Category Archives: Working Out

Healthy You Challenge Update Week #10

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Healthy You Challenge Update-Great week for both food and exercise!  I didn’t get a chance to do a workout recap from last week yesterday so here it is:

  • 2/27 Sunday-2.5 Mile Walk 334 Calories Burned
  • 2/28 Monday-Off
  • 3/1 Tuesday-10 Minutes Kettle Bells 72 Calories Burned 23 Minute Bollywood Dance 147 Calories Burned
  • 3/2 Wednesday- Off Could barely walk thanks to 10 minutes of kettlebells!
  • 3/3 Thursday- 2 Miles Treadmill 207 Calories Burned
  • 3/4 Friday- 30 Minutes Kettlebells 211 Calories Burned
  • 3/5 Saturday- Off but I did do a ton of walking!

Since my goal is 4-5 days of working out a week, I am right on track.  I’ve also stayed within my calorie range every single day this week!

The scale isnt moving much at all, so I decided to take my measurements.  I havent taken them since about mid January, so it was nice to see movement somewhere!

  • Waist (1.75”)
  • Hips (1.75”)
  • Thigh (.75”)
  • Arm (0”)
  • Calve (0”)*
  • Chest Over (0”)*
  • Chest Under (0”)*
  • Items marked with a * I’ve just started to track, so there are no measurements yet.
  • Down 3 ¾” in a little over a month!  I’m pretty happy with that.

Some updates:

31,000 Calories in 30 Days:  I am way ahead of schedule so far this month.  The past couple of days I’ve been working out a lot and its showing in my calorie deficits!  So far I have a deficit of 8,708 calories (Mar 1-Mar 7).  Not too shabby!

3,000,000 Steps in 2011: 3/1-3/7/2011 I got in 69,472 steps.  Not exactly a powerhouse week for steps, but, still way ahead of my goal of 8,000 steps per day.  This week was just sort of blah with steps.  This next week will be better with steps!

  • Steps this week: 69,472
  • Average per day: 9.925
  • Highest Day this week: 11,273 (3/3)
  • Lowest Day this week: 8,473 (3/4)
  • Steps so far this year: 649,495 (21.6% to goal)
  • Steps to goal: 2,350,505
  • Days left in 2011: 298

#7daychip /#30daychip : As of yesterday I finished another quest towards a #7daychip and am now confident enough to work on my #30daychip!  Today is day 8 and I already feel great about it.  If you want to know more about the #7daychip & #30daychip community you can check out @BradGansberg on twitter or on his blog.  It’s an incredibly supportive community that focuses on taking it one day at a time to reach our goals, whether it be to not binge eat, workout a certain number of days in a row, track food, etc. 

My goal for the #30daychip is recapped below from last weeks post:

#30daychip: I’m joining in to try to earn my first #30daychip (which is an extension of the #7daychip).  For the next 30 days, I’m going to, regardless of what I eat, track my food AND average a 1,000 calorie deficit per day.  Since it’s a 31 day month and it’s only a #30daychip, my goal is to hit the 31,000 calorie deficit by the 30th of the month!

Healthy You Challenge Update Week #9

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Sorry I didn’t get to post yesterday, it was a busy-busy day at work.  I was having a bit of a down day due to frustrations with the scale and how it refuses to budge no matter what I seem to do.  I did what any smart stubborn idiotic woman does and had a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for dinner as a big EFF YOU to the scale.  That was productive, wasn’t it?  Once I finished the pint, and felt horribly disgusting, I read THIS post by Bella and it prompted me to head straight to the grocery store and get my meals ready for the week.  My fridge now looks like this (camera phone picture):

Breakfasts, snacks and lunches all prepared and ready to go.  I just need to take one of each and I’m ready for the day.  Dinners require more creativity, but 75% of my day is already!

Healthy You Challenge Update-Over all I did well with food this week, with the exception of yesterday.  Because of the work trip last week I did a lot of guestimating on food items.  I did the best I could those days and it was by far the healthiest business trip to date.  I worked out most of the days that I was out there, which I am proud of.  This past weekend was in the 50’s each day and it was sunny so I got in a couple of really nice long walks which felt amazing!

