Tag: exercise

One more week! I love the winter solstice because it means days start getting longer again!  I prefer to drive in the daylight and with shorter days it doesn’t often work out that way in the evenings.

Right now I’m sitting on the couch and looking out the window occasionally at the snow falling.  I will move to the treadmill soon, open up the curtains on the sliding glass door and walk and watch it accumulate.  If it does because it is seeming to change over to rain.  Oh well, watching rain out the door works too.

My weight is headed back down in the correct direction.  It amazes me how quickly I am seeing results again!  Why?  Nothing magic… Move more, eat less.  For me this means obsessively counting my calories, I use an app for that (MyFitnessPal.)  And then I have the Fitbit which like I said before is crack.  It gives me daily feedback on whether I’m getting off my ass enough and connects to MFP to give me more calories to eat if I exercise more.

I really haven’t been running so much as I’ve been walking.  But that’s okay.  My goals are not to run a marathon… Right now the primary focus is to get the weight down.  My next goal is 175.  On the way to that goal I will continue the walking with the occasional running that I am doing.

Come the new year I will up the running plan again in prep for my first real 5K at the end of March.

My other 2014 goal is to reach 150 by my birthday in July.  I totally see it as achievable.  Then I’ll reassess what I want to work on next, whether I set a new lower goal or work on strictly maintenance.

I’m really excited for the new year!  I’m the Wellness Ambassador at work now (me? who would have thought!)  Every year we do “The Biggest Loser” which is company wide.  I’m also going to run a local version for just our program since some of my coworkers have expressed that they’d join something local but don’t want to compete company-wide.

Last year I came in 3rd across all the women in the company and won $100.  Then our team got 4th place.  I’m aiming for 1st place this year!  It’s based on percentage lost for the individual, then the team winnings are based on maintaining the loss at the end of the individual challenge.

Well, off to watch it rain.  The snow that was accumulating when I started typing is now completely gone.

As readers of my blog may know (all five of you), I have struggled with my weight since quitting smoking in August.  Before that I was losing weight steadily since the beginning of the year.  In fact, I’d lost 48 pounds.  Now, as of last Monday’s official record, I am at a net loss of 33 because I gained 15 back.

What changed?

I took up running in the form of the C25K training program.  I have kept up with it past the 5k fun run I did in October and exercise at least 3 days a week.  Well, I know I didn’t gain those 15 pounds from running!  Next?

I stopped smoking.  It is said that people gain an average of 10 pounds when they quit smoking.  I like to think I am an overachiever but I don’t think I can blame it all on the smoking.   Besides, restarting isn’t an option so nothing I can change here… Next?

I stopped recording my food intake.  Therein lies the root of the problem!  If I am not obsessively counting my calories I begin to lie to myself.  “Oh, I know I ate a candy bar at 10am but these cookies won’t really put my calories for the day that far over.”  Not having the actual calories taken in for the day staring at me from my phone made it easy to fool myself.

So I again began scanning packages and recording bites.  When?  Thanksgiving Day, of course.  Why not restart a diet on the most gluttonous day of the year?

Then yesterday, I bought a Fitbit.  I was planning on buying the Zip when I went into the store, but it was $10 more than I thought it was going to be so I ended up talking myself into the One which was even more expensive (don’t try to follow that logic… it’s impossible.)  I would have loved the Flex that you wear on your wrist but using sign language all day would mean that the more I talked, the more steps it would count.

So far I am really liking the Fitbit.  It syncs into My Fitness Pal (which I just switched to from Lose It) so I can track steps and exercise in the same program as my calories.  It also syncs to SparkPeople for my points there and then I have it linking to Earndit, Everymove, AchieveMint, and Walgreens because you can win things and earn discounts and such through them.

So I have seriously restarted my quest towards 150 pounds with renewed vigor (and new electronics.)