Monday's Food

I had 3 oils/spread and 3 sugar slashes left. Pretty good considering that I made Thai fried rice for lunch. We ate large chef salads for dinner.

So I ate:
3 veggies
3 fruits
3 dairys
4 proteins
4 grains
2 oils
3 sugars

Monday Exercise

30 minutes of Express Cardio by the Firm series

1 hour of weight lifting (chests, triceps and abs)

Lots of running around trying to get things done around the house while the weather is a bit warmer for the next few days.

Sunday's Exercise

Walked my butt off looking for caches...didn't find as many as I searched for but got more than 15,000 steps in.

Sunday's Food

I had several sugars and oils left but not much else. So I ate:

3 veggies
3 fruits
4 proteins
3 dairys
3 oils
3 sugars
4 grains

Saturday's Food

Wow, it has been a few days. The rest of last week was according to plan, except on Friday. I took a free day because I was meeting friends for sushi for dinner and knew I would be eating way more grains that I should.

Yesterday J got home but I was able to follow the plan during the day and so I had enough slashes of everything to eat okay.

I had 3 oil and 2 dairy slashes at the end of the day so I ate:

3 veggies
3 fruits
1 dairy
4 proteins
4 grains
2 oils/spreads
6 sugars

I got a walk in on Friday but yesterday I was pretty much going all day to get things done around here.

Today it is cold again (with 70s later in the week) so I will try to get a walk in this afternoon when the warmth peaks (47 degrees), and maybe some indoor stuff. On Monday, I plan to start making the gym a part of everyday (just for lifting weights). If I do that, and do cardio at home or outside, then I don't have to be in the gym for very long but the muscles will help boost my metabolism some and I need the boost.

Tuesday Food and Exercise

I didn't have any slashes left over today....I am assuming. Near the end of the night, my legs were hurting a bit and in order to take some motrin, I had to eat, so I am sure I went over everything...originally I had 5 sugar slashes and 4 oil slashes left, but then had some nuts with fruit and a hot chocolate....eekk.

Good thing was that I got over 11000 steps in. Found a couple geocaches out in the fresh air, got some ideas for landscape stuff we want to do, and was able to get some new rugs for our entry way, oh and three loads of laundry done....whoeee I was productive even if I got a late start today.

Monday's Eating

I did prett good. I ate all the good stuff and most not the bad stuff. I had 3 oils left and 4 sugars left.

I ate:
3 veggies
3 fruits
3 dairys
4 grains
5 proteins
2 sugars
2 oils.

Food on Sunday

I had 1 grain slash, 4 sugar slashes and 2 oil slashes left...so I ate

3 veggies
3 fruits
3 dairys
3 grains
5 proteins
2 sugars
4 oils/spreads

Not too bad, I was going to have some popcorn but the time got away from me, that is how I ended up with a grain slash left...haha.

Exercise on Saturday

I didn't do any cardio, was going to do some walking outside but then we got a winter weather warning so I ended up moving a lot of furniture around and finishing up the living room floor. I still have some things to move back once it completely dries but it is done for the most part.

My pedometer says I walked 2500 steps around here at the house which is not that great considering that I ate all my slashes today. I'll just have to do better tomorrow.

Saturday's Eating

I ate all my slashes today....so I ate:

3 veggies
3 fruits
4 grains
5 proteins
3 dairys
5 oil/spreads
6 sugars

Not that great but I think I went light on a few things so hopefully it won't be too bad.

Exercising on Friday

I didn't get any cardio in but I walked 7500 steps on my pedometer fro 300 calories burned there and I did 20 minutes of abs and 30 minutes of yard work.

I also finished up half of the living room floor which means a lot of heavy lifting/shoving, and lots of hands and knees work. I plan to finish the floor today.

Friday's Food

I had 4 sugar slashes, 1 fruit slash and 1 dairy slash left on my list yesterday so I ate:

3 veggies
2 fruits
5 proteins
4 grains
6 oils/spreads
2 sugars
2 dairys....

Not too bad.

Thursday's Exercise

Like I said, I didn't get any cardio in but I did do quite a bit of housework. I moved all the furniture out of our dining room and waxed the hardwood floors. I plan to do the same in our living room today, but I also plan to get some cardio in today while the weather holds. Tomorrow we will be back into winter and outside stuff will be limited.

Oh I forgot to add the pedometer in....over 3000 steps in the house yesterday for an additional 128 calories of burn. Don't know how much the waxing used because I had to do it in segments to move the furniture around. My legs are feeling the lunges I did on Wednesday, so that is kind of nice.

Food for Thursday

I had two oil/spread slashes left, and 4 sugars.

