That's embarrassing

I knew my weekend statistics were bad, but I didn't realize how bad they were until I synced my UP this morning: 11,062 steps, for the whole weekend.  YIKES!

On Saturday, I was over my calorie allotment by just under 1000 calories (stupid buffet...), and on Sunday, I was over by about 100 calories (not horrible, but still).

I had every intention of working out on both Saturday and Sunday, but neither day went as planned.

Result: two "red" days in a row.

Lesson learned: get up and work out in the morning so that when the rest of the day doesn't go as planned, the workout will already be out of the way!

Hopefully I will get back on track today!

Try, Try, Again

When I was little and learning to fall ice skate, my dad used to sing a little song to me: "When you fall, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try, try again."  I, of course, thought my dad made up that little ditty himself, but I recently learned that the song (with slightly different lyrics) was from a 1936 movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers called Swing Time.  (If it had earlier origins, I'm not aware).

This theme of "try, try, again" completely describes my efforts to lose weight. Yesterday, despite my resolve to "redouble my efforts to be less sedentary at work," I failed.  I started working on a project that kept me in my chair for a stretch of 2 hours and 5 minutes, longer than the previous day.  Yikes!

So, even though I met all of my other daily goals, I didn't meet my 12,000 step goal, falling 294 steps short.

Here are my stats:

11,706 steps

62 minute work out (elliptical and strength as planned)

1386 calories (admittedly slightly over, but I always over-estimate some foods)

Rating: Yellow day.

Now, I'm going for a walk around my building.

Is this what sugar addiction feels like?

Someone I work with walked into the office this morning carrying a Starbucks coffee cup. Immediately, my salivary glands went into overdrive.  All of a sudden, I wanted to go to Starbucks. I needed to go to Starbucks.  If my boss hadn't been standing right next to me and my new found resolve to make better food choices, I might have retrieved my coat and car keys and made a run to the closest drive thru.

I know it wasn't the coffee I was craving.  My typical coffee order has nothing to do with coffee. My go to order is a grande, skinny, vanilla latte.  In the fall, I switch to a tall, pumpkin spice latte with non-fat milk, and in December, I look forward to tall, skinny peppermint mochas.  But, as part of my resolution to make better food choices, I've swapped my Starbucks coffee runs for home brewed Green Tea.  (Bonus - I'm also saving money!)

This leads me to believe that I might be having some sort of sugar withdrawal.  I've never really considered myself to be a sugar addict, but my reaction this morning leads me to believe that I might have a problem.  I have not consciously cut out sugar, but by making better food choices and tracking my caloric intake, I have, in essence, not been eating any refined sugar.

I guess this newly discovered "sugar addiction" is an issue I should explore a bit more.

Greenellow

I learned a new word yesterday, portmanteau, which is a type of luggage with two separate sections.  Over time, however, it has a developed a secondary meaning.  It is the description used for a word that combines the sounds and meanings of two different words.  In other words, it's a blended word such as smog (smoke + fog) or my favorite word of late hangry (hungry + angry).

Today, I'm using a portmanteau word that I just made up: greenellow (green + yellow), which is the score I gave myself yesterday.  In truth, I told myself when I started my scoring system that I wasn't going to allow myself to be wishy washy like this. I need to fairly and accurately assess my day and there shouldn't be a middle ground; I either met all my goals for the day (green) or I fell short some how.  But, I decided that yesterday was one of those days where I wasn't going to be so hard on myself.

Here are my stats:

11,135 steps
1240 calories
53 minutes cardio and body weight exercises, specifically Jillian Michaels' Bansish Fat, Boost Metabolism workout DVD

As you can see, I fell short of my 12,000 step goal. If I had taken another 865 steps, it would have been a green day, easily.  At 10:00 pm last night, I contemplated walking around my house for another 1000 steps, but that just didn't seem true to my efforts.  In all other respects yesterday, I did well.  I made good food choices, I worked out even though I really didn't want to, and I drank plenty of water.

My Jawbone UP tells me that at one point yesterday, I was idle for a stretch of 1 hour and 59 minutes.  It also tells me that even if I exercise regularly, long periods of idleness can be detrimental to my overall health.  So, today I am going to redouble my efforts to be less sedentary at work. It shouldn't be that hard for me to get up a few more times during my day and walk around.

Salad Day

Last year, the human resources department at my work started an initiative called "Let's Get Healthy Together!"  One thing, among many, that we do is a once-a-month salad day.  The idea is that anyone who wants to participate contributes a healthy item for a salad bar.   We are encouraged to bring our own re-usable plates and silverware to cut down on wasting paper products, too.

Today was our January salad day.  Shortly before going down to the employee lounge to make may salad, I happened to hit on an article that listed 29 fat burning vegetables.  While creating my salad today, I made a conscious choice to choose as many fat burning foods from that list as I could.  I was able to choose beets, celery, beans, broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peppers.  I skipped the feta cheese, which I usually love to pile on top.

As I said before, baby steps... it's all about making healthy choices each and every time.

Green Day

After being in the "yellow" for two days straight, I managed to score a "green" day.  Here are the stats from yesterday:

I took 12, 174 steps, according to my Up.  I logged 1267 calories, and I worked out for 42 minutes on the elliptical and did strength moves for just under 20 minutes.

One week check in

So, it may not be obvious from the lack of writing around here, but last week, starting on Monday, January 5, 2015, I eased back into a routine.  It makes me very sad to see how far I've gone in the opposite direction of being healthy... I was reading some of the posts about doing P90X back in June of 2011.  I am so far from that healthy person, it's depressing.

For now, however, I've resolved to move more and eat less. To accomplish this resolution, here is my plan.  It's very basic, but I need to start somewhere.wee

Goal 1: 12,000 steps daily (no excuses)
Goal 2: Track all food/calories
     sub goal: to eat 1300 calories or less
     sub goal: eat out less and make better choices
Goal 3: 40 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of strength training
Goal 4: drink 128 oz of water

I am keeping track of my progress on a simple chart that I hung in my bathroom.  I developed a color coded "accountability" system to rate how well I did each day - again, very basic, but I'm a visual person, and I want to be able to see, at a glance, how I'm doing.

Green: accomplished all goals

Red: failed to reach at least 10,000 steps or failed to work out for at least 30 minutes or ate more than 1450 calories.  Bottom line: if I fail to move or eat right, I will give myself a red.

Yellow: falls somewhere in between.  Example 1: If I accomplish my workout but fall short of 12,000 steps, I'll grade myself a yellow.  Example 2: If I workout and reach at least 10,000 steps but eat more than 1300 calories, I will grade myself a yellow.

Since I started using my color coded system I have had 3 yellow days and 5 green days.