Motivation and Staying on Track

    This is the hardest part for me when I'm trying to be healthier and live a healthy lifestyle.  I do pretty good for a month or so then something comes up.  I miss a couple days at the gym.  Then a couple more.  Before I know it, it has been a month and I've not done anything more then walking from my car to class(well that is about a mile on some days).
    I also notice that if I don't go to the gym my diet starts taking a turn for the worse as well.  One cookie won't hurt, wow did I just eat 3.  That Dr. Pepper sounds pretty good right now...probably shouldn't of drank that 4th can.  There's a big snowball affect when it comes to me and staying on track.  I give myself a little room on one thing, I end up screwing up everything.
    In order to combat this, kind of a preemptive strike against total laziness/screw up-ness. I have signed up for a program at the college called "Tigers Feel Great."  Once a week(Thursdays is the session I signed up for), a group of students meet to get educated on nutrition, exercise and being healthier.  We discuss our goals for being healthier and whether or not we've met those goals.  We also work out as a group.
     Yesterday was the first session and they took a few of our measurements.  Well my weight read higher then what it does at home.  I expected this since we were weighing in at 3pm, at home I weigh in the morning, and you have to count for the difference in scales.  My BMI was a scary 28.  I try not to pay too much attention to this because BMI is just weight and height and does not take into count muscle mass.  However 28 is a very scary number since obese for someone who is my height is 30.  I know I'm not obese, however I am very overweight.  I think my BMI is screwy anyway due to time spent running, lifting weights and building muscle.
My body fat percentage was 36.7%.  Healthy for women my age is 21 to 33%. Overweight is 33-39%. Obese is over 39%.  So yea, I am in the overweight category.  I'm working on it.  My blood pressure was normal so that's good.
      I'm going to use this class as a tool to keep the momentum going.  I'm a pretty competitive person and though there's no prize for whoever does the best after 10 weeks. I still want to be the one who does the best.  The group is pretty mixed, there are people who are younger, older, bigger, smaller.  There is 9 women and 1 man in our group.  I hope we all take something from the class (especially this young woman who I saw weighed in at 247 pounds...she's maybe 5'2").  So here's to hopefully a good tool to keep everyone motivated and on track.