Garbage That GOO!

Every day is a new day

Well, last night came the realization that, if I want to meet my goal of getting under 200 pounds by January, I've got to get cracking! There's really no room for messing up or slacking off anymore. So I'm taking it a day at a time and trying to get back on track with both eating and exercise.

One of my recent strategies is less computer time. I was posting on several forums, but now am sticking to just a couple and less of those. One, less computer time means less aggravation of the chronic tendinitis in my forearms and two, it gives me more time to work on projects, chores and exercise. Oh, that doesn't mean I won't be reading blogs and commenting and stuff like that, but I'll probably be doing less of it.

Yesterday, I got in a good 90 minutes of exercise, kept the calories on target and got my water in. Unfortunately, my knee was bothering me pretty badly in water aerobics and after, and I realized that when I mess up on the eating, I also sometimes forget important supplements that help my joints out, like fish oils and glucosamine chondroitin. Oops! Well, I got those in yesterday and have had my first dose today as well.

Today, the knee is still bothering me. I thought about NOT doing my little bit of fasted cardio on the Nordic Track this morning, then I thought about my goals and got up and did it anyway. 15 minutes was perfectly do-able, even with my knee not entirely happy. I'll try and add a bit more later.

I cooked up 4 oz. lean ground meat with a pile of onion, carrot, mushrooms, cabbage and zucchini for breakfast. Next... I want a cup of green tea. And our fuzzy girl cat Sister wants some play time. Funny how the cats are ALWAYS ready to play and get some exercise. I should be like that!

Will head bump for TOY...

For those who wonder why Luna gets all the camera love, well, Luna is just THERE, she is the aggressive one of the bunch and involves herself in everything. Sister and Tablet are a bit more shy.

We refer to Sister as "royalty with a price on her head". Sister is a bit paranoid about things like assassins, paparazzi and the like. She is very loving, playful and social with us... but heads straight for the basement at top speed should anyone else come into her house! Luna and Tablet like to aggravate Sister, they can make her snarl like a bobcat!

Active Lifestyle Award attained!

On a more positive note... I did achieve a goal yesterday that I've been working towards for six weeks. I earned an Active Lifestyle Award on the President's Challenge site.

Basically, the idea is to log a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week for six weeks. I don't know why I had so much trouble in the past earning this, but I really wanted to do it. This past week was harder, in that I missed exercise both Monday and Tuesday and therefore had to do my five days straight with no rest days. But I did it!

As you can see, I started with this site some time ago, back when I lived in North Dakota and they were pushing signing up for it at my husband's work with the National Weather Service. I dropped logging on the site for awhile, but started again this winter for additional exercise motivation. I was never consistent enough to put those six weeks together until NOW!

I was so excited to finally see something on my awards page! Naturally, you get to order stuff if you win an award! So I couldn't resist getting the official certificate (50 cents), a lapel pin ($3) and a T-shirt ($8.50). Can always use a workout T-shirt... and the price wasn't bad. I'll add the pin to a hat.

Here's what the loot should look like when it comes:

The lapel pin is only 3/4" in diameter

I feel like a kid at camp!

And that's not all... I've got a new challenge going. I've reset my preferences so that I am now working on earning the Presidential Champions awards of Bronze, Silver and GOLD. The funny thing is that I'd already earned the bronze award earlier this month and didn't know it! But I think I'll wait to collect more loot until I at least have the silver.

Here's where I'm at on this new goal:

I love sites like this, because they give you these little things to work for and sometimes that is just what keeps you going on a bad day. Going for GOLD should provide me exercise motivation for some time to come! Now I'm off to go log today's two hours in the pool!

Girth measures

Well, this is NOT an easy thing to write about! I know some folks feel very secretive about how much they weigh... that, I've never felt so bad about disclosing. But girth measures... well, that's always been another story. Somehow, those measurements are what makes the GOO real for me. As in "UGH! How can I be THIS big?".

Nevertheless... some form of girth measure is really important for this journey. It's one of my goals to do this monthly. Not a goal I've been meeting often, sigh.

But, if I don't take them, suppose the scale stops moving... how will I know if I've made progress? It's not unusual in the process to see inches lost while the scale stubbornly stays the same. This is because muscle takes up less volume than body fat. So if you add muscle and lose some body fat... your body gets smaller, though it may weigh about the same for a while.

Some folks check measures by seeing how a favorite pair of non-stretch pants fit. If, like me, you mostly wear stretchy stuff anyway, that's not quite as good an indication. So I measure.

I use a MyoTape by Accufitness.

I also do the measurements via the guidelines set by my Precision Nutrition manual. Well, mostly.

The basics are that you do a set of measures, neck, shoulders, upper arm, chest, waist, hips, thigh and calf, note them down, then repeat the process twice more and average the three measures. This helps take some of the hit and miss out of measuring GOO. (Sadly, fat is soft and squishy... and yeah, you can tighten the tape on it more or less by just a little and get inconsistent measures.)

