A bit OT: Put structure into your life, and record it!

When you were in school, your life was very structured. 8 hours - or however many hours you went to school - divided into 8 periods in which you learned (hopefully) 8 different subjects.

Then you came home and did your school work, or participated in sports, or what have you.

Then you graduated from high school, and a percentage went on to jobs, and/or college and jobs, and a percentage got married and dont' work.

So you no longer go to school, you don't work, you have a home to "make" (and home making is a job, I'm not saying it isn't!) - what do you do with your time? Many women are bored with their new-found freedom, and many of 'em have kids just to give 'em something to do with their time. (And because they want them, but I wonder how much of it is just to give them something to do, and having a kid is the "natural" thing.).

If you're bored, you probably over-eat, because what else is there to do when you're bored except eat? It's time to add structure to your life.

Most people eat the large meals at specific times - breakfast at such and such a time, lunch at this time, dinner at that time.

If you're having trouble losing weight on that schedule, try eating 5 smaller meals a day - but those meals must also be scheduled at exact times. It's a lot easier to keep track of how much food you're eating (how many calories you're consuming) if you eat at the same time every day. Indeed, it's when your schedule is disrupted (or doesn't exist) that over-eating typically occurs.

By eating smaller meals, you can eat right up until the time you go to bed - light meals of course. Not enough to feel stuffed, just enough to keep the gnawing hungry pains away from your door.

As for recording your day - by that I mean record more than just what you eat and drink and how you feel, how many weights you press on weight training days, and so on. Record what you accomplish each day - did you start a new book, complete a book, learn something new, meet a new friend, did your kids bring home something neat from school, etc. etc.

I have kept these journals for the last ten years and I really regret that I didnt keep them from the age of 20 onward or even earlier. We all think, "Oh, I can remember that...that's something I'm not going to forget..." but 20 years later, 30 years later, it's been pushed out by other memories and if you don't have a journal to look back on , that memory is gone forever.