Best Christmas Commercial Ever

RUM TUMMY TUMMY RUM TUMMY TUMMY RUM TUMMY TUMMY HOHOHO

 

Best Christmas Song Ever

This dance just made me smile . . .

That’s all.

Two Months In: PROGRESS!

So, at the end of July, I started using SparkPeople to help me try to lose some weight I had gained over the course of the last two years.  I like it because nothing is off limits.  Their site takes the info I submit about myself and my exercise habits, and gives me a range of calories, fat, carbs, and protein that I need to aim for each day.  The goal is to hit those ranges, and weight loss WILL happen.  I don’t feel like I am starving myself, or limiting myself.  I might not be able to each as MUCH as I want of something, but I can still have enough to satisfy a craving.  And everything evens out over the course of the week, so if I have an off day – like, say, a co-worker whom I adore brings in ooey-gooey chocolate caramel cookies – I just aim for the low end of my calorie range the next day.

So, what’s happened after two months of eating right and getting regular exercise?

1.  I’ve gone down 2 pant sizes and one shirt size.

2.  I’ve lost 3 inches in my waist and hips.

3.  I’ve lost about 15 pounds over all since the beginning of summer (10 since starting SparkPeople).

YAY!  If I continue to lose 5 lbs. a month, I’ll be at my target weight by next April!  That will be a number I haven’t seen since 1995.

April 2010

October 2010

I love Mr. Bean

That’s all.

Office Fitness Tips

Here is a link to a blog post I recently did for work on office fitness tips:

http://www.perimeterpark.net/blog/2010-09-01/ppec-power-boosters

One Month In

It has been a little over a month since I started using SparkPeople to help me get healthier.  I have truly been amazed at how quickly I have seen results after making small changes in my eating habits and taking the time to work out.

Keeping a food journal – which is extremely easy to do using SparkPeople – and monitoring my calories have helped tremendously.  To date I have lost a total of five pounds and several inches off of my waist and hips.  I have also been building muscle and getting more toned, so when you factor that in, my total fat loss is probably more than 5 pounds.  If I can lose 5 pounds a month, I will be at my goal in no time!  And the best part is that I don’t feel like I am punishing myself by “dieting” or depriving myself of anything that I really like.

My SparkPage has links to my daily food intake, and I have truly been amazed at how much I can eat when I pick the right foods.  And as a girl who likes to eat, that is extremely important.  :)  My husband is doing the same thing, and has lost almost 10 pounds so far.  By eating MORE.  Crazy.

Week One of Getting Healthy – A Startling Discovery

So, a week ago I posted that I was going to get serious about losing some weight and getting healthier.  I wrote about how my biggest challenge will be watching my calories.  I was sure that I had been eating WAY too much.  Turns out, I haven’t been eating ENOUGH.

For the past week, I have been using SparkPeople to help track my daily calories and exercise routine.  It’s really neat and easy to use.  One of the first things they have you do is fill out information on your current weight and activity.  They use a formula to figure out your a daily calorie range that you need to hit in order to keep your body running at peak performance, and encourage weight loss when you add exercise.  They monitor calories, fat, carbs, and protein.  I hadn’t been getting enough of any of them.  If you don’t get enough calories, then your body basically shuts down to conserve energy for basic functions, and you can’t lose weight, even if you are severely restricting your calories. See Step 10.

After breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the first day, I STILL needed 400 calories to hit the bottom of the range that SparkPeople set for me (1550-1900 calories).  So, for the past week, instead of eating 3 small meals a day, I have been eating:

• breakfast (200-400 calories)
• morning snack (50 -100 calories)
• lunch (400-500 calories)
• afternoon snack (100-200 calories)
• small meal before gym (300-400 calories)
• small meal / snack after gym (200-400 calories)
• late snack before bed, if I still need to hit my calorie range.

I just had to know WHAT to eat in order to fuel my body appropriately.  I have posted my daily recaps on my SparkPage.

The first few days it was REALLY hard to eat enough.  But after a week of eating right and going to the gym for regular cardio, I have more energy and feel much better.  And I have dropped almost one pant size.  Yes, you read that right.  In one week of getting the right amount of calories and going to the gym for 30 minutes of cardio 4 times, my pants I had to buy because I had to go up a size are almost falling off, and I am comfortably back in my previous size.

I still haven’t gotten on a scale since I started, and I don’t plan to until the end of the month.  But, for the first time, I feel like I am on the right track to actually lose this weight permanently and not just yo-yo up and down.

Getting Healthy

I have finally decided to get serious about losing that stubborn baby weight that has been hanging around for, oh, 14 years now. I think one of the main reasons I haven’t gotten around to shedding the pounds is that I don’t *really* eat bad stuff.  I try to limit fast food, cook at home a lot, and look for quality ingredients.  But I work full-time and have a 2-hour round-trip commute to work each day, which means that 11 hours of my day are already accounted for.  I didn’t want to spend what little time in the evening I had to spend with my family exercising instead.  Hence, the problem of pounds creeping up on me unexpectedly.

In the first 12 years after having my son, I pretty much stayed at the same weight, which was roughly 25 pounds more than what I weighed when I got pregnant.  Not great, but I didn’t worry too much about it, since I was still the same size as before.  One of the perks of being almost 6 feet tall.  More room to spread it around means it is less noticeable.

Over the past year and a half, though, I have gained roughly another 15-20 pounds – due, I think, mainly to enormous stress from a toxic work environment (which, thankfully, I have moved on from) and even more changes in metabolism as I (*gasp*) get older.  With this extra weight came the dreaded “size adjustment.”  That was the slap in the face I needed to get motivated to make the time to go to the gym.

So, I have started heading to the Y after work, and have been doing so regularly for a couple weeks now.  I haven’t seen a change on the scale yet, but I can tell a difference in my energy level and feel a difference in my muscles.

I have decided that one of the best ways to keep myself accountable is to blog about it.  So, sorry if you are bored to tears, but this blog is going to become basically my exercise blog to help me mark my progress and log what I am eating each day.  :)

I have also signed up for a website called Spark People (it’s free) that helps you keep track of your progress and create reports based on your exercise and nutrition.  It also has great tips for exercises and recipes, as well as forums to interact with others.

One of my biggest challenges is going to be watching my calories.  I don’t eat a lot of bad stuff, but I am a major snacker/grazer, and I tend to go well over the “recommended” portion, even on good stuff.  I am trying to pre-portion healthy snacks into bags each Sunday before the week starts and stick to munching on veggies or popcorn instead of chips and crackers when I feel the munchies coming on.

Goal #1 is to lose 10% of my current weight in 6-8 weeks.  That seems like forever.  To keep from getting discouraged, I am not going to get on a scale again until September 1.  The mini-goal is to be at least half-way to that 10% loss by then.

Perimeter Park Executive Center Joins with Local Church Community to Help Nashville Flood Victims

Original post here.