It's hard in some spots keeping the tape parallel to the floor. If you've got a nice lean body, this is much easier... but if you've got folds of fat to hold the tape over... not so fun!

I currently just measure one side of the body when it comes to upper arm, thing and calf... that's indication enough for fat loss. If you want to check muscle development, then you might want to measure both sides. Me, while I'm losing fat, I'm keeping the unpleasantness of body measuring to the bare minimum! Besides, in winter, it's cold standing around in one's undies.

Now, going by the PN system, they like to take the waist measurement at the level of your navel. This definitely gives you a clear mark on your body to go by, but, I don't personally like this... it's too close to the hip measurement and for me, is a really awkward place to measure, so I get a lot of inconsistency there. So I call that my "navel" measurement and do another at my true waistline, which is about 3" higher and where I get a more consistent measure.

I also added in a wrist measurement, when I saw that the first place I clearly noticed a difference was the fit of my Polar F11 HRM.

The hardest places to measure for me are the shoulder, navel and hip measures. I'm just noting that, because that's where you may see more inconsistency in posted measures. Also, as the last time I measured was MONTHS ago, and I'm doing some things differently, as in wearing a different bra while measuring and adding in a true waistline measure, I'm not going to list the previous measurements. That will come in the future.

So here's the scoop. I'm big still.

Small loss, but I’ll take it!

There are days when I wish I could swap out weigh-ins, I'll tell ya!

Yesterday morning, I hit 226.2 a new low, but today, I am at 226.6.

It's still a .8 pound loss over last weeks 227.4 and considering two meals out, one meal skipped and one Nordic Track workout skipped, I'm good with it. Some days I hit nifty new lows... and other days I'm going "Uh OH!". I've added a new graph to my weigh in page to show my daily weigh-in amusement park ride. It's embedded flash and seemed to be working! Let me know if you have problems with it.

Plans for this week... well, as hubby's birthday comes near Valentine's and he was sick for his birthday, we may venture out to Raphael's again, before he gets hit with midnight shifts. Have to talk that over with him. We'd sure like more of that wonderful crab while it is being offered!

The eating went pretty well over the past week. I used no more than my allotted three 10% meals, one of which was a skipped meal. Sunday was a day where I was not up for more than 12 hours, so I only got 4 meals in. I pretty much did the same thing yesterday. I missed on drinking my gallon of water/green tea only one day and not by much!

Off to water aerobics!

Another weigh-in day

Didn't have time to make this post before dinner... so I'll get to it now.

I am definitely down 3.2 pounds. Today's weight 228.8 vs. last Monday's 232.0.

Still mystified as to why the 227+ I hit and held for several days in mid-January went away. My eating, though spotty at times, has really not been bad overall. The plan is to improve compliance and see what happens next. Mind you, I'm not unhappy to be that much closer to goal!

I have noticed a slight downward trend on both my Tanita body fat scale and my Omron body fat monitor. That may have to do with better hydration levels lately, or it may be that my body composition is indeed subtly changing for the better.

Half my trouble I think, is that I am so spotty with compliance to my plan, it becomes hard to judge if my current eating is really working for me or not. Oh, it's working as to my health and well-being, no doubts there, but I need to see if I am losing at this calorie level and not just spinning my wheels up and down the block.

So, publicly stated goal for this week is to hit 90% compliance. I might add that I need that compliance, because we may elect to go out to eat for Valentine's Day and/or my husbands birthday, both of which fall during this week. So I'll need to have a couple 10% meals set aside. 

I will post a screenshot from Joe's Goals at the end of the week.

Recent eats and eating

After my Saturday fiasco... I jumped back on track. That is perhaps one of the most important lessons I've learned in this. One poor choice does not make me a failure. It's only a poor choice. And the best way to counteract a poor choice is to continue making good choices.

Sunday's eating was fine.

Meal 1 = Omelet & veggies with goat cheese and a side of red grapes

32 minutes on Nordic Track

Meal 2 = Chai Blueberry protein smoothie

Meal 3 = Salmon, mixed veggies and pecans

Meal 4 = Grilled chicken breast & steamed broccoli w/EVOO & vinegar

Meal 5 = PN Bedtime Snack with a few baby carrots

Today's food still compliant

Meal 1 = Low carb milk w/whey protein, apple w/peanut butter, greens+

Meal 2 = Raspberry/Banana/Walnut protein smoothie

60 minutes water aerobics, 13 minutes water walking
Post workout = 1.5 servings whey protein and water

Meal 3 = Oatmeal w/goji berries, milk & whey protein. Bell pepper.

Meal 4 = Spinach & chicken salad, half cup of acorn squash.

Meal 5 = Grilled chicken breast & steamed broccoli w/EVOO & vinegar

(EVOO is shorthand for "extra virgin olive oil")

Last week at Joe's Goals

For fun, I tossed in a screen shot of my Joe's Goals page where I work on my compliance for eating my 5-6 meals a day. You can see that this past week was a bit spotty. Improvement is coming!