I have a serious goal of getting on track with my health this year (meaning this school year). I let it lapse last year, I think that’s easy to do in the summer and it’s time to be back on track. I think posting on my blog will help me feel good about what I’m doing. I’d love anyone’s input on what I’m doing or SHOULD be doing. Join me!
5 Things I did well:
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1. A good friend let me borrow her BodyBugg and I’ve been wearing it night and day (including church) to see how much I’m burning. I feel like it’s over-estimating. It has me over 2k every day. I have calorie counted with little success, decreasing to even 1200 calories/day without losing. I plan to wear it for a bit and see where I go from here. I’m mulling over counting calories next month….
2. I’m trying to pick foods that I like that taste good. I’m reading Cameron Diaz’s Body Book. Anyway, I actually like it (a lot more than I thought I was going to). I saw her on a late night show one night and thought I’d try it. It just puts it in simple terms. Are there healthy foods you enjoy eating? Eat them. Stop eating crap. This has been a lot of avocados, for me. Has anyone else read this book?
3. I worked out 4 times last week. One of them being yard work… but I thought it was lame that I drool over getting a gardener if I’m working out, I might as well do the heavy lifting/squatting. Maybe my garden will even make a comeback!
4. I’m really trying to focus on the fitness and just feeling good about myself. I have time to make this work. I can do it.
5. I have a little health journal I jot a few lines in every night. It’s helped me reflect on what I’m doing well, and the things I’m not doing so well.
5 things I need to work on:
1. I like a bit of sugar after a meal. I’m trying to make that be a couple grapes, but sometimes it’s not.
2. I have somehow had access to 2 Nothing Bundt Cakes in the last week. I love those things. What would Cameron say?
3. I sit too much, especially with this blog. I need to get up and take the stairs every few minutes.
4. I could work out harder. My core is HORRIBLE. I know this, and I’m working on it but it’s an uphill battle for me since I had P. I know it was part of my tailbone woes. I’m just not sure how to fix it….
5. I make bad choices after work. I don’t get home until 8, and sometimes I’m starving and I go overboard. I need to figure out what to do when that’s happening. I don’t want to go to bed starving, but I also don’t want to eat something I’ll regret. My current next plan is to do a spoonful of peanut butter.
So, that’s the good and the bad this week. See things I could work on?
Lynness says
I don’t diet or count calories, but every once in a while, I do what we had to do in FSN 100 (you probably did too) and record what I eat for a couple of weeks. There are a lot of options and apps out there right now- I’ve used MyFitnessPal and the USDA FoodTracker- but making a record helps you see where your problems lie: is it portion sizes? Is it too much sugar or fat, etc.? Just knowing you’re going to have to enter a couple of filled donuts makes you think twice about eating them…and, knowing that your fruits and veggies aren’t up to the mark might make you eat more.
The only thing bad about these logs is that if you make a lot of things from scratch, you have to put all the recipes in so that the nutritional data will be accurate, and that takes time. And I make most things from scratch. (I pretty much don’t buy cookies, ’cause if I don’t buy them, I can’t eat them.)
My personal ideas about food are collected from several sources, and while I’ve never been lean and lithe, I am also not overweight like most of my family. Not that I do all of these all the time, but they form my ideology…
*Eat real food (I like Michael Pollan’s book- In Defense of Food): I try to buy ingredients, not prepared food.
*Moderation. A little ice cream or cookies is fine. If you deny them to yourself for weeks, then an opportunity presents itself, you can easily go way overboard, so have a little bit more regularly! And if you mess up one day, don’t gorge yourself since you’ve already failed.
*Make lifestyle changes that help you, with food and exercise. If it’s just a change for a little while, you’re going to yo-yo back to whatever you did before. Make multiple smaller, longer term changes that are easier to keep up and not as stressful to you physically and mentally. (Simple things, like going to dried beans instead of canned- cheaper, less sugar and salt, and totally doable. Work several changes like that into your lifestyle and you’ve made a bigger difference than you think.).
*I made the mistake once of telling myself “no dessert unless I exercised today”. which I stuck to, but dessert had a way of turning into a reward that gave me far more calories than I burned off! I felt I had ‘earned it’ and that it would balance out, but in reality, a 1 mile walk, pushing kids in a double stroller- even with hills in my neighborhood- does not equal a banana split with nuts. More like just a banana.
OK, this is way too long…
Hilary says
Lynness, those are great thoughts. Good things to think about. Especially not making it a reward… 🙂