So I ate yesterday:
3 veggies
3 fruits
5 proteins
4 grains
3 oils/spreads
3 dairys
2 sugars

Not to bad. Tried to keep away from the sugars yesterday as I didn't get any cardio in.

Eating on Wednesday

Even with our lunch out, I was able to keep things in catagories that would allow me to mark off slashes.

At the end of the day, I had 2 oils slashes left and 2 sugar slashes left....not too bad.

So I ate:
3 veggies
3 fruits
5 proteins
4 grains
3 dairy
4 sugars
3 oils

I had boneless chicken wings and salad with the dressing on the side for lunch. I only ate half of the wings so I had the rest for dinner. Worked out well.

Exercise on Wednesday

I ran errands with a friend most of the day but did manage to get some cardio in during the afternoon.

Pedometer has 2000 steps on it for 84 calories

Cardio walking 4 miles at 4mph = 345 calories

The weather was so nice, I just had to get outside and enjoy it.

Exercise on Tuesday

Well, I didn't get any cardio in but I did work my ass off. Today was one of those days when you start one project and end up doing adding other little ones in as you go because the one project wouldn't be complete if you didn't do the little ones as well.

The project was that I needed to condition our leather couch, loveseat, oversized chair and ottoman. They hadn't been done in a while because we had run out of stuff to do it with. The ottoman and the chair get some sun during the day and I really wanted to get them done. So I started with the loveseat because it is the only one in the family room and that is where I was at the time. Once I got most of it done, I pulled it away from the wall to do the back and that is where the little projects came in. I couldn't pull it away from the wall without vacuuming and dusting back there. This then caused me to pull other pieces of furniture in the room (that were not leather) away and dust/vacuum behind them as well. See what I mean.

Overall the entire project took me about 3 hours of pretty strenuous work. My shoulders got quite the workout.

When I put it as cleaning -light (which it wasn't) it comes up as 517 calories burned. I guess that is what would be considered the low end of how much I burned. It might have been more but I don't want to over estimate.

My pedometer also has 3000 steps on it for 124 calories in movement.

If I am not getting skinnier soon, I don't know what is going on.

Tuesday Food

Well, I had 4 oil dashes and 4 sugar dashes, left when I went to bed last night.

That means I ate:
3 veggies
3 fruits
5 proteins
4 grains
2 sugars
1 oil
3 dairys

Today, I am going to lunch with a friend. My first full meal on this plan, we'll see if I don't end up wiping most of my slashes out and end up starving at night...haha.

Exercise on Monday

I walked over 10,000 steps but 3500 of them were cardio so I will take those out to calculate the calories separately.

Cardio- walking 4 mph 30 minutes = 172

Walking throughout the day for 6500 steps = 275 calories.

Did a few countertop pushups and some calf raises while doing other things during the day but nothing major. It is supposed to be warmer today, so hopefully I can get some good exercise in.

Monday Food

I got all my slashes in but 4 of the sugar ones...which is good, less calories, huh?

So I ate:
3 veggies
3 fruits
3 dairys
4 grains
5 proteins
5 oils/spreads
2 sugars

It is getting easier to follow this plan, now that I know what I am looking for, but I am not really cooking any meals...for instance, yesterday's proteins were two different servings of nuts, a fried egg and 6 meatballs (all spread throughout the day).

Eating on Sunday

Well, I was better about spreading my food out today. It is freezing here so getting motivated for exercise was not happening...but I ended up not using up all my slashes so I saved about 300 calories there.

Anyhow, I hope to get some exercise in tomorrow, maybe a walk and some aerobics too. I am sure it will be cold again but I think I just need to get to it. It will be Monday and I am usually pretty good about getting motivated at the start of the week.

So today I had 3 sugar slashes left, one dairy slash left, and one grain slash left. This means I ate:

3 veggies
3 fruits
3 sugars
3 grains
5 oils/spreads
5 proteins
2 dairys

I was hungry around 4pm but that is when I ate one of my fruits that I didn't have at lunch. That seemed to hold me over until dinner time. I definitely won't be able to do this as strictly when J comes home, I'll have to make better judgements for pieces of meals. Right now, I can just piece a few things together and call it good. Oh well, I'll worry about that when the time comes.

Food for Saturday

Following the new plan, I ate everything I was supposed to with the exception of one oil/spread.

Therefore I had:
3 veggies
3 fruits
4 grains
5 proteins
3 dairy
4 oils/spreads
6 sugars

I was a little bit hungry at the end of the night but I think that was due partly to eating kind of early and staying up really late, and also eating most of my carbs during the day and therefore being stuck with only protein fruit and veggies at night.