Some updates:

28,000 Calories in 28 Days:  Even with one day of not tracking (counted 0 calories towards goal that day) and one day of ice-cream for dinner, I still wound up with a 29,306 calorie deficit for the month of February.  This in theory equates to what should have been an 8.37 pound loss.  Not so much.  I did the right things, so I’m going to try to not focus on what the scale says.

3,000,000 Steps in 2011: 2/22-2/28/2011 I got in 74,629 steps (8 steps more than last week…hello consistency!)  Still way ahead of my goal of 8,000 steps per day.  This week was just sort of blah with steps.  Some days were super high, and then there were a couple of low ones. I had two 15,000 plus days and then one day that I didn’t even hit 6,500.

  • Steps this week: 74,629
  • Average per day: 10,661
  • Highest Day this week: 15,382 (2/25)
  • Lowest Day this week: 6,473 (Monday 2/28-my Debbie Downer Day)
  • Steps so far this year: 580,394
  • Steps to goal: 2,419,977
  • Days left in 2011: 305

#7daychip : Technically I did finish my quest for my second #7daychip but I wouldn’t call it pretty.  There was a lot of estimating during those 7 days due to eating in restaurants that I couldn’t find nutritional information on.

Now that two of my personal challenges are done, what’s next? It’s sort of a two-fer since they go hand in hand.

#30daychip: I’m joining in to try to earn my first #30daychip (which is an extension of the #7daychip).  For the next 30 days, I’m going to, regardless of what I eat, track my food AND average a 1,000 calorie deficit per day.  Since it’s a 31 day month and it’s only a #30daychip, my goal is to hit the 31,000 calorie deficit by the 30th of the month!  After having done so well in February, I know I can do it.  Eventually the scale will catch up right?

It’s not too late to enter my 500th Post Giveaway!!!

If you haven’t already read it, Bella has a great post that verbalizes exactly how I was feeling yesterday, you should check it out!

Healthy You Challenge Update Week #8

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Healthy You Challenge Update-I’ve been doing so incredibly well with both working out and with tracking my food that I was starting to feel like I had it.  We all know that feel, we’ve all had it.  You feel like you can do know wrong.  Out of the blue BAM you lose it.  Sometimes it’s an hour, sometimes it’s a week, a month, a year.  Lucky for me this time it was only a day.  I mentioned this some in yesterday’s post.  Saturday was a day off from working out and I turned it into a day of not tracking after lunch.  I didn’t go out of control, I just didn’t track.  Sunday I got back on it though and immediately started my day with 60 minutes on the treadmill.  I got 3.77 miles in during those 60 minutes and it felt great!

Some updates:

28,000 Calories in 28 Days:  I decided to count Saturday as having earned 0 calories towards my goal of a 28,000 calorie deficit for February.  With that taken into account, I am at a deficit of 22,645 with 7 days left in the month.  I’m still ahead of schedule thanks to all of the working out I’ve been doing!

3,000,000 Steps in 2011: 2/15-2/21/2011 I got in 74,621 steps.  Still way ahead of my goal of 8,000 steps per day.  This week was just sort of blah with steps.  Someday’s were super high, and then there were a couple of low ones.  Next week should be better though! 

  • Steps this week: 74,621
  • Average per day: 10,660
  • Highest Day this week: 14,261 (Friday 2/18)
  • Lowest Day this week: 6,930 (Saturday 2/19-Off Day from working out and was completely lazy)
  • Steps so far this year: 505,394
  • Steps to goal: 2,494,606
  • Days left in 2011: 312

#7daychip : I restarted my quest for my second #7daychip on Sunday.  I’m now on the third day and things are going well!  I’m eating within my calorie range everyday and I am making sure to reach my calorie deficit goals each day.

The challenge this week is my four-day business trip that I am currently on.  I’ve packed a workout DVD and am going to keep up with tracking my food and emailing Bella my food journal each day.  How healthy was your week?

