Another 3.25 pounds gone!! I worked hard for that one. I'm also excited to say I've lost 2 inches from my waist and 3 from my hips in the last month! The weather has improved and I'm able to get to the gym more regularly. I did struggle a little with the amount of calories I was eating earlier in the week. This was due to accomplishment my goal of learning how to bake bread from scratch. It was soooooo damn yummy, but at about 150 calories for a smallish slice, I had to really watch it. And of course when you eat fresh-baked real bread you have to put real butter on it. Any lo-cal butter substitutes would've been a crime! Olive oil for dipping was great too.
I think my goal for this week will be to eat fewer calories so I don't have to kill myself at the gym to compensate. Looking for better balance this week, please.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Burn baby, burn!
Today I hit a personal best: 700 calories burned at the gym. This is the most calories I've burned in a single workout session. What goes into that workout? I started with 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill. Then I moved on to about 45 minutes or so of strength training. Today was lower body day, so I was working on legs and glutes and threw in some ab work for good measure. My abs are still kinda shot from this last pregnancy, but ya gotta start somewhere, right? Then I wrapped it up with 30 minutes on the elliptical, using an interval setting. Oh, and I did my physical therapy routine too.
So that's that. It was fun. I am sore, but I'm going to bed feeling thinner and a little more toned up. Looking forward to weigh day!
So that's that. It was fun. I am sore, but I'm going to bed feeling thinner and a little more toned up. Looking forward to weigh day!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Now where did i leave those 36 pounds, anyway?
I've been noticing lately that my clothes are looser and I can fit into some things that I haven't worn since before this last pregnancy (baby girl is 4 month old today!). This has got me wondering, where does weight go when you lose it? I tried to logic it out: fat is made up of calories, which is really just a measurement of energy, which is neither created nor destroyed...so...hmmm. It must go somewhere, right? I've never really thought about this before, but suddenly I was obsessed with solving this mystery so I did a little internet sleuthing at ask.com.
By the way, please don't consider any of this to be scientific fact, just a report of what I read while researching. Someone actually asked the inevitable, "When you lose weight do you get rid of it by pooing?" I must admit I had considered this hypothesis myself, but the answer given was "No." I guess if that were the case we could just take laxatives and have permanent weight loss.
Here's the deal. In a nutshell, when you eat fewer calories than you burn, your body turns fat into energy for a series of metabolic processes involving your liver, kidney and muscle. Then, these components are further broken down to provide energy for your body. The heat generated by these processes helps regulate body temperature and the waste products of these processes are water and carbon dioxide. (If that's true, of course, because this was on the internet afterall.)
So you pee it out, sweat it out, and exhale it out. But the process also starts with that calorie deficit--burning off more calories than you eat. Well, this is less glamorous or magical than I had imagined, but it does reinforce for me the efforts i have been making. Please feel free to do your own research and share it here. I'd love to see if there are any other explanations and what they are, but my toddler just woke up from his nap and so my research time must come to an end. In the meantime, I'll be peeing, sweating and exhaling myself away!
By the way, please don't consider any of this to be scientific fact, just a report of what I read while researching. Someone actually asked the inevitable, "When you lose weight do you get rid of it by pooing?" I must admit I had considered this hypothesis myself, but the answer given was "No." I guess if that were the case we could just take laxatives and have permanent weight loss.
Here's the deal. In a nutshell, when you eat fewer calories than you burn, your body turns fat into energy for a series of metabolic processes involving your liver, kidney and muscle. Then, these components are further broken down to provide energy for your body. The heat generated by these processes helps regulate body temperature and the waste products of these processes are water and carbon dioxide. (If that's true, of course, because this was on the internet afterall.)
So you pee it out, sweat it out, and exhale it out. But the process also starts with that calorie deficit--burning off more calories than you eat. Well, this is less glamorous or magical than I had imagined, but it does reinforce for me the efforts i have been making. Please feel free to do your own research and share it here. I'd love to see if there are any other explanations and what they are, but my toddler just woke up from his nap and so my research time must come to an end. In the meantime, I'll be peeing, sweating and exhaling myself away!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Weigh day
Hello there! I've missed you! I kinda lost focus this week. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but most of my "putting my health first" energy got shifted to the back burner. I want to figure it out so I can learn from it and truly change my ways, but, honestly, I think it had a lot to do with pms and hormonal shifts. I got a little run down and lost momentum in the gym too.