As I keep with it, I am sure I will get better at spreading things out.

Exercise for Saturday

40 minutes of Intense Moves Step Reebok DVD = 322 calories.

Food Plan

I got this plan from my February 2005 issue of Fitness magazine. I was going through old magazines the other day and had dogeared this article so I decided to cut it out and try it.

J is on a trip for a few weeks so it should be easy to do this without having to worry about him starving to death.

Basically the strenuous calorie counting was getting on my nerves and I was never very sure that I was getting it right. This is a simpler plan that I hope to be adapt over time to my regular eating.

So here goes....

It is set up basically following the food pyramid but gives you more info and ideas on what qualifies and what serving sizes are. It comes out to be around 1400 calories a day (which is right on my BMR) and if I do my cardio like I am supposed to, I will be losing weight in no time.

Each day, you eat the following:

At least 3 servings of vegetables: a serving is 1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw. Stay light on the potatoes and peas as they are a bit more caloric than others. You can eat veggies almost anytime you want, if you are feeling really hungry.

At least 3 servings of fruit: a serving is 1 whole piece raw, 1/2 cup canned, 1/4 a cup dried, or 3/4 cup for berries or grapes. Raisins are two tablespoons.

4 servings of whole or enriched grains (but don't let the enriched grains go over 2 servings): a serving is one slice of bread, 1 small tortilla, 1/2 cup of cereal, 1/2 cup cooked pasta, or rice, or 2 cups of popped popcorn.

5 servings of protein: a serving is 1 ounce of lean meat, fish, beans, or nuts, 1 egg, 1/2 cup of beans, 1 tbsp peanut butter.

3 servings of lowfat/nonfat dairy: a serving is 1 cup of milk or yogurt, 1 ounce of cheese.

5 servings of healthy oils/spreads: a serving is 1 tsp of any vegetable oil, salad dressing, mayo, 1/5 avocado, or 10 olives.

6 servings of added sugar or sweets: a serving is 1 tsp of sugar or honey, up to 100 calories a day of other sweets.

So I write on my dry erase board, that I keep on the refridgerator, a little slash for each serving for each category for that day. As the day progresses, I erase a slash for each thing I eat, and should have no slashes left by the end of the day. For example, this morning I had cereal with milk, a banana, and two coffees with 1 tsp of sugar in each. So I marked off 2 sugar slashes, 1 dairy slash, 1 fruit slash and 1 grain slash.

With about 500 calories of burn in workouts each day, I should start losing weight in no time. This is much easier than all the calorie counting and such I had to do before and hopefully, I will not get discouraged. I still will check the calories on things as I am logging my slashes because I want to make sure on some things that will be harder to measure (like when I made full dishes) but this just gives me another option to work with.

I Am Back

Today is my day to get back with the program. I have changed things up a bit, J is gone for a few weeks so I am going to take advantage and really try to modify the diet and workout regime so I can get some results.

I was seeing some results and then I slacked off and all the flab seems to be back.

Anyhow, I'll post my new eating plan and my workout info in the next couple of posts...

Oh No

I have really lost it on everything. Work and my personal life have been wacked out and stressful. I really haven't been doing what I should be doing. The Bally lady keeps calling but I haven't called her back. I don't know what is going to turn me around but it needs to happen soon.

Break

Taking a break from logging my food this week....too much stuff going on physically, and academically to try to update as much...I'll be back by Saturday, for sure.

Keep up the workouts and the good food.

Exercise on Sunday

Not much, but I did get a lot done...

Pedometer says 3000 steps but I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the fish tank, vacuumed the entire house, including hardwood floors and the couches, cooked food for three meals and a bit of reading for school.

I do not feel like it was a wasted day but I do have to do some Taebo tomorrow so I can make up for some of it. My other DVDs were shipped yesterday so they should be here soon and then I will have some diversity. It was too cold (39 F) most of the day to do any exercising outside.

J got home early and that thwarted my Taebo plans...oh well. I'll kick butt tomorrow with a fresh week.

Food on Superbowl Sunday

This should be a gimme...but I'll post what I ate anyhow...

Breakfast

• Oatmeal (140)
• Tea (46)
• Water

Lunch

• Thai fried rice (300)
• Diet Coke
• Water

Snack

• Apple Bread (127)
• Diet Coke
• Tortilla Chips and Salsa/SourCream Dip (too much to count)
• Water

Dinner

• Hotwings (220)
• Celery
• Carrots (40)
• Grapes (40)
• Small Tangerine (36)
• Water

I think that will be all for tonight but the Superbowl is only in 1/2 time so who knows....I am not going to add it up...it will just make me sad I think.