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Weekend & Workout Recap

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I worked from home on Friday, it was 70+ degrees and a complete February treat!  I got a ton of work done, 13 loads of laundry, worked out and enjoyed the weather.  Windows were open all day long.  It was wonderful!  Of course we are supposed to get snow again tonight/tomorrow, but the warmer weather was nice while it lasted!

Saturday & Sunday were both pretty lazy relaxing days.  Saturday was a day off from working out, but I took off from more than working out.  I also didnt track my food.  Looking back at it, I wasnt “bad” per se, but I was snacky.  I grabbed a handful of pretzels here, a handful of dark chocolate M & Ms there.  We went out to dinner at a burger joint.  I only ate a handful of my fries, but in the end I didnt track.  I’m going to count no calorie deficit for the day towards m 28,000 calories in 28 days goal for Saturday. 

I decided to restart my next #7daychip yesterday and get back to tracking and working out after a day off.  I started yesterday with an hour on the treadmill and an extra long walk for my dog.  I tracked all day long, so day 1 was a success! 

Today is a Federal Holiday, so I get the day off.  I’ve already worked out, had a healthy (and tracked) breakfast.  The rest of the day will be spent picking up the house and packing for my work trip this week.  What was originally supposed to be a 3 day trip has become a 4 day trip.  Good for the hotel points at least.

Workout Recap 2/13-2/19/2011

  • 2/13: 1 Hour Walk outdoors 459 Calories
  • 2/14: Off
  • 2/15: 15 Minutes Golds Gym Wii Workout 128 Calories 30 Minutes Walk/Jog Intervals 223 Calories
  • 2/16: 37 Minutes Biggest Loser Workout Challenge 275 Calories 18 Minutes Golds Gym Wii Workout 145 Calories
  • 2/17: Off
  • 2/18: 60 Minutes Walk Away The Pounds Punch Up DVD 411 Calories
  • 2/19: Off

I’m still doing great keeping up with working out 4-5 days a week on top of dog walks!  I’ve been using my Polar FT4 Heart Rate monitor to capture my calories for each workout.  I’ve packed a Walk Away The Pounds DVD as well as my HRM for my business trip so that I have no excuse not to work out.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Weekend & Workout Recap

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This weekend was non-stop, go, go, go, go, and go.  I need a day off to recover!  We had the step-kids this weekend so we were of course busy doing things with them.  Saturday was whirl wind-grocery shopping, car wash, cookie dough making, had to stop and pick up a new pair of sneakers at Potomac River Running, took step daughter to a movie while DH took step son to do boy sorts of things.  Then after all of that fun I headed over to a family party.  I was back home and in bed by 10:30.  So while Saturday was an off day for exercise, I got lots done!    It was fun to have some girl time! 

Sunday was just as busy!  I spent the morning baking cookies and making icing and picking up the house in preparation for one of my best girlfriends and her husband to head over with their two kids to decorate Valentine’s Day Cookies.  It’s so much fun to be able to get together with them for things like that!  Once all of the cookies were cleaned up, it was time to head out for a walk with another one of my girlfriends.  It was beautiful out yesterday (52 degrees!) so we took advantage of it by getting an almost 3 mile walk in!  I had a pork roast in the crockpot for a recipe that I haven’t made in a while Crockpot Carnitas.  I used some of the leftovers to set out lunches for most of the week. 

It was a fabulous weekend, and I feel so prepared for this week (with exception of laundry….didn’t have time for that!)  Both DH and I were ready to go to bed at 9:30 last night!  He never goes to bed before 1AM, so he must have been exhausted too!

Workout Recap for 2/6-2/12/2011. 

I got in 5 out of 7 days last week, which meets my goal of 5 days a week!  I felt a bit guilty on Saturday for not working out, but I know rest days are so important.  I’m glad in the end that I didn’t workout because Saturday was so blasted busy!

