Pumpin': How I Work Out

GRRRR!!!  I had just started this post, and went to my files to find a picture of the fitbit, and poof!  I closed the wrong window.  Goodbye, witty blog post!  So in its place, you will have the following post instead.  Let's all have a big "sad panda", while I try not to do that again:

 

If I had been paying attention, the first part of this blog would have been a nice little rant about all the big jerks who keep telling me I need to exercise, like I don't already do that.  There was a fabulous metaphor about how multiple tools are needed to accomplish a job, and it was completely brilliant.  But now that I've finished my panic attack, I'm over my vent, and it's just not as effective any more.   Sorry you missed my fabulosity.  I promise I'll make more!

Now on to the point:  Right now, working out for me doesn't look quite like it might if I were in better shape going into this game.  I have every intention down the line of sending the buffest of meatheads to the corner to babble mindlessly and sob into their sweat towels while they marvel at my mad skills and wish they were me, but for the moment, it's baby steps.

When you look at the fact that I was winded after climbing a flight of stairs 4 months ago, I think I'm pretty much a freaking rock star, mmmkay?  Sometimes, it's all relative.

I mentioned something about needing a tool box to get the job done.  Well, here's what's in mine:

The Fitbit

I'm only half kidding when I say that any mention of the name of this amazing little gadget should be accompanied by the finest of Heaven's angels singing the "Hallelujah Chorus".  I seriously credit this invention with saving my ever-loving life.  You're going to want one of these after you read about it, if you don't already have one, so here's where you can get it:

www.fitbit.com .  They're also sold at Target and Best Buy stores.  They'll set you back a little less than $100 most places, but the sheer volume of fun little apps and trackers and general goodness you get, combined with the best customer support I've ever seen in the event something should go wrong (perish the thought!), makes it well worth the money, as far as I'm concerned.

OK...I'm going to hit the save button before I post the picture this time!

Good deal.  I'm covered.  This is what the fitbit looks like:

It's about the size of your average flash drive, and you just clip it to your belt or put it in your pocket.  Some women wear theirs on their bra, but I check mine like every.  Five.  Seconds, so I decided that's probably not the best place for me.  It comes in black, accented this nifty silver, pink, or blue.  I have the pink one, because everything's better in pink.

The concept is pretty simple:  the more you move, the happier your fitbit will be.  The little flower graphic on the front starts out as a tiny little bud, and grows to be a truly epic vine if you give it enough "fuel".  The fitbit tracks the steps you take, the calories you burn, and the number of stairs you climb in a day, as well as how many hours of sleep you get and how many times you wake up in a night if you use the included wrist strap to wear it while you sleep, and compiles all that data into a neat little webpage where you can chart your progress.  It links into a number of other apps, including My Fitness Pal and my personal favorite, earndit.com (more about that later), providing interactive feedback that works with those sites to create some seriously cool rewards.  There are social aspects to their log page, where you can compete with your friends to see who's done the most mileage or burned the most calories.  AND it says fun things to you when you pick it up, like "Faster" or "Love Ya".  All in all, it's a genius motivational tool.

Make no mistake, this thing may be tiny, but it motivates like a fiend!  I find myself constantly trying to outdo my totals from the day before.  I may or may not have once or twice refused to go to bed until I had walked up and down the halls and 3 flights of stairs, just to reach a new goal.  I seriously doubt I'd move nearly as much as I do now if I didn't have it.  I love this thing!


Canine Walking Buddy  

I'm of the firm belief that everyone needs one of these, but not everyone agrees with me.  Personally, I just can't beat the motivation that comes with this face ready to go on a new adventure with me every morning.

 

Her name is Jetta, and I got her from a local rescue.  Please consider a shelter pet before shopping from a breeder.  It's one of the best things I've ever done.  She makes all the walking fun, and provides an inability to wiggle out of my workouts that I've never had before she came along.  Accountability is everything, let me tell ya!

Wii  

I know, I know...some people say active video games are not an effective workout.  I'm even inclined to agree that they shouldn't be your sole form of calorie burning.  But as a quick way to squeeze in more activity, or a jumping-off point on the way to being more active, I don't think they can be beat.  My favorites are dance-based games like Just Dance and Zumba Fitness.