The final number this morning is 1.25 pounds gone. This is good, but not quite my goal of 2 pounds per week. As far as regaining focus, it's a big attention getter when the scale whispers in your fat ear. I am re-committing to journaling everything that goes in my mouth. I've also created some new playlists to listen to at the gym...stuff that'll help me get moving. Do you know I actually listened to David Gray's "White Ladder" yesterday? It fit my mood at the time but I think it effected my workout--I just couldn't get fired up listening to that. In fact, I wanted to nap soooooo badly afterwards.
Okay, here we go...new week, renewed focus!
The final number this morning is 1.25 pounds gone. This is good, but not quite my goal of 2 pounds per week. As far as regaining focus, it's a big attention getter when the scale whispers in your fat ear. I am re-committing to journaling everything that goes in my mouth. I've also created some new playlists to listen to at the gym...stuff that'll help me get moving. Do you know I actually listened to David Gray's "White Ladder" yesterday? It fit my mood at the time but I think it effected my workout--I just couldn't get fired up listening to that. In fact, I wanted to nap soooooo badly afterwards.
Okay, here we go...new week, renewed focus!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Weigh Day!!
3 pounds gone!!!!!!! Woooooohooooooooo!! I actually don't believe it, but scale don't lie!
I'd like to share with you one of my favorite apps for iPhone. It's called WeightTrack, and guess what it does? You enter your goal weight, beginning weight, and update with current weight. This little beauty not only tells you how much your average daily and weekly weight loss works out to, it also graphs it for you. It calculates your BMI too. Perfect for those truly obsessed with their weight loss stats (like me). It's a scale-hopper's dream come true!
I'd like to share with you one of my favorite apps for iPhone. It's called WeightTrack, and guess what it does? You enter your goal weight, beginning weight, and update with current weight. This little beauty not only tells you how much your average daily and weekly weight loss works out to, it also graphs it for you. It calculates your BMI too. Perfect for those truly obsessed with their weight loss stats (like me). It's a scale-hopper's dream come true!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
S'no Picnic!
We are getting hammered with winter weather in New England. We're on our second snow day in a row today, with a bunch of ice out there. Not the kind of stuff I like to tangle with. This weather is doing a double whammy on my diet, uh I mean "new lifestyle."
First, I'm having a hard time getting to the gym to workout. For about half the week, for the last several weeks, it's either too snowy to drive there or they don't have the babysitting room open because school has been delayed or cancelled. I can't even get out there to do a good shovelling workout because of my children...though I have snuck out there once or twice for a few minutes.
Second, my two boys want to snack all day long. How do you not snack when you have to prep snacks and watch them eat? How do you smell peanut butter and not eat a spoonful? How do you make a grilled cheese sandwich and not eat one....or at least the crusts that get left behind? (I know it's a terrible habit to eat off the kids' plates, but I actually love the crusts of grilled cheese sandwiches. And they don't.) My older son loves to make a "picnic" in the living room. Yesterday I ate a salad. He actually asked me to eat "something better" at today's picnic. We had a chat about that one.
And of course there's only so many calories you can burn on a Wii. Especially when you have to be the role model for taking turns with a four-year-old and a two-year-old. Then there's the girls' night out I had the other day. I had to. And it was a month since the last time I went out, so it was well-deserved, if not absolutely necessary. This is definately a struggle, but I'm fighting for weight loss everyday...except the day off I took the other day. I try to remind myself of my committment to getting healthier. For me. And it will be spring someday!
First, I'm having a hard time getting to the gym to workout. For about half the week, for the last several weeks, it's either too snowy to drive there or they don't have the babysitting room open because school has been delayed or cancelled. I can't even get out there to do a good shovelling workout because of my children...though I have snuck out there once or twice for a few minutes.
Second, my two boys want to snack all day long. How do you not snack when you have to prep snacks and watch them eat? How do you smell peanut butter and not eat a spoonful? How do you make a grilled cheese sandwich and not eat one....or at least the crusts that get left behind? (I know it's a terrible habit to eat off the kids' plates, but I actually love the crusts of grilled cheese sandwiches. And they don't.) My older son loves to make a "picnic" in the living room. Yesterday I ate a salad. He actually asked me to eat "something better" at today's picnic. We had a chat about that one.
And of course there's only so many calories you can burn on a Wii. Especially when you have to be the role model for taking turns with a four-year-old and a two-year-old. Then there's the girls' night out I had the other day. I had to. And it was a month since the last time I went out, so it was well-deserved, if not absolutely necessary. This is definately a struggle, but I'm fighting for weight loss everyday...except the day off I took the other day. I try to remind myself of my committment to getting healthier. For me. And it will be spring someday!
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