Sorry I've been MIA

Looking at my last journal entry, a lot of time has passed. My puppy is now 4 months old. Love her to pieces. I've put on quite a lot of weight. Yeah, here's a pic of us on the beach on Ft. Lauderdale over winter break. Not ready to confess numbers yet. I'll pop onto my Wii Fit to track my weight. Tomorrow, I'm going to the rec center with my friend at work.

I'll turn 50 in November this year, and I'd really like to lose 20-40 pounds by then. I figure a combination of Sparkpeople to track calories, Wii Fit to track weight, and friends to track exercise, should be good. I need to work on my plan a little more concretely.

First I have to find my Wii Fit disk. Found the case, and it was empty. Also need new batteries, for the remote.

This is what a pound of fat looks like!

This is what a pound of fat looks like!

Wow, after all that hard work, I lost a pound. What! I have to stay on track, eating & exercising like that another week? Then another week? etc, for 40 weeks!

I ran a few reports to see what exactly it took for me to lose 1 whole, genuine pound. I looked at my nutrition for last week. I only tracked for 5 of the 7 days, so it's a little inaccurate. My calories were over 2 day, under 1 day, and in range 2 days.

Then I looked at my exercise, again only 5 of 7 days. But I did cardio every one of these: 30, 60, 20, 15, & 60 minutes.

Finally, I ran a report I never did before: Calorie Differential. Over the week my BMI & cardio burned 2,500 more calories than I ate. It takes 3,500 calories to make a pound. 500 per day, so the 2 days not tracked could easily have accounted for the 1000.

I conclude that it's important to track nutrition & fitness, so I can see what's working, and what needs to be improved on. And that, yes, I really do have to work that hard, every week to lose a real pound.

Wow! I ran 20 minutes straight!

I ran week 5 day 3, while DS10 was in karate. It was great to run 20 min without stopping. It was 80 degrees and humid, and I was a sweaty mess. People are starting to say they saw me running. Maybe they think, you go girl!

I have a heart murmur. It's congenital, which means I was born with it. I've never let it slow me down. So glad I'm running to make my heart stronger.

The Biggest Loser 30-Day Jump Start: Day 3

OK, a little weird starting my blog with "day 3" but I didn't think about blogging this before, so here goes. Today is about being selfish with my time. I need to put myself upon a pedestal, find time for fitness, planning meals, cooking healthy foods, and reading, because I have to keep my head in the game.

Also weird is that I found my drive again. Just one day, I started tracking every bite I ate online at sparkpeople.com. I started running the Couch to 5K program (C25K) again. I ran a 5K two years ago, this time, I'm training with DS10, and it's so cool to have a young, enthusiastic running buddy. And I borrowed a book from the library: The Biggest Loser 30-Day Jump Start (BL). It has some great recipes and easy exercises. Seems like it's for people who need to ramp up. In some way's I'm further along, and in other ways it's just what I need. Well, no book can be all things for all people!

I put the stepper in my bedroom, and stepped for 20 minutes last night while watching TV. Really worked up a sweat! I followed up with what the BL book calls mobility exercises. I guess for people who don't exercise at all. I used to go to the gym a lot, but slacked off since we moved 2 years ago.

After work today I'm running C25K week 2, day 3 (W2D3) with DS10. Then I'll do the mobility exercises from the BL book.

So where did the motivation come from? I was down to 2 pairs of pants that fit (poorly). I decided that it's ok to want to lose weight to look good. I don't have to have a higher, finer reason, like health, or running a marathon. And it's OK that I start something new to get motivated. The Wii Fit was fun, but I crave novelty.

Wii Fit Workout Routine

Wii Fit Workout Routine

This will seem a boring routine after a while, but it is very good for burning that fat

*Day 1

Short run warmup
Medium hula hoop (5 minute version)
Boxing - Long (10 Minute)
Running Long
Step class Long
Warm down with 1-2 yoga stretches

Time: 35-40 min

Calories burnt - 350 - 400

*Day 2

Rhythm boxing long
Long step
Medium run
Push ups and twists - as many as possible
Rhythm boxing long
Yoga warm down

Time: 40 mins

Calories burnt - 370


*Day 3

Short run warmup
Hula hoop medium
Step class medium
Jackknife as many as possible
Hula Hoop long - 10 minutes
Warm down

Time: 30 mins

Calories burnt 250

*Day 4

Rest your body. Balance and yoga if you want to use wii fit. Still eat healthily


*Day 5

Step class medium
Medium run
Push ups and twists - push your self
Rhythmn boxing long - your arms will be hurting after these two in a row
Long run
Medium hula hoops
Cool down yoga

Time: 40 mins

Calories burnt 350

*Day 6

Rhythm boxing long
Long step
Long run
Jackknife as many as possible
Rhythm boxing long
Yoga warm down

40 mins

Calories burnt - 400

*Day 7 - rest

I found this on this site: twincitieslive.com/article/stories/s474215
.shtml?cat=10899

Do you have a Wii Fit Routine?

Diet & Budget

I've been working on my budget for a few months now. It's going better than my diet, actually. So I've been thinking about how I can apply some of the same principles of budgeting that have been successful for me to my weight loss effort.

1. You can always spend more than you make.
-You can always eat more calories than you use.

2. Sacrifice you wants now, so you can reap the benefits later.
-Pass up second helpings, unhealthy snacks and desserts now, exercise now, to be strong, healthy & live longer.

3. A written budget means giving every dollar purpose on paper before it's spent.
-A written eating plan maps out every meal, every calorie, beforehand.

4. If it's not on the budget, don't spend it.
-If it's not on the diet, don't eat it.

5. If you want to change the budget, you can do so, if you find the money from another category, or bring in some more money.
-If I want to eat something off the plan, cut back somewhere else, or burn more calories.

6. If you don't exercise, you won't lose weight.
- If you ignore your financial woes, you'll stay in debt.

7. Sit down with your significant other to do a written plan
-Plan your meals with your family for support. .


Have I missed any other comparisons of diet & budget?

This is what motivates me the most

Here's the tragedy of my life: I was 27 years old, 8 months pregnant with my first child, when my mom became jauntice. I had to stay away, because it could be contagious. That was hard.

Then, like a nightmare, every day or 2 tests came back bad. They thought it could be hepatitus or a tumor. It was a tumor. It could be benign or malignant. It was malignant: cancer of the pancreas. It's a bad form of cancer, that isn't usually detected until it's too late to treat. From the diagnosis to her death, it was 6 weeks. I cried the whole time. There was all sorts of drama. Family coming to visit. Squabbles & grudges.

The baby came 2 weeks early. I brought him to see my mom. And she died when he was 8 days old. She got to see him. And he wasn't effected by being in a hospital at a few days old. It was very hard to become a mother & lose my mother in such a short time. I had post-partum depression, but didn't take meds, because I was breast feeding.

It's been 21 years & I still miss my mother. We were very close. And I'm so sorry that she missed out on her grandchildren. Sometimes I see a show I know mom would have liked. Or I see mother & daughter shopping or dining, and I miss her. Or someone with hazel eyes like mom.

Mom had many of the risk factors for cancer of the pancreas: smoking, obesity, and diabetes. And she could controlled them. Her premature death motivates me to make healthy life choices, more than anything else can.