Change In Plans

So I'm going to try and keep it short and sweet tonight.

Yesterday was a gym day, but my soon to be sister-in-law, Miranda, is in town trying to get everything set up for their wedding in August, so we postponed the gym so I could help out.  For the most part, we ate well yesterday...we did go to lunch at the Atlantis with Miranda, my stepma, Merirae, and my nephew Corey, but we were good and had a half sandwich and side salad.

We didn't postpone the gym for long....just to today.  We went this morning, and did the same as Wednesday - 20 minutes on both the treadmill and bike and 35 on the elliptical trainer.  I'm thinking about removing the bike from my routine though, because I am SO bored on the bike...just doing treadmill and elliptical instead.  Kurt's ankle was hurting him a bit on the treadmill this morning, so he might stop and do just bike (even though its boring to him too) or maybe the stair climber, even though it didn't go so well last time.

We were a little bad earlier in the day...didn't do much more on Wii Fit then just the weigh in and stability exercises (I was feeling kinda weak today), and we had grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch because it was SO cold today.  Then we went over to my Dad and Stepma's house and had some really good lasagna...so that wasn't so good either...but who can pass up lasagna?!!? 

To get back on track, we are going to the gym again tomorrow (it's very funny because I find myself wondering why I don't go everyday and thinking, when in the world would I ever have believed I would say that).  We are trying an every other day schedule...which means 3 days one week, 4 the other...which should be good.

Anyway, not as short as I was trying for, but I'll end it here.  Be sure to check back Monday (well you should check everyday, but specifically Monday :P) as it's 4 weeks since we started and we are doing another weigh in.

Tried To Be Good...It Didn't Really Happen

So...yeah.  That's pretty much the day in a nutshell.  I'll give you the slightly abridged version also.

Got up...breakfast...did some Wii Fit.  Tried out the new feature where you tell it what you want to work on and it gives you 3 things to do to focus on it.  The one I built for myself is a little more intense though.  I might stick to it on the off days.  Had a light lunch and an afternoon smoothie...and that's where it kinda went downhill from there.

We were just going to have a light dinner, some cereal and fruit...but the want to be bad sort of overwhelmed us this evening...once again, you see the pizza, you want the pizza.  Now, today is one of our off days (on days - gym; off days - dog walks), so the calories for today that we gave ourselves are lower.  For me, for on days I chose 2150 calories (based on what i calculated from the Mifflin-St Jeor formula) and 1800 calories for off days (Kurt chose 2200 and 1900 calories respectively.)

So because of a decent morning we had a little wiggle room, and for 45 minutes we discussed and researched what we could get away with for pizza (and steak fries, because I love their steak fries) and still not go over too much (keep in mind, we are only talking about calories...fats, sodium, carbs, etc. - we're not even considering those anymore)...and with the order of a small cheese pizza and a side order of fries, we decided today would be a cheat day.

It was fabulous!!

At this point, we both are about 800 calories over our allotment for today...which is kinda sucky...but we knew what we were doing, we thought about it and chose it - and that's one of the differences between before and now.  Before, there was no hesitation.  So we're growing :P

We did take the dogs for a ±1.6 mile walk about and hour and a half after dinner...which at least burned about a quarter of what we were over today...and tomorrow will just have to be a new day.

Anyway, more tomorrow of course. Amy, thanks for the link...we will definitely take a look at it and see if it'll work for us.

We moved up in the world

Today we decided to push ourselves a bit farther at the gym, we did 20 minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes on the stationary bike and 35 minutes on the elliptical machine. Candace was at 3 miles an hour on the treadmill and I was at 4 miles an hour. Which is already a big improvement since we started working out. I remember doing only 3.2 miles an hour 3 weeks ago with a HR of 130 BPM, now it is only 124 BPM.

We did learn something important today though, that is the need to eat enough before going to the gym. Since we added another 15 minutes to our workout, neither one of us thought of all the extra energy we were going to burn off. So at almost the same moment at minute 29 on the elliptical machine we hit the proverbial "wall". We pushed through for the last 6 minutes of the work out, especially since the last 5 minutes was cool down. As soon as we got home though, we had strawberry-banana smoothies to rebuild the lost carbo's.

Speaking of carbo's (protein and fats as well) we are still doing the calorie counting on daily plate and we are becoming much more aware of how much we are eating everyday. We also are learning how many carbo's, protein and fats we are having every day. Today our sugars are higher than it should be but most of the are fruit sugars, not the high fructose corn syrup we used to have. But we are improving, so that is what is important in the end. We had almost 2200 calories total today, but when we looked up our caloric intake for weight loss and factored in our workout today, we are some 750 calories lower than what is necessary to maintain our weight.

We checked out the link that Candace's Aunt Karen's (and Aunt Carol's) sent to us on weight loss transformation for couples. (see comment on yesterdays post for link) Some of the transformations were incredible and very inspirational. I believe that in time, both Candace and I will be able to be on a page like that :).

That's all for now, until later...

Long Day of Sitting and Waiting

Not a lot to talk about today.  We did some Wii Fit this morning but we spent most of the day sitting around waiting at both the Social Security Office and the DMV (which of course most of the waiting was at the latter.)  We brought a snack with us when we left, but we didn't really think about how long it usually takes at the DMV, so 4 hours after our snack, we had to get something out of the vending machine there.  We tried to be good, and the best we could do was Chex Mix...I figure at least it wasn't candy (not that candy would have done anything for our hunger.)