Motivational and Tracking Websites 

I can't do anything without electronically exclaiming about it, so these are key tools for me.  My favorite, besides the fitbit dashboard, I mentioned earlier.  It's called earndit.com.  It's a reward system where you track your workouts (mine sync automatically from my fitbit...handy!), and are rewarded with earndit points that you can redeem for gift certificates to a variety of sports- and active lifestyle-related sites, or to donate to charity.  I have donated my points to pay for schooling for a girl in Kenya, and I've cashed them in once for $10 off an ID band from Go Sport ID.  It's so much fun to see your hard work pay off!

(Speaking of Go Sport ID, I can't stress enough how important it is for everyone to have reliable identification in the event of an accident, especially if you have any medical concerns.  You never know when you might not be able to speak for yourself.  Go get one so you stay safe and come back to read my blog, ok?)

OK...so those are my tools.  Now what am I doing  with them?

Well, that part is surprisingly short, compared to all that information above.  I never let a day go by without moving in some way.  Some days, I dance with the Wii.  I usually do about 45 minutes of that, 2-3 times a week.  Since Jetta joined the family, I'm out every day, twice a day, walking her at a fairly good clip for as far as we can get in 30 minutes.  Most days, that's a mile and change.  After all is said and done at the end of the day, I average around a 400-calorie burn on a good active day.  I try to string as many of those good days together as I can.  I'm not perfect.  I don't make it every single day.  Some days, I only burn 150-200 calories.  Other days, I burn 600.  It's all a process.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that it really doesn't matter HOW you burn your calories.  What's important is that you do it.  Eating right is only part of the battle.  Nobody knows better than me how hard it is to get started, especially when you don't feel good.  But you're not going to feel better until you do it.  It might suck a bit at first, but I promise, it gets easier.  I started with just 10 minutes a day, and I'm already up to an hour or more in less than 4 months.  The crazy thing is, now my body actually craves the movement.  I find myself fidgeting in my chair if I don't get up and do something.  If you'd told me a year ago that I wouldn't be able to go a whole day without adding movement in some way, I'd have laughed you out of the room.

Now, if we could just work on convincing me to get out of bed earlier in the morning...

So that's about it for today...I don't know what I'll talk about next time, but I promise it'll be riveting!

Love,

ME

Using the tools I'm given, or how I've changed my eating habits

Now that we've gotten all the technicals out of the way, I can get on with the more personal stuff that I think makes this blog FAR more interesting.  But first, I have to brag a little and Happy Dance a lot...wonder how many calories one burns doing the Happy Dance?

I started this journey back in April, knowing I was in for at least 6 months of supervised dieting.  So I decided, if I'm going to have to do it anyway, I was going to make the best of it and drastically change my habits.  The way I look at it, this will put me that much closer to success in the end, and increase my chances of having a smoother adjustment period post-op.  So far, that's been absolutely correct.  I am super happy to report that, as of today, I have lost 25 lbs!  Well, 25.2 to be exact, but who's counting, right?  Oh wait...I'm counting.  In 7 more pounds, I will have successfully shed 10 percent of my starting weight, and I have no reason to believe I won't hit and surpass that well before my surgery date.

So now the big question:  so many people around me have asked, "how are you doing this?"  Well, I'm happy to tell you!  Anyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE to talk about myself, and especially my successes, so buckle in, because this is bound to be a long read.

We'll start at the beginning.  When I started all this, I was shocked and alarmed to find that I weighed 335 lbs.  Yeah, you read that right.  It's the heaviest I've ever been in my life, and SO not okay with me.  I even have a hard time typing that number now, even knowing how far away from it I've gotten, and how much further I'm going to continue to go.  It was easy for me to hide from the truth...I've always enjoyed great physical health, and am far more fit than the number on the scale might lead you to believe.  I also carry my weight pretty well.  I'm on the taller side of average and pretty muscular, so I look about 40 pounds lighter than I really am.  I could clean up at those "guess your weight" games they play at amusement parks, if I were willing to share my actual weight with complete strangers!

