I wanted to start my diet last week, but that didn’t work out too well (it was a very busy week at work, and we didn’t have much food at home). So I started it for real Saturday. I’ll be posting some of the recipes soon, but I wanted to talk about working out.

Although I have always heard that working out in the morning is best, I am the farthest thing you can imagine from a morning person so it’s hard to do that during the week. On the weekends, I tend to wake up late, laze around the house for a while, make breakfast (or brunch… or whatever you call a 2 p.m. meal) and then work out. But I recently read on the New York Times’ “Well” blog that working out before eating in the morning helps you maintain your weight even if you are eating a ton. I tried to do that over Christmas, but it only actually panned out twice. I need to work on that.

Actually, I probably need to change all of my habits. I definitely need to be better about cooking on the weekends and getting things ready so I can take food to work. But apparently I need to stop eating in front of my computer and/or the television… according to this article (also in the NYT), people eat more when they aren’t paying attention. I always thought this was because you don’t tend to watch your portions when you’re distracted by something else, but this study showed that people who played solitaire while eating actually felt less full than people who had eaten the same amount of food without distractions.

So what should you do if you are one of those people who don’t feel full after eating dinner (in front of the TV)? Another NYT article cited a study showing that just taking a walk can reduce cravings. It would probably be helpful if it wasn’t super cold outside, but maybe I’ll try walking up and down the stairs in my apartment building a few times.

I actually managed to swim today, by the way. I did 2500 yards (250 breast stroke, 1000 freestyle, 250 kicks with fins, 500 freestyle, 500 breast stroke) and it wasn’t bad at all. Much easier than the horrible run (actually an embarrassingly slow walk/jog mix) I did Saturday. I’m still having some difficulty staying focused on losing weight, but now I have Hilary Rhoda and the White Swan judging me every time I open the refrigerator, which helps:

What do y’all use for motivation?