  • ·         Sunday 2/6-Off
  • ·         Monday 2/7-Biggest Loser Workout Challenge-Kickboxing (34 Minutes-234 Calories)
  • ·         Tuesday 2/8-Biggest Loser Workout Challenge (34 Minutes-248 Calories)
  • ·         Wednesday 2/9-3 Miles Walk Away The Pounds (37 Minutes-292 Calories)
  • ·         Thursday 2/10-Tread Mill w/ Incline Intervals (38 Minutes-318 Calories)
  • ·         Friday 2/11-Biggest Loser Challenge-Yoga Day (43 Minutes-241 Calories)*
  • ·         Saturday 2/12-Off

*I learned yet AGAIN from the Yoga session how incredibly inflexible I am.  I also learned how incredibly weak that my wrists are which sort of shocked me.  Some poses/movements I was great at, but others, I just couldn’t do for more than a few seconds at a time.  Guess there’s only room for improvement!

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

PS-I didnt eat a single cookie OR any of the pizza that we ordered for the kids on Sunday!  I really want my first #7DayChip!

Healthy You Challenge Update Week #6

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Fantastic week for Health!  I worked out 6 out of 7 days last week and tracked my food every day.  While I did have a couple of higher calorie days, I’m balancing them out well by having a couple of lower calorie days.  Yesterday I had a calorie deficit of 1,523 calories!  The scale is also almost back down to where it was last Friday before the over indulgent weekend.  Today I am going to stick to the lower end of my calorie range on Sparkpeople.com again to help keep the scale moving.  Once I can get settled back down I’ll eat back towards the middle of my range.  I don’t want my body thinking the lower calorie is normal and then wind up getting stuck!

Update on the 28,000 Calories in 28,000 Days Challenge: After yesterday’s lower calorie day, I’m right back on track!  Currently at a 7,017 calorie deficit through 2/7.  It took some fighting with myself yesterday to not over eat, because I did in fact feel pretty hungry, so today I’m going to at least hit my sparkpeople.com range.  The extra 200 calories or so will really help to keep me feeling satisfied.

Last week I mentioned ordering the Polar FT4F Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) off of Amazon.com.  After a bit more than a full week of use, I figured I’d give it a fuller review than what I mentioned last week.

Pros

  • I feel like it does a much better job of giving me my calorie count than the estimates on any of the weight loss websites AND better than what the Wii games and the treadmill estimate for me.
  • I really like seeing where my heart rate is throughout my workout.  It’s so easy to check to see where you are at and if you need to push yourself harder.
  • It’s unobtrusive.  With the BodyMedia Fit-BMF (BodyBugg) you have an arm band that you have to wear all day.  While I LOVE the BMF, some days my clothes for work just don’t allow for it.  The HRM is something I can wear for the specific period of time that I am working out, and I like that.  That’s not to say that I won’t go for a few days wearing the BMF to get an update on how many calories I burn on the average day.

Cons

  • It’s not as robust of the BMF however; I already have one of those, so for me personally this isn’t an issue.  If I want more information than heart rate (with the BMF doesn’t capture), calories burned, or how long I’ve been in a training zone with regards to my HR, I would wear the BMF.
  • You have to remember to wet the sensors on the strap that goes around your chest.  Not a big deal, but for me it doesn’t work as well if you don’t wet them (which is what the instructions indicate to do)
  • The watch is easy to use, but while you’re working out, if you accidentally push the wrong button you can wind up pausing your workout.  Not so much a con, but something that I’m getting used to.

Would I purchase this particular HRM again?  Absolutely.  It has minimal bells and whistles, but it does what I was looking for it to.  I like knowing where my heart rate is during my workout, I also really like knowing that its closer to my actual calorie burn than the estimates that many websites use.  Is it perfect?  No, but unless youre in a metabolic chamber, youre probably not going to get perfect results. 

FYI-So far the only game on Wii that is close to what the HRM indicates is The Biggest Loser Challenge (2010 version).  It’s actually within about 5-10 calories after each workout.  Pretty impressive!

