New Gear: Upgrading the fitbit

I work for a company with excellent health benefits and a wellness program that is actually quite motivational. By completing a yearly health survey, you can earn a discount on your yearly benefits contribution--100% worth it. And by doing other health-related activities, you can earn points toward other rewards as well. I love this program for a number of reasons, including the rewards themselves as well as the fact that it covers nutrition, exercise, mental well-being, financial planning, and preventive care. This year, by doing the things I need to be doing anyway, I earned a $50 Amazon gift card, and a new fitbit.

Now, as y'all know, I LOVE my fitbit, and I have been using my One for a few years. I am not a huge fan of wearing things on my wrists because I have to type all day and because it always seems to get in the way when I cooking things, which is pretty often. However, that said, I really wanted to try out the heart rate monitor, to get an idea of both what zones I am in when I am exercising and to find out what my standard resting heart rate is. After researching and talking to people who have them, I picked up a Charge HR.

So far I like it pretty well. In the past few months, I learned that, when I walk, I am solidly in fat-burning mode, and that when I am doing Zumba, I go between endurance and anaerobic training. I also learned, to my great surprise, that my resting heart rate is between 59 and 61 BPM, which is WAY better than I expected and very much an indicator that I am on the right path here. My only regret is that I kind of wish I had gotten the purple one instead of basic black. I wish I could justify having two of them, because, look how cute:

It would be nice if you could change the band color on the Charge HR the way you can on the flex, but that's not an option. Oh well--you can't have it all, right? I'm still glad I got one!

Coming Back up for Air

Life happens sometimes.

Since the headache from January 28th,  I have been off. We had house guests for the weekend of January 29th, and a sick kid at the same time. I cooked things like lasagne, and there were biscuits and beignets and beer. Then a friend came for Sunday dinner, and there was a cream sauce and a pie. And what there wasn't was a hike. And well--I am not really all that sorry for that insane, fun, but completely off the chain weekend. However, since then, I have been sick--it's impossible not to catch your little guy's funk when he's sneezing all over you and coughing all the time. It's been at least a week and a half since I have gotten a good night's sleep, thanks to a hacking cough that's been plaguing me. Rest is so important, and I have not had nearly enough. I've managed some bits of activity here and there, but not enough. But the cough is abating, thank goodness. I am so hoping I can make it to at least a couple of classes this week. I have gotten the food part back on track, but I have been a little afraid of working out with this persistent congestion. Here's hoping I can make it to Zumba tonight at the very least--I am playing it by ear.

I find this so frustrating, by the way--I feel like, since the holidays, I take one step forward, and then two back. Every time I start to get a little bit of momentum going, something just derails it all. I am happy to report that my weight is holding through all this, but I want to work on it continuing to go down. I want to get stronger and not keep having to restart! But all that is just whining. I am still determined as ever.

And here's a little bit of inspiration I stumbled across today. For all that this is a Pepsi commercial, of all things, it sure does make me want to get in great shape! (Also, how was this around in 2011, and I just saw it today???)

Day 181: Ponderings on Community and Nutrition

Today was a really active day. I made it on my lunchtime walk, and managed to keep up a decent pace, in spite of some still icy places on my walking path. Most of our mess is melted, but there are still a few holdout areas in the shady places. Then I made it to Zumba tonight, too--the Wednesday night Zumba class is still by absolute favorite. I took over 5600 steps in one hour, and it was totally fun--you can't beat that!

It's interesting as I've gone along this whole fitness path how well I have gotten to know the teachers. I really love how supportive and helpful they all are, and how knowing them gives me a whole new level of accountability. One of the women who teaches Monday night yoga, Cathy, has started teaching a core class right before the Zumba class on Wednesday, so I see her there sometimes. Tonight, she came up to me and said that she had missed me on Monday and was glad to see that I wasn't sick. It's so nice that, by going to a class, there's a new person in the world who's suddenly looking out for me. I am so grateful to this posse of women I have acquired through taking classes, which is still my favorite way to work out. Cathy and Beth teach me yoga, Tracy and Joy motivate me to strength train, and Tiffany and Tameka make me MOVE! What's more, by going to these classes, I have met a whole herd of like-minded folks who are also creating this tremendous and somewhat unexpected social and support base. I am making friends on this path, which is a lovely consequence that I hadn't really thought about before I started. I am such a social person that it really, really helps me to stay motivated to be getting this unexpected social benefit.

