lose weight / get in shape

I’m 30 lbs down from where I started on January 1st of this year. I’m now hanging steady at 156 lbs, and looking and feeling considerably better. Hooray!

It’s hard work, but anyone can do it. Maintaining is not as hard as losing, but does take a minimal level of discipline.

Sparkpeople.com has been a tremendous help. The best thing about this site is the nutrition tracker; it does all the hard work for you when it comes to counting calories, fat, carbs, sodium, etc. A close second is the community—the people of Spark People are wonderful, and all sharing in the same struggle and goal.

Best wishes to everyone with this goal. My advice: Do it the healthy way. Treat your body well, and your body will more than return the favor.

You know you want to get there, but when you find out how good it feels, you’ll know you want to do what it takes to stay there!

Cheers,

Mary

Well, it hasn’t been a completely smooth road, but I am headed in the right direction. I’m down to 169 lbs from 185 lbs, and have lost about an inch all over.

I’ve been carefully tracking my calories in/out, counting food/beverage items and exercise. Initially, I was doing this on my own with a Google spreadsheet, but then I got turned on to www.sparkpeople.com, which is so much easier to use. They offer their services completely free of charge, too, so I highly recommend it.

My program has evolved to the following. This is what I can live with, so far:

Cardio 30-45 minutes, 4-5 days/week

Weights 30 minutes, 2 days/week

Diet: 1450-1800 calories/day, with an emphasis on healthy choices; whole grains, vegetables, fruit, lean meats, lean dairy, beans… as little processed food as possible. No soda (I wasn’t a big fan anyway.)

Water: 64 ounces or more daily

I’ve had some real “over” days on calories, but I’ve managed to compensate with exercise for the most part. I’m getting there.

This month I’m re-motivating myself with new exercise DVD’s. I’ll chime in again when I have tried them out.

It’s so close to the end of my first month, I can almost taste it… and of course, it tastes like salad with light dressing.

Although I have not been posting to 43 Things as much lately, I have been keeping up with my fitness goals. I’m delighted to report that I’ve lost about an inch all over, and at least 5 pounds.

This is much faster progress than I expected, but I don’t think it’s so rapid as to be dangerous at this point.

I’ve been using www.sparkpeople.com to track my daily food intake and exercise, and I’d have to say it’s a terrific site.

Thanks to Aldana for the suggestion!!!

Today marks the 15th day of this goal. For 15 days, I have diligently tracked my diet and activity habits. So far, in the balance, I have done well.

I have managed to create a calorie deficit of 3500 calories per week. This should mean that I am losing a pound per week. I get to re-weigh myself on Thursday the 18th.

I don’t believe in weighing yourself more than once a week. It just makes for more neurosis, and who needs that? Plus, fluctuating water weight is distracting.

How are y’all doing? (Yes, I said y’all, and I think it’s a good word.)

Last night I tallied all of my calories in/calories out for the week, and I came within 2 calories of hitting my target. I was 2 calories favorable, actually. Hooray!

I did not remember to weigh myself today, but will remind myself to do so tomorrow. Last I checked, I weigh around 185… but that was several weeks ago, so I could be in for a nasty surprise, especially following the holidays.

Okay, so the two days I have really blown it with this goal were also the two days I chose to go to a restaurant. One day I ate Indian food and the other day (yesterday) it was Thai. It’s not that this food is bad for me necessarily, but right now, I am not sufficiently portion-savvy to pull it off without eating too many calories.

Through next weekend, I am going to try not to get roped into dining out. If I do get roped in, it had better be when I am not starving (like I was last night), and I’d better get a salad. Nix on the adult beverages, too; they’re too expensive in restaurants anyway, and definitely too expensive in terms of calories.

Fortunately, I have never been big on eating fast food, which has got to be the absolute anti-Christ when it comes to dieting. I can swear off that pretty easily; I don’t think I’ve had anything like that in several months anyway.

Today marks day four of my fledgling ‘program’ to get in shape and lose weight. I am beginning to define my approach:

• Carefully track all calories in/out

• Create a daily calorie deficit of 500 calories (or 3500/week) in order to lose 1 lb/week, until target weight is reached.

• Lose 35 lbs (this is what I need to lose to hit my target.)

• Exercise 4-5 days/week, but vary the type of exercise

• Bike to work (my goal #6: this counts as daily exercise)

I don’t want to go apeshit with this, but I do want to establish good habits.

Reminder to self: Reasonable time spent planning and exercising is more than made up for by the increase in health and well-being that results! (Not to mention the $ saved on not having to buy larger-sized clothes…)