I really intended on taking the week "off" but instead I just took it easy yesterday and am back on it today. I'm changing things up completely though. I've decided that in addition to calorie counting I'm going to zig zag my calories. I've also changed my workout from running/elliptical to running/recumbant bike. I'm really going to try not to weight myself all week so that I can not obsess so much about what the scale is doing and just focus on being healthy and enjoying what I'm doing.

So, how often do you change things up? Do you wait until you hit a plataue to change things? This is really the first change I've made since I've started almost 3 months ago..

I admit, I get distracted easily (bight shiny objects.... prettttyyyyy), but it's pretty shortlived before I go back to my old habits.

I do like my routine and have developed some "foundations" that I rotate when I get bored. I have found that mixing it up all the time presents more chaos than balance. It's easiest for me to stick to a routine I can do with ease (not physically easy, mind you, but planning-wise).

It's kind of the same with food. I'm a creature of habit, to a fault. I work in a place where I order off of a restaurant menu and yet I get the same flippin' thing every single day. Drives my coworkers nuts

I tend to rotate my foods weekly or bi-weekly (depending on how much I bought).

I'm also trying to mix up my workouts more--I just bought a jump rope and a soccer ball, so I have something to do besides jog, dance, and lift weights.

I hadn't changed anything from November to the middle of February. I ate the same meals (1 cup shredded wheat w/skim milk for breakfast, lean cuisine for lunch, 4oz lean meat + 2 veggie sides for dinner, berry banana smoothie for dessert...every. day.), and did no exercise whatsoever, lol. It sounds lame, but it worked. I lost 1lb+/week, and I'm a creature of habit, so I don't mind eating the same foods everyday. However, I decided it was lame that I wasn't exercising, so all of a sudden I added strength training 3 times/week and an hour of cardio 6 times/week. I didn't change my food at all. What happened? I quit losing. For a whole month.

So for 3 days, I ate fairly high calorie...1600-ish...and didn't exercise at all. Then I ate like my normal days which is about 1200-1300. I'm now rotating between exercise/1600 cal days with rest/1200 cal days. I've literally lost 1.5lbs in two days, finally breaking my plateau, and I've been drinking water like crazy, so I don't think it's water weight.

So that's my new routine. 1600 cal + exercise alternating with 1200 and rest.

I like habit/routine but I also get bored quickly, which is why I've failed at maintaining. So this time around I'm playing lots with food. Cooking all this food that looks bad for you but is actually healthy, inventing my own twists on old recipes, it's more fun for me that way. Personally, I love food and can't eat the same damned thing every day or else I'd go crazy.

As for exercise, I have to mix it up too. I get bored. But by mixing up it might mean elliptical, no treadmill. Or run a 5K or race for my mile time. And I'm adding in races so I have things to train for. For my own sanity, I can't do repetition. That just makes life too boring for me to handle but it works differently for everyone so go with what you're comfortable with