The “Stepping Through 2011” Challenge:

2/1-2/7/2011 I got in 82,938 (yet another new record for the year) number of steps this week (354,160 total for the year), so only 2,645,840 steps to my 3,000,000 step goal for 2011. This has been the best week in terms of steps in 2011(I feel like I say this every week but eh, every week gets better!)  My highest day was 16,897 steps and my lowest day was 6,702 which was the day that I decided to become one with the sofa (Super Bowl Sunday.)  I averaged 11,848 steps per day this past week. 

Only 326 days left in 2011, how do you want to look back on the year?

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Weekend Recap & Workout Summary

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I can’t believe I haven’t posted since last Thursday!  I was off on Friday to prepare for a dinner party that I was hosting on Saturday and for one of my girlfriends coming into town.  I worked non-stop on Friday either going to my back doctor, grocery shopping, cleaning, prepping food, or doing laundry.  Throw in a conference call for work and 30 minutes on the treadmill and I was utterly worn out by the time she arrived at 7pm.

Saturday morning my BF and I woke up to work out and have a light & healthy breakfast (knew dinner was going to be calorie dense, so wanted the rest of the day to be light!  We then headed out so that she could start to register for gifts for her wedding.  It was so much fun!  I love that I can get to relive some of the wedding planning fun through her.  I know some people hated planning their weddings but for me it was so blasted much fun!  I would do it all over again.  Saturday night’s dinner party was also amazing, great food, great wine, amazing girlfriends.  With the exception of drinking way too many glasses of wine, I actually did great with food on Saturday, impressed myself!

Sunday I took the day off from life and spent time with DH on the sofa catching up on the DVR and watching the Super Bowl.  I made homemade baked potato skins which were fantastic.  They were way healthier than the fried version at a bar, but they were also not entirely calorie friendly.  It was a treat though! 

Last Saturday I pledged to work out 5 days this week and I beat that, I worked out 6 days!  Now I also have a better idea of how many calories I am actually burning thanks to my Heart Rate Monitor!  Here is the breakdown of the workouts from 1/30-2/5:

1/30: Biggest Loser Challenge (Wii) Workout Test (20 Min-147 Calories) Biggest Loser Challenge (Wii) Workout #1 (37 Minutes-269 Calories)

1/31: 3 Miles of Walk Away the Pounds (36 Minutes-269 Calories)

2/1: Biggest Loser Challenge (Wii) Workout #2 (34 Minutes 263 Calories)

2/2: Step Aerobics from EA Sports More Workouts on the Fast Setting (Wii) (32 Minutes 248 Calories)

2/3: OFF

2/4: 30 Minutes on the Treadmill set to 3.0 (easy pace) (30 Minutes 198 Calories)

2/5: 3 Miles Walk Away the Pounds (36 Minutes 297 Calories)

I just realized I missed doing Workout #3 last week on Biggest Loser Challenge for the Wii.  I am going to use tonight to get caught up on that!

In regards to my 28,000 calories in 28 days challenge, I am a bit behind.  Over indulging on both Saturday and Sunday lead to a 1,200 calorie (approximate) deficit between the two days combined, so I have some catching up to do!  I plan to balance out those two high calorie days with two lower calorie days (today & tomorrow) to get my deficit goal back up to where it needs to be.  I normally aim for 1600-1850 calories in a day, but today and tomorrow I’m going to look to be between 1300-1400 calories.  I also plan to get a solid calorie burn in each day to make sure my deficit is lower.  I was well over 2,000 calories on Saturday thanks to the wine and over 2,000 yesterday.  I’m not trying to starve myself, just need to balance things out a bit J

How was your weekend?

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

28 Days….28,000 Calorie Deficit

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I didn’t get to post this yesterday because yesterday turned into one of those insane days where you sit in meetings or at appointments trying to figure out when you’ll have time to eat or even use the bathroom.  Basically it’ll be like this until Sunday, but at least starting tomorrow it will all be fun!

I’m feeling so amazing lately.  I think a lot of that has to do with the extra exercise that I am getting in.  So to push myself a bit further, I am challenging myself to having a 28,000 calorie deficit at the end of the month.  28,000 calories…28 Days.  The days I don’t work out a 1,000 calorie deficit might be tough, but the days I do workout I exceed that goal, so it should average out!