New Exercise

I was actually pretty impressed, when I saw according to the calorie burn calculator, how many calories are burned doing Taebo...I need to start doing that DVD more often.

I bought a couple of other ones (most of my old work out stuff is on VHS and I can't do aerobics in the room that has the VCR in it so I have to have DVDs to get anything done). I think I might be donating a lot of those tapes to Goodwill soon anyhow...I am not interested in most of them.

The Taebo that I have is Taebo II Advanced 1 and 2 with a little 8 minute workout on there. It is pretty good but I think I like the original one I used to have on VHS better. He seems to want you to do things too fast on this one and you end up losing form big time. I looked ridiculous I am sure during those speedy round house kicks.

One of the ones I just ordered is a copy of one I loved on VHS. It is a step Reebok tape called Intense Moves. It is interval training and the time just flies by on this workout. You can make it as hard for yourself as you want.

The other one that is coming is something new I have been looking at. It is part of The Firm collection, which I have never tried before. I thought I would give this one a whirl and see how it is. Everyone I know loves these ones and say they really work to get fat off fast. Thing is, I am not going to spend the money buying all the equipment they want you to, just to do this workout. I already have a step and several weights and bands so I think I will just improvise on some of the workouts. We'll see. This one is called Express Cardio and if I like it, I might try some of the other targeting ones.

Thing is, I can lift normal weights until my hearts content at our gym (at least until our membership ends in October) so I would rather focus on cardio for home workouts for now.

I should mention that I have some good pilates and yoga DVDs, that I love, I just haven't been doing them lately. I need to do it, just need to get motivated.

The burn on that Taebo the other night is a great motivator....if I did that thing everyday, I could eat whatever the hell I wanted and right now, I am really missing ice cream (which I never eat anyhow, but I would love to have some) and chocolate cookies for some reason.

Food on Saturday

Breakfast

• Cereal w/milk (150)
• Coffee w/milk and sugar (100)
• Water

Lunch

• Thai fried rice w/chicken (300)
• Diet Coke
• Water

Snack

• Apple bread (127)
• Diet Coke
• Water

Dinner

• Chicken (310)
• Rice (205)
• Broccoli (100)
• Soybean chili sauce (83)
• Water

Snack

• Milk (100)
• Apple Bread (127)

Total = 1600 - 464 burned = 1136..not great but pretty good for one of my favorite dinners. Tomorrow might be a bust....I'll have to see if I can get some hard core aerobics in before the superbowl.

Exercise on Saturday

Pedometer says I burned 463 calories...doing laundry and various running around. Who am I to tell it differently?

Got lost

I've been in hell at work, recovering from sickness, eating like crap and not exercising. I'm going grocery shopping this weekend and plan on getting back on track. Hopefully I can afford a gym membership with my tax return.

Eating on Thursday

Breakfast

• 1 english muffin toasted (140)
• 1 serving of lite Laughing Cow cheese (35)
• 2 servings of turkey ham (70)
• 1 tangerine (45)
• 1 coffees w/sugar and milk (100)
• 1 glass of water

Snack

• 1 slice of apple bread (187)

Lunch

• Green salad w/Japanese ginger dressing (50)
• 1/2 serving of creamed corn (27)
• 1 fish taco without the shell (400)
• 1/4 serving of rice/beans (100)
• 1 glass of Diet Coke

Snack

• 1/5 serving of dark chocolate (50) 1204
• 1 glass of water

Dinner

• 1/2 chicken breast (80)
• 1 1/2 red potatoes (150)
• 2 servings of brussel spouts (56)
• 1/2 serving of margarine (35)
• 2 glasses of water

Snack

• 1/2 bag of microwave popcorn (55)
• 1 Fuji apple (72)
• 1 glass of water

Total calories consumed 1652- calories burned (792) = 860...yeah, that Taebo saved me.

Exercise for Thursday

Okay,

My midday calorie totals scared the crap out of me so I had to get some serious exercise in or I wasn't going to be able to eat dinner....

Walked 2 miles in 30 minutes (4.0mph) = 172 calories

Aerobics (Taebo) 45 minutes = 620 calories

Total burned = 792 calories....at least now I can eat dinner like a human and not just Slim Fast....

Eating on Wednesday

All hell broke loose...we had a friend that we haven't seen in 1 1/2 years call and we went out to dinner at the last minute.

Even though I had done pretty well all day and kept even my menu choice at the restaurant sensible (to a point), all those damn chips, salsa and guacamole did me in....who even knows how much I ate....ugh!!!!

Exercise on Wednesday

Walked enough to log 400 calories burned on my pedometer....