So when we got home we had some leftover stew we made Sunday (which wasn't really as full of carbs and sodium as I would have thought) and a salad ... and I started to think about how I saw...at Costco I think...that Wii Fit had a new game...Wii Fit Plus.  So we looked it up and it essentially has all the same Wii Fit stuff, but with some new features, such as weighing the dog, how many calories its estimating you are burning and setting up a training schedule so there isn't time between trying to choose what you want to do next (we were sold just on the dog feature.)  Best yet, we traded in some of our Wii games that we don't play anymore as well as the original Wii Fit game and the new game was free ... actually we still have a $6 credit (YEA!!)

Of course we played with that this evening, but we also went on a 1.87 mile walk with the dogs after dinner...because we intended on having a little dessert tonight - strawberry cheesecake yogurt mixed with fat free whipped cream in a graham cracker crust (thanks Aunt Teri), which really doesn't have as many calories as we thought...±180 calories which really isn't that bad (although I know there is a bit of sugar in there).

As for the responses we got yesterday...thanks Cassiopeia for letting us know about the whey protein...we're going to look into that.  Also we did start daily plate yesterday morning.  Merirae has been suggesting it for a while, and I already had a log in for it (which was funny because the last time I put in my food log, it was almost exactly a year to the day).  It really has been helping to see what we are eating and what we can have.  Also thanks Lisa for your advice...and for also reminding me that I bought fruit so I could make smoothies (we cut up strawberries and bananas and put them in the freezer this evening.)  We'll make them after the gym tomorrow to replenish our energy.

That's all for now...more gym tomorrow...but you'll hear about that then.

Stupid Calories

orry for the delay in posting, but its been a couple of days since we have done anything anyway...and what a mistake that was.

On Saturday, we went over to my Aunt Barbara's house for my cousin Matthew's birthday (as most of you know, because you were there too), where we had some pizza for lunch (and where Aunt Barbara was nice enough to order a garden style pizza for those of us who are trying to be better about what we eat, but we didn't realize was there), but were good about what and how much we ate.

However, later on that day we went to Red Robin for dinner with my cousin Courtney and lets just say ... it's really hard when you try to find something on the menu that sounds like its one of the healthier items only to find out later that it really wasn't.   And on top of it, we were relatively lazy this weekend...a short walk with the dogs, so Buttonz's legs wouldn't bother him, was the most activity we got (minus some light gardening Kurt did yesterday.)  We thought about going to the gym yesterday (so our schedule was every other day instead of every other business day) but we both did not sleep well the night before.  It shouldn't have been an excuse though because we were unhappy with the weight gain we both had this morning (±1 lb for him, ±2 lbs for me.)

Today's activity was a vast improvement to the weekend though.  We went to the gym, each doing 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer and stationary bike.  There are some things I have to say about the stationary bike!!  Could anyone make a more uncomfortable seat for anything?!!? On top of it, I swear time goes backward while you are on the bike.  30 minutes on the elliptical trainer feels like half the time as on the bike, be it stationary or recumbent.

When it comes to the bikes, my preference is recumbent to stationary because my feet don't fall asleep as often or for as long and my wrists don't hurt as much from the position of the handles...but I'm still not a fan of either bike.

What I like about the elliptical trainer (besides when my feet fall asleep on that too) is that I get distracted my trying to keep my heart rate down.  According to the chart, 80% heart rate for me is 152 and when I first started, i had to work diligently to keep it between 158 and 162.  I am happy to say that after a week of working at it, at the same speed (which right now is a snail's pace and I'm sure people are laughing at me for how slow I go, but its to maintain my heart rate) I can maintain a heart rate between 148 to 152.  Soon I'll be able to actually travel faster than 2.5-3.0 mph and still keep my heart rate down.  Kurt doesn't have this problem.  He can travel at 5.0 mph and still have a heart rate of 133. 

On top of that this morning, we both agreed that 1 hour is starting to be pretty easy.  We are planning Wednesday for a change.  I'm not sure what his plans are, but I am thinking 20-25 minutes on both the bike and the treadmill and 30-40 minutes on the elliptical trainer.  We'll see come Wednesday.

After the gym, we came home to do a little Wii Fit...he just weighed in, I did 10 minutes of step, and some strength training, balance and yoga.  Before we went the gym this morning we were watching Good Morning America and they did an interview with the head of the American Heart Association, because the AHA is putting their logo on the Wii Fit (article).  I was very disappointed with what the interviewer had to say, because he was making it out to be that the AHA did it just for the money ($1.5 mil over 3 years) when they don't go and put their logo on sports items (basketballs, footballs, etc.)  The president of the AHA tried to explain that it was specifically the demographic they were going for (eg. the overweight video game player who needs a little activity.)  The whole interview treated the AHA as a negligent corporation who only gives its logo out for the right price, as well as alluding to the fact that the average consumer is an idiot (which can be the case, but is not always.)

I am happy to "play" with my Wii Fit almost everyday.  My center of balance has become better, I'm more stable and its reminded me that I need to stretch every day regardless if I really worked out or not.  I am fully aware that I will not lose the weight by doing Wii Fit exercises, nor did I expect to when we purchased it.  It really pisses me off when the media makes people out to be brainless morons who buy anything advertised to them.

On another note...we've been trying to track our calories, since good points were brought up by Lisa and Merirae in response to our question on Thursday.  After checking out the calories on the ice cream I had last week, I really never want ice cream again, especially when thinking about just how much work that is going to be to rid myself of the calories.  Its really been awful looking but very interesting at the same time.

Today's question: The trainer I met with last week suggested that I can eat carbs but they should be in the morning, and its my opinion that I should have a little something before going to the gym so I have some energy.  I'm wondering, should I go for the more simple carb (like fruit) before I go so that I have access to that energy immediately (which is what I am understanding in my research) or a complex carb (like a granola bar) which will process longer (but I'm wondering if it also is a continuous energy source)?