Kitchen scale

One of the things I've used countless times over this 'journey' is my trusty kitchen scale. Mine is the "Escali Primo Digital Multifunctional Scale". It's small, easy to use and pretty. ;) It comes in oodles of colors, but I went with silver (shinee!). I tare out the plate or bowl I'm using to eat with, and then add an item, tare it out, and go on my way. I can add in everything easily and it's quick to use. It uses AA batteries, which is handy so you don't need to buy any funky watch batteries or whatever to replace 'em (I haven't had to replace batteries yet and I've had it for at least two years).

So, about that weight loss...

OK, I've been working my butt off this month (not literally, unfortunately). 364,900 steps (152% of pace), 31.83 hours of exercise (145% of pace)... and I'm down about two pounds. I had been down another pound and half at one point, but sticking around the same pound now. I'm watching what I eat - hitting my range in SparkPeople.com more or less, adjusted for the amount of exercise I'm doing each day. I'm really hoping to see at least a drop in body fat - I use a machine at my gym to measure it two weeks ago, and I'm thinking of asking if I can use it tomorrow - I really want to see *something* move in the right direction, you know? If I could lose a pound a week, I'd hit my goal by our anniversary in October. A pound and a half a week would have me there by my husband's birthday in late July. Four pounds a week and I'd hit 100 down by my birthday next month! ;) (Don't worry, I'm not aiming for that at all, it's just sad because I've been eyeing that milestone for well over a year now.

Come to me, weight loss!

Goals progress and more

First, the goals update:

- 10,000 steps a day again.
- 20,000 minutes of exercise throughout the year.

Steps pace: 180,000
Steps taken: 281,100
(over 100,000 - or 10 days - ahead of pace!!)

Minutes pace: 990
Minutes exercised: 1485
(about 150% of pace!)

and my weight? Well, yeah. I'm so frustrated, I am doing all this exercise and it's not paying off yet with the scale. I really want to see things fall into place but they're not yet and I don't get it. I'm still out of work (and no job nibbles lately), and I'm frustrated that I can't seem to accomplish the weight loss with nothing standing in my way. I'm enjoying the pilates classes at the gym, and just trying to keep hope that the weight will drop eventually.

Goals check-in

Yes, it's not too far into 2009, but wanted to check in on my two measurable goals for 2009:

- 10,000 steps a day again.
- 20,000 minutes of exercise throughout the year.

So far... frankly, I'm hauling butt here.  

Steps pace: 110,000

Steps taken: 169,000

Minutes pace: 605

Minutes exercised: 909

The job search is really difficult right now, but I am trying to make the most of my time.  I've hit the gym every day this year (except the 1st when the gym was closed).  Even today, I went for an almost-three-hour-walk to do various errands, and then later on went to the gym and did a half-hour on the bike.  

I think I had been under-eating last week, as my weight was dropping dramatically - and then shot up like crazy when I went out for dinner later in the week.  So I've adjusted things in my sparkpeople.com settings and I'm making sure to eat the minimum calories it suggests each day, taking my exercise into account.  

Here's to hitting all my goals (including that elusive weight loss goal too!) in 2009. :)

Weight Watchers Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling

Twinkies, these ain't, but they're not too bad. They're about half the calories (and half the size/weight) of a Twinkie - and frankly, they're not very fulfilling. I'd rather have a Zinger and enjoy the double-calories. But given that this is a little sweet treat, I'm surprised that it's only 80 calories - and 3 grams of fiber! Wha? However, I didn't feel sated on any level after eating one of these. Bummer!

Nutrition Facts
Calories 80
Total Fat 3.0 g
Cholesterol 15.0 mg
Sodium 80.0 mg
Total Carbohydrate 15.0 g
Dietary Fiber 3.0 g
Sugars 7.0 g
Protein 1.0 g

Progresso Light Beef Pot Roast

Beefy!  This was *much* better than that Campbell's Chunky Healthy Request Sirloin Burger soup I previously wrote about. The beef in here was not dry or overcooked. The broth itself was rather tasty, and there was a decent amount of veggies. Given the nutrition details, this is another soup that will be purchased again.

Nutrition Facts (per cup, about two cups per can)
Calories 80
Total Fat 1g
Saturated Fat 0g
Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0g
Monounsaturated Fat 0g
Cholesterol 15mg
Sodium 690mg
Potassium 410mg
Total Carbohydrate 12g
Dietary Fiber 2g
Sugars 4g
Protein 6g

Progresso Light Santa Fe Chicken soup

One of my favorite soups (I don't think I've posted about it yet though) is Campbell's chicken tortilla soup. But it's 130 calories per serving. So I spied this "spicy" soup in the grocery today and it had chicken, rice, corn and beans - my favorite components in the other soup - and it's a lot less calories than the other soup. How do they do it? Well, it's all in the broth - there's a *lot* more of it in this soup compared to the Campbell's version. However, it's still quite tasty and I will definitely be picking up more of this soup in a future visit.

Nutrition Facts (per cup, about two cups per can)
Calories 80
Total Fat 1g
Saturated Fat 0g
Monounsaturated Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0g
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 10mg
Sodium 680mg
Total Carbohydrate 10g
Dietary Fiber 2g
Sugars 1g
Protein 6g

two hundred sit ups

I'm excited to see this site pop up: http://www.twohundredsitups.com. I did 40 situps as my baseline test tonight and look forward to seeing how I improve over the next six weeks! (Perhaps I should've done this yesterday, before a pilates class this morning!).

This guy also has a neato push-ups challenge, but I need to work up to that (and I really want to focus on my core right now).

Handy web sites!

To kick off the new year, thought I'd post some of my favorite web sites in this delightful journey to lose weight... ;)

My latest handy site is walkertracker.com - it's a free site for walkers to track their steps. All kinds of geeky graphs and other tools in there too. Neat-o!

I've posted before about these other two, but I still love 'em. physicsdiet.com is *the* site for tracking your weight. It's extra-uber-geeky with the trends and statistics, and really helps show you that one day's weight isn't the end of the world. It's all about the trends, baby.

And of course, can't post this without including sparkpeople.com - I use it daily to track my food intake and also my exercise.

I haven't gotten into the "community" aspects of any of these sites, but just for sheer functionality, they're all at the top of my list.

Goals for 2009

Two measurable goals for 2009:
- 10,000 steps a day again. I'm going to focus on hitting more of these as "aerobic" steps.
- 20,000 minutes of exercise throughout the year. That averages out to about 55 minutes a day. Clearly, if I do this, and watch what I eat, I should see some numbers move in my direction, eh? ;)

I'm doing a free trial at a local gym and pondering joining (really expensive though, but I'm worth it, right?). Started on Monday - did 60 minutes on the elliptical then. Tuesday, did 45 minutes on the elliptical and about 10 minutes on various weight machines. Yesterday, took a circuit class and totally got my butt kicked. Literally - it hurts like heck today! They're closed for the holiday, so I plan on going for a long walk after the hockey game is over (woo winter classic!)

Here's to a happy and healthy 2009 for us all!