Here it is, Sunday night about 10. I'm reflecting on last week and looking ahead to next week. Last week I started a blog, painted the bathroom, installed a new kitchen faucet, worked out, etc. I also spent some time reflecting on my workouts. What days were good, what days I struggled, how I felt on my "off" day. I'm going to try to really track my workouts for a few weeks to see if I can find a pattern to how I feel when I workout. I think I'll find that my workouts are best when I don't have much scheduled. I get up when I want, workout when I feel like it, I'm on my own eating schedule. The only problem with that is, I only have 3 months of the year when I am on my own schedule, more than most people, I know. So how do you work in the workouts? We all live busy lives, most of us don't want to get up at 5 to go before work (way to go Honey!) most of us don't have time to go at lunch. For me, during the 9 months I live on a work schedule, I know that once I walk in the house, the chances I'm going to workout go waaaaaay down. So, I make sure to have my workout gear with me, so I can stop on the way home. My way isn't the only way, it just works best for me, it may take awhile to figure out what works best for you.
In the previous blog I talked about BMR. If you know your BMR you know how to lose weight. Find your BMR subtract 500 calories per day, you should lose about 4 lbs per month. Generally, once you put your body in a calorie deficit of 3500 calories you should lose about 1 lb. 500 calories per day times 7 equals 3500 calories. or about 1 lb of weight loss per week. When I started I weighed 264 lbs, according to Calorie Checkbook (www.caloriecheckbook.com) it took 2880 calories to maintain my weight. So I started slow, I cut my calories to 2300. I also started working out 3 times per week. Once I started paying attention to the calories I found that 2300 was easy, in fact most days I was around 2000. I used LOSEIT!, an IPhone app to track my caloric intake and my exercise. Again, that worked best for me. Some people need to write everything down, that's ok too. The common thread for people who have been successful losing weight is tracking. It's too easy to eat a handful of M&M's if you don't track what you eat, you also have to go back and look at how you've done. If you can find someone to look at your log, even better. If you're going to track your food, be accurate and be honest. If you underestimate the amount of your servings the tracking won't do you much good. Now I have to tell you something, but this is just between us, I don't track everything I eat. I don't track raw "salad" vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers) I do count cheese, dressing, croutons, etc. While we're talking cheese and dressing, it brings me to LABELS. All salad dressings are not equal, all cheese is not equal. Light salad dressing is generally 35-40 calories for 2 tablespoons. That's 2 tablespoons. Did I mention 2 tablespoons? Not 2 giant serving spoon fulls, 2 measuring tablespoons. Measure it. Beware of "fat free" dressings, they often have more sugar and calories than "light".
That's all for now, I'm getting sleepy!
Oops I forgot todays sitcom reference, let's see..... I've got one.
I just lost one job, the phone rang, and I got another job, same time, same money. I threw a $20 out the window, put on my jacket and found a $20 in the pocket. do you know who I am? Kramer does.
