolution program, participants are keeping a journal. Experts recommend journal-keeping in helping to set goals and implement action for change. Below are excerpts from participant Michael Kirkbride's journal from the past week, with the most current at the top.
February 8
Feeling really good, and really focused. Depending on what time of day I hit the scale, I've lost anywhere from a total of 12 to 17 pounds since Christmas. All about cutting out desserts, soda, chips and fried foods, combined with hitting the gym regularly. Still on the three cardios weekly, up to 75 percent on the exercises.
Food: Today was a bagel for breakfast, chicken tortillas (home made) for lunch and chicken in ginger with sushi for dinner. Avoiding the low-fat dessert stuff we bought in a fit of hunger --- unhealthy and feels terrible after eating it.
Gym: On or close to target. Just need to force it in and we rely on each other and it is DO-ABLE.
Organization: New job has taken away flexibility, but given steadiness and predictability. Which is good. A bit concerned about what happens this week when I
start class again. I mean, finance [class] should be lots of fun and all, but it precludes gym time. Thinking about trying to do cardio in the a.m. before heading to work.
January 28
Food: ALWAYS hungry. Fighting through it, but portion control and healthy food is tough. Bagel for breakfast this morning and a grilled chicken sandwich for lunch. Dinner meeting this evening, but I'll try to keep it light and not ravenously finish the scraps on everybody else's plates. If someone orders fries, I take no responsibility for the outcome!
Exercise: Had great cardio and exercise workout last night -- did 40 minutes on the treadmill and almost all of the exercise list. It's really hard to keep at the exercise, but doing the best we can, and probably still at about 50 percent.
Organization: Started the new job last week, which I love. It takes any remnants of flexibility out of the schedule, though. Trying to make the workouts happen in the evenings until class starts in a couple weeks, then we'll just have to see!
January 23
Food: Been eating pretty well. Most days this week egg whites and turkey for breakfast, salad with some chicken and tomatoes/mushrooms for lunch and then chicken and veggies or something like it for dinner. Last night was wraps for dinner. The night before, I will admit, was the first pizza I've had since I started this process. It was poker night, and hard to avoid, but next time I'll grab something healthier before poker, I promise.
Work Outs: The gym-going is right on target. Three or four visits a week, this week was Monday, Thursday and then I'll go again tomorrow (Saturday). I've been hitting the cardio hard, and sweating up a storm. The result is nearly a 10-pound weight loss! The other half has been harder. I know it's only 20 minutes a day, and can be broken down in all shapes and sizes, but I really can't do the plank at the office. Really. I can't. So I do what I can when I can, and am focusing on the core stuff; that is, if there's limited time, I'll do the crunches over the dips. Plank over the wall sit. Probably at about 50 percent on the exercises.
Organization: What a difference! Real Simple [magazine] was wonderful. The apartment looks great and the other day when I lost my keys, there they were in Michael's Key Drawer! We need to work on putting everything where we're comfortable with it, but the skeleton is there, and the place LOOKS great.
Overall, feeling great. Looking forward to the gym, feeling healthier, much more energy and not too much sacrifice of time with Olivia (although any sacrifice hurts!).
January 9 (Pam and Michael together)
Heck of a weekend. On Friday, we were savagely attacked by the [consultants from] Real Simple magazine, who came up with great ideas for our apartment that will make the place much more "user-friendly" in the long term, but required non-stop homework all weekend long.
Being organized requires getting organized. So Pam spent about 24 of the 48 weekend hours going through files and consolidating closets (even bought a paper shredder!) and generally tearing down so that our new friends from Real Simple can build back up. In the meantime, Michael took care of the littlest Kirkbride all weekend long. Truly a tag team.
That said, we did all of our workout yesterday ... we both did the full 40 minutes and gradations on the treadmill as well as our daily stuff. ... Today, however, there's just been no time because of all the prep work for Real Simple. And now we're both bone tired and need to sleep or else we'll start the week off all wrong.
[We] miss dessert. Michael longs desperately for a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food, and Pam just craves chocolate cake, brownies and/or cookies all day. Going to bed unsatisfied --- and, no, meringue cookies just aren't gonna cut it.
We both feel "mid-project" at this point, especially on the home organization front. Pam put in so much time this weekend, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel (she even missed the second episode of Sex and the City!). But this week, the Real Simple folks will come in and put it all back together better than it ever was, and we're really excited about that.
On the exercising end: working out for a week and Pam already feels great -- she can definitely feel her strength increasing ... All the exercises that [the trainer] showed us are all feeling like that they are do-able now, instead of this huge obstacle.
Michael feels overwhelmed by the constant demand because of the daily requirements, but overall feels great being back at the gym and sweating again.
Workouts, too are getting easier. We both are still feeling the time crunch. It would be nice to be able to just relax one of these days instead of running around and "doing" things....
January 8
In case it wasn't clear above, it's hard to find time to do this, do a video diary and still work out. They compete with each other for VERY little time.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the day as 6.