Yesterday deficit looked like this:

d
  Calories
  Eaten 1,715
  BMR* 2,491
  Exercise 420
  Total Burned 2,911
  Differential -1,196

So I’m already ahead of goal!  28,000 calories in theory equates to 8 pounds.  I know for me (and a lot of you) the math doesn’t always show up on the scale, but here’s to trying!  I’ll update daily or every few days with my deficits.

Having been so busy this week I haven’t taken very many pictures.  I will post the few that I do have tomorrow for the week in pictures!  In those pictures I’ll also show a recipe that I had originally planned on posting today…let’s just say I wouldn’t eat that one again!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Healthy You Challenge Week #5

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This just might have been the best week yet of 2011 in regards to Health.  I’ve finally lost the weight that I was gaining on the new Weight Watchers Points Plus program, I’ve been active at least 30 minutes a day (5-6 days a week) out side of walking the dog, I’ve really got my calorie tracking under control, and I really feel the mojo for weight loss moving around me!  My exercise week is Sunday-Saturday, so far this week I’ve exercised Sunday, Monday and will certainly be hitting it again today.

I’ve been using sparkpeople.com to track my calories and am currently set to eat between 1600-1850 calories per day.  If I have an exceptionally high day (over the 1850) I am balancing it out by having a day or two of lower calorie days which seems to be working out pretty well.  I was feeling like that calorie burns that sparkpeople.com was giving me for working out seemed a bit high, so I ordered a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) off of Amazon.com.  After lots of research on various HRMs I decided to go with the Polar FT4F.  My criterion was that I wanted it to be less than $100, I wanted to be sure that it would fit me at my size (both the chest strap and the watch), I wanted it to track calories burned AND track my heart rate and I wanted it to not include a monthly fee.   This is what it looks like:

Not a huge fan of the color, it’s sort of copper/brown but since it’s not something that I’m wearing for its amazing style, I’m ok with it.  I used it last night when I did 36 minutes of Walk Away The Pounds and found that I burned 269 calories during those 36 minutes, about 200 fewer than what sparkpeople was giving me for low impact aerobics.   I sort of wonder if the 200 additional calories that sparkpeople.com includes are calories burned during the exercise period as well as the higher calorie burn that your body has for the time after your workout.  I’ll have to research a bit more!

I’m going to use it for another week or two and then do a more indepth review of it!  At this point I wouldn’t say that I like it more or less than my BodyMediaFit arm band, but it is less intrusive and isn’t something that I will be wearing all day long, instead I’ll wear it when I’m exercising.  It’s nice to know where my heart rate is and how high and low it gets during my workout.  It is a reminder of when I need to push myself more.

The “Stepping Through 2011” Challenge:

1/25-1/31/2011 I got in 81,819 (a new record for the year) number of steps this week (271,222 total for the year), so only 2,728,778 steps to my 3,000,000 step goal for 2011.  Adding the 30 minutes of additional activity a day has really helped my step count.  This has been the best week in terms of steps in 2011.  My highest day was 15,053 steps and my lowest day was 7,087 which was one of my days off from working out.  I averaged 11,688 steps per day this past week, not too shabby!  Only 333 days left in 2011!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

I did it….Almost!

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My pledge on Monday was to workout at least 30 minutes everyday this week.  I almost got there, but due to a massive storm that led to a power outage I missed working out on Wednesday.  I’ve gotten 30 plus minutes in a day, five out of the last six days though and that is awesome!

Sunday-36 Minutes/3 Miles Walk Away The Pounds (WATP)

Monday-A mix of a total of 40 minutes of cardio videos on OnDemand (Kickboxing, Belly Dancing, Walking, Cardio Max…)

Tuesday-36 Minutes/3Miles WATP

Wednesday-None

Thursday-36 Minutes/3 Miles WATP

Friday-36 Minutes/3 Miles WATP

Not too shabby in my book!  I am making the same pledge for next week, but it will be 30 minutes of activity outside of walking the dog five out of seven days next week.

Hope that everyone has a great weekend!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare