No-Frills - 2006 Journal

[no-frills]

pierini - jdr3 has told me how you kick his b@#t running the hills... you are definitely NOT going backward. I looked at your log for ideas on tracking. You are excellent at tracking.

11/4
8:00 am - 6.15 mile walk with my dog and neighbor
4:00 pm - loaded 1 cord of firewood into wheel barrels that my sons hauled and hubby stacked. I am counting this as my weights work-out for the day.
5000 steps on pedometer in addition to the earlier mileage.
CF rest day.

I joined weight-watchers on Friday. My weight and body fat are off the charts bad. Up to now I had been trying to do the weight loss thing on my own, but have made a pitiful attempt at it. I have lost 9 pounds because of the hard work-outs but it really could have been a lot more if I had been doing a better job at watching what I eat. So in the spirit of my new slogan "make everything you do COUNT".... I made the decision to hold myself accountable by joining weight watchers. Today I did a good job eating and more importantly I wrote down everything I ate and as a result I stayed within ww point range.

[gymgirl]

no-frills, i love your new slogan! congrats on your decision to join weight watchers and being tracking your food. i think you will find it tremediously helpful.

p.s. what are you doing with firewood? isn't it like 70 degrees where you are at?

oh and you mentioned you are a cali girl born and raised! i love cali...been trying to get the b/f to move there for years to no avail. i'm totaly over the 8 months of cold and rain.

have a nice evening!

Hi no-frills,

I believe weight watchers will be good for you as it will give you the support and accountability that is so necessary for the goals you have, as there is some behavior modification that is needed. From what I understand, the weekly weigh-ins really motivate people who are part of the weight watchers community.

Over the years I have noticed several women who have lost a considerable amount of weight, and in paying them a compliment I also asked "how did you do it?". More often than not, their answer was "I joined weight watchers."

The combination of weight watchers plus the Cross Fit workouts will definitely produce great results. After a while, you'll feel like a cube of butter in a hot frying pan.

It's my theory that excess fat can be hard to initially burn, sort of like seasoned oak that you are trying to start in a fireplace or wood burning stove. Hard to start, takes a lot of kindling and multiple efforts, but once it gets going, it burns really well. And the Cross Fit workouts are the "kindling" in my mind.

You'll need the daily support in addition to the weekly support of Weight Watcher's weekly meetings so do use Discuss Fitness to supplement that effort. There are many people here who will give you the daily cheerleader support that may make the difference. I'll be privately cheering for you.

Have a great day!

[no-frills]

11/5
1:00 pm 5.8 mile walk with my dog and neighbor

3:00 some stretching and work with the ball for about 20 minutes.

5:00 10,000 precor strides, level 5 on random from 1-17 resistance =960 calories.

[minime]

hi no-frills! your doing great, getting those workouts in there. I particulary like that 3 rds for time WOD with the pullups,dips, squats the other day.

weightwatcher i think is a good idea - as the others said it will help u hold yourself accountable. This is what fitday does for me -and its great. IT really helps me, if i am thinking of eating something bad i will think about entering it later and often times wont eat it then.

The meetings & weighins will give u the 'structure' u need to stay dedicated.

oh and way to go on losing nine lbs!

[no-frills]

gymgirl... the weather is changing here in Cali. and I like to have a fire to relax in the evenings during the winter. it actually rained last week then this weekend was 70 again.

[no-frills]

Pierini - yes, many habits to change and working on 1-2 at a time. since I am on the computer all day as part of my job, I am using the ww etools to log my food points... so far its working great. In the past, logging food before I eat it hasn't been a strength because I didn't like carrying a piece of paper around. Funny how finding something that fits my personality more is working so much better for me. Anyway... its only the first week, but I would have stopped logging by the first day in the past... so hooray for me.

11/6 & 11/7 - no work out. Caught JDR3's stomach flu. Feeling better and hoping to make it back to the gym tomorrow.

[gymgirl]

Originally Posted by no-frills

I like to have a fire to relax in the evenings during the winter.

that sounds perfect...wish i had a fireplace here!

hope you are feeling better soon.

[no-frills]

11/8 10,000 precor strides, level 5, resistance 1-17 = 930 calories

[minime]

hey no-frills! well done on taking the time to log your food - thats like me too, since i am on computer all day at work i find it easy to keep track. Weekends get a little bit messed up sometimes, if i eat a lot of erratic stuff it gets hard to remember when it comes to logging time!

[no-frills]

11/10 - I logged my food all week which is a first for me. My goal is to keep this up to make it a habit. I really admire minimee, gymgirl and laurac because they have already established this as a habit and/or part of their normal day. The logging paid off - I lost 5 lbs this week. I don't expect to pull these big numbers all the time, but it helped me to see the value of logging.

[gymgirl]

that is fantastic no-frills! i think that after the first week of logging it becomes much easier. i don't know if you are using fitday or another program, but it's nice that most programs save you most recent and or custom foods so you don't have to go searching everytime you log.

you are doing so great, and big congrats on the 5lb loss this week!

oh and i too sit at a desk most of the day...so i usualy log everything while at work...makes it much easier!

[laura817]

CONGRATS on losing 5-lbs, no-frill!

Logging everything you eat helps because it makes you accountable. Keep up the good work.

I have a long history of logging my food consumption, although I have taken breaks over this period.

For me, logging creates rigorous honesty, information, and both of these contribute to behavior modification.

Logging has not necessarily resulted in me eating less, in fact I'm eating more than I ever have, but I have more training days with intensity than I ever had too.

What I have also learned from logging, is a tendency to eat alot of the same foods because that makes logging easier, particularly as I engrain into my memory the calories, carbs, protein and fat amounts of the foods I regularly eat. So the challenge is to not do this all the time and be open to a variety of foods. Just like we mix our workout up to keep our muscles guessing, I believe something similar happens with variety with our food, it keeps our metabolism guessing. The same, I believe is true, for flipping our eating around. How about a burger for breakfast and ham & eggs for dinner.

I don't use fitday but my own system. I've gotten efficient at it. I bet I spend 10 minutes or less a day, probably 5-6 minutes on average.

The other benefit of logging is an awarness of what the calories, carbs, protein and fat is for a given food item/meal when guestimates are necessary such as like eating out where I loose control of knowing for sure. I can eat something, pause and reflect for a moment and guestimate the nutritional content and be close enough. Sort of like the man at the circus you pay a $1 to who guesses your weight within 3 lbs. or something like that.

I think you'll like the archival benefit of your logs once you have a couple months of solid logging under your belt. I do mine.

[no-frills]

11/10 thanks for all the support .... really helps. Felt like a good week.

5:00 pm at the gym
Warm-up
10 Arm Circles (forward / backward) x 2
10 squats x 2
10 sit-ups x2
10 back extensions x 2
10 assisted pull-ups x 2
10 assisted dips x 2
10 girl push-ups x 2

Work out - 2 sets of:
1 mile walking on the tm on random setting at 4.4 speed
circuit (13 exercises, 15 reps each)

originally I had planned on running but my legs felt like lead... so I changed to brisk walking on an incline. seemed to take a long time to get my legs to loosen up.