And let's talk a minute about nutrition. I had this soup that I invented a few years ago for lunch today for which I had no idea how to calculate the calories. But I'll tell you, no matter how calorically dense it is, it is also a nutritional powerhouse. This soup has beans, greens, protein, and a huge concentration of vegetable-y goodness from earlier braised greens, summer tomatoes, and peppers and onions. It's one of those soups that's a little different every time, and always, always amazing. You can feel it giving you nutrients galore. My mother is trying to lose weight, and she is 100% focused on calorie counting to do it. I get it--it's very old school, and she's going on the research that was current when she was 35 years old. But it's so hard for me to watch her do it and not comment incessantly on the nutrition. She's eating everything "low fat," everything packaged. And I just want to go, NOOOOOO! I want to tell her that she doesn't have to starve herself, and that she should eat nutritionally, with a focus on making her body a healthy and well-fueled machine and STILL lose weight at the same time, that she can have nuts and not worry too much about how much fat they have, that cheese is not the devil, and that she needs to eat more vegetables and less refined carbs. But I don't say these things to her unless she asks. I am trying hard not to be an evangelistic nutrition know-it-all to my mama. But man--I am going to make her some of this soup next time I go home. She'll love it.

Log: 

Exercise:

• Lunchtime walk: 2 miles
• Zumba with Tiffany at the Cary gym
• Day 11 of the 30-day Abs Challenge: 55 sit-ups, 33 leg raises, 65 crunches, 42 second plank

Nutrition:

• Breakfast: steel cut oatmeal with slices almonds and dried cranberries, tea with milk and raw sugar
• Lunch: a bowl of homemade white bean, kale, and polish sausage soup, a big tangelo, a Gouda Babybel with a few crackers, and a 4-ounce container of Noosa blueberry yogurt for dessert
• Dinner: a turkey and avocado wrap with havarti on a multigrain tortilla, half an opal apple (which was awesome, by the way!)
• Snacks:no snacks

Stats:

• Steps: 13,562
• Calories: 1447 consumed, 1012 burned
• Weight: 187

Blowing Stereotypes out of the Water

"why plus size women shouldn't do yoga"Agency: lg2 for Penningtonshttp://adsoftheworld.com/media/tv/penningtons_yoga
Posted by Ads of the World on Thursday, January 14, 2016

I love this ad. I love that the woman in the ad is beautiful, and that she is unapologetic in her pursuit of health, strength, and flexibility. I used to be so intimidated by the gym and by the anticipated judgment from the other people in the gym. I used that intimidation as an excuse for not taking care of myself for years, and it took me until my 40s to say--to hell with you, judgy people! I care more about my health than about your opinion. I am grateful that I can say that with confidence now. There is no shame in ANY body type. Judgment has no place in the gym or on a hiking trail or in any other venue where people are striving for good things for themselves.

The Whole Package

I saw this on Facebook yesterday, and I keep thinking about it. This is just a great reminder to look at your whole package, and not get too focused on any one aspect of your life. Someone asked me recently what my secret to weight loss was, and all I could think was--there are no secrets to this whole thing. I am getting outside more than ever. I am eating better than ever. I am more active than ever. And it's making me feel really, really good. I feel stronger and healthier, and I feel like my immune system is stronger, too. Even when I got sick over the holidays, I was only sick for a few days rather than the weeks of lingering malaise I usually experience if I get sick this time of year. When I went to my doctor in the fall for my yearly physical, I was stunned to see that my vitamin D levels are now in the high end of the normal range, when historically they have always been low. My iron levels are good. I have more energy, and I feel more clear-headed now than I have since my children were born. There is no doubt that the physical care I am giving to myself is positively impacting my mental health as well. All of these steps I am taking now--they are truly a gift to myself and my family. These are just the first steps on what I hope is a long, happy, healthy journey.

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