Well, it pretty much goes without saying that seeing the naked truth in digital numbers in front of me was more than a bit sobering.  I knew that big changes needed to be made, and fast.  So I started gradually eliminating things.  I read this article on livestrong.com about the benefits of giving up soda, so that's where I started.  I thought I was doing ok because I was only drinking diet soda, but the truth is, I still wasn't doing my body any favors.  As someone who already takes a stimulant med for ADHD, I certainly didn't need the extra caffeine to drive up my blood pressure, and the artificial sweeteners...well, the jury's still out on whether or not those are TRULY harmful, but I look at it like this:  if I don't KNOW for sure, why risk it?  So I started by switching to caffeine free sodas, then went to only clear diet sodas with no caffeine.  Once I had a handle on that, I started drinking water flavored with Mio or Crystal Light, then gradually reducing even that, until I was drinking only clear, unflavored water.

If you had told me 3 months ago that I would not only drink just water, but come to actually prefer it, I'd have told you that you were insane.  But now I drink a gallon or more of water a day, and I find that I've started to actually crave more water.  It has to be super ice cold, and I don't care for tap water, but I'm getting it in.  On very rare occasions, I will drink iced tea (decaf if I can get it), and even more rarely, I will still have a can of soda, but I don't drink anywhere near the amount that I used to.

Cutting out soda and changing nothing else about my diet netted me a 6-pound weight loss in the first 2 weeks, but there's no sense in doing things halfway.  So I started taking a look at the food going onto my plate, too.  I learned during my research on Obesity Help and sites like livestrong.com, Spark People, and My Fitness Pal  that lean proteins are hugely helpful in weight loss.  I have a hard time getting in my proteins because I'm a vegetarian (more on that later), so I've found that the best way for me to add protein is in beverage form.  It doesn't work for everybody, but it's what works well for me.  I particularly love Syntrax Nectar because they come in a bigger variety of flavors than most shakes, and they don't have that horrid protein aftertaste and smell that are so common in protein-enhanced foods.  My favorite flavors are the Cappuccino and Fuzzy Navel.  I like to mix the Cappuccino with their Vanilla Bean Torte or Double Stuffed cookie flavors to make a drink that's just as good as anything you can get from Starbucks, with a whole lot more  bennies!

  Here's the nutritional info:

 

This label is for the Cappuccino flavor.  Some flavors have 100 calories, but they all have no fat, no carbs, and that wonderful 23 grams of protein!

So back to the vegetarian thing.  I love animals, really I do, but honestly, my decision to go vegetarian had very little to do with fluffy bunnies.  I was mostly motivated by the fact that I don't love the idea of all the chemicals and other nasties that go into meat processing...I'll spare you all the disgusting photos and web links that are usually associated with this mention...and I, personally, just generally feel better when I don't eat meat.  My digestion is smoother, and I have more energy and fewer problems with my joints and skin.  Again, it's not for everyone, but it works for me.  I'll be the last to tell anyone not to enjoy a big fat steak, if it makes them happy, but if you ask me why I eat the way I do, you should be prepared for a lot of information!  If, after hearing me talk, you still want that steak, that's your business and I won't try to change your mind.  I do still eat eggs and some forms of dairy...for me, protein was nearly impossible without those.

And now for a gratuitous picture of a typical lunch for me.  This salad contains dark leafy greens, Laughing Cow cheese, a cup of sliced strawberries, and a vegetarian protein patty from Morningstar Farms.  On this particular day, I think it was California Turkey flavor.  I like my dressing on the side, and it's usually some sort of vinaigrette.  I never eat more than a few tastes of the dressing anyway.

 

Breakfast is either Greek yogurt and fruit, or an Egg McMuffin with no canadian bacon.  Dinner is more often than not a similar salad, sometimes a shirataki noodle stir fry or an omelet, and half a cup of nonfat cottage cheese.  I use the protein shakes I mentioned before as a snack twice a day, and, honestly, I don't ever get hungry or feel deprived.  I pin a whole lot of vegetarian recipes, and I visit more food blogs than I ever did before I started eating healthy.  I'll put some of those in my blogroll as time goes on.  Right now, I'm a bit too busy enjoying the process of learning about new recipes myself, and I don't have a huge list of readers, but I do LOVE to share, so don't hesitate to ask if you want to know!

This has already become a bit windy, so I'll wait to talk about my exercise habits til next blog.  See you soon! 

Love, 

ME