Pants on the ground... Almost...

Anyone that has been a fan of American Idol in the last few years will remember the guy that came in and sang about pants on the ground...  And we all know how silly the young men look that purposely wear their pants big and their underwear are showing instead of pulling their darn pants up...

Even though the tape measure isn't really showing that much of a change in the inches on my braline, waist or hips - well maybe a little bit, but my clothes are really telling the story...

I am wearing my "favorite" pants today - they are a nice pair of slacks that are cotton & light in weight so I don't roast while I am walking at work... But they are driving me nuts today... They have gotten really baggy in the legs and I can take them off without unbuttoning them...  Luckily the hips are keeping them from falling off on their own, but if I had another pair of pants with me - I would be changing...

Don't get me wrong - I really like having this issue - but until I am able to take them off and put on a better fitting pair of pants...  It's about time to go through more of my closet and see if I can rotate out some more of the larger stuff and perhaps pull down some of the too small ones that were stashed away to shrink into...

This is all good!

Pushed through...

Today my foot and ankle were not feeling good, and even though they weren't feeling good - I pushed through... Not sure if this was the best decision to push through the pain (with the help of a bit of advil) but I can't stand sitting & standing seems wrong, so I just did what I know how to do WALK while I work...

Hoping a weekend of not walking on a treadmill, and a few other activities for exercise will help my foot feel better...  I think I am caught in a bit of a catch 22 that will require a bit of pushing to get out of... I think my feet will feel better when I get a bit more weight off my frame, but I have to walk and exercise in order to get that weight off... So for now I cautiously continue on...

Learned something new...

So today I posted my daily walking miles on www.dailymile.com - where I always post them... I have a few online friends that also walk while they work, and we follow each other's progress on walking. Today I made a comment about bumping up my speed for walking & how I hoped to see an increase in calorie burn...  Joan on there pointed out to me that it is not the case that I will burn more calories - that walking at a slower speed will burn more calories...  I immediately took off my bodymedia armband to look at my burn data for the day - setting out to try to disprove her.  But you know what?  She was right...  I was showing 24-30 calories less per hour of active walking when I was walking at 2.2 MPH vs the 2.0 that I was walking before...  I was amazed!

She sent me to this online calculator - http://walking.about.com/library/cal/uccalc1.htm  which shows that walking 2.0 vs 2.5 burns more calories - and she also explained a little bit of why it burns less calories at the faster speed - because of the built up momentum when you are walking faster - so it takes less kinetic energy to move your body at the faster speed.

Now this only seemed to pan out when I used the calculator for comparing walking my normal walking distance of 5 miles at 2.0 vs 2.5 vs 3.0 - when I used the 5 miles and put in 4.0 MPH the calorie burn went up. But I don't plan to walk much faster at my Trekdesk and still be able to manage to do my work.

So I will be taking my speed back to 2.0 and playing with the incline (as much as my foot can tolerate) to get a bit more of a burn (or to keep my body guessing...)

Not going to do it...

I won't let this basket of candy that is in my office right now win... No, No, No...  I won't!

There is a class that is going to be going on here tomorrow so there are extra things in the office that are goodies for the people that will be at the class tomorrow...  This basket is sitting on the stairs - just 50 ft away from me...  There are many things in there that look soooo good, and would taste really good as well - but no - I am not going to give into the basket...

Yes, I do have candy from time to time - er almost daily - but in moderation...  15-20 plain m&ms are only 60 calories and I can savor the flavor of them in my mouth and really enjoy them (as opposed to a candy bar where it is hard to eat in really small amounts and savor the taste...)  And I could eat one or two of these candies in moderation - but it just isn't worth it - not worth the spike in my blood sugar that could happen if I ate it without balancing the carbs/sugars out with protein and the like...  The same blood sugar spike that would tell my body to store it's fat, that it has immediate sugar energy it can use instead of releasing fats to burn - and help me get healthier...

So I took this picture really quickly & walked away from the basket & smiled as I pushed start on my treadmill and got back to walking at my TrekDesk...  It is all good... Another good choice checked off!

One choice/decision/bite at a time...

Bumping up speed...

Yesterday on a whim I pushed the speed up button 2 times to make my speed that I am walking go from 2.0 MPH to 2.2 MPH... Yes that may seem slow for being on a treadmill - but I am at a TrekDesk and working at the same time!  Most people are comfortable with 1-1.8 MPH and I have always done 2.0 MPH and felt good about it...  Yesterday & all of today, I have bumped up the speed to 2.2 and I feel good - I feel like I am pushing myself a bit more, while still managing to do my work at the same time... It takes a bit of getting used to, but it is working...  :)  Hopefully I will see a difference in my caloric burn for the day as well...

Something else that happened yesterday... I got BUSY at work with lots of stuff outside of my office... I didn't complete my 5 mile goal for the day at work (for the first time this year) - but I was sure to finish it out at home last night! While my absolute goal for myself for this year is to do 5 miles at my Trekdesk per workday, there may be days like yesterday that it just doesn't work out...  I was bummed about it, but when facing the choice of staying at work longer just to complete my miles AT WORK, and going home to finish them out, I chose finishing them out at home...  :)  So before dinner I fired up the computer in front of my treadmill at home (with the makeshift desk at it) and I surfed the internet, and got in the remaining 1.57 miles that I needed to meet my 5 mile goal...

Weight history

Found this picture of me from 1996 - it was in a flyer for the place I worked for at the time (thus the black and white) - this is me at my heaviest - I was at that weight from about 1996 to 2002

 I am amazed as I have looked back over the pictures and the weight history I could find for myself, amazed to find that I stayed at my highest weight for over 6 years, through two pregnancies!

Dec 2010 - at my heaviest in 5 years

 This is one of the only pictures I can find from just over a year ago, when I was at my highest weight since losing over 100 lbs in 2003-2004...  I was about 10 lbs lighter in this picture than I guess I was in the black and white one...  I wore smaller clothes than I did near my heaviest because I was/am more toned, but still the scale didn't lie that I was way too close to being at my all time heaviest again...

Dec 2011 - about 26 lbs down

A year of TrekDesk walking and changing my eating habits, and I am down over 32 lbs from Dec 2010 - just a few pounds away from being my lightest in over 3 years...  When I hit that point,  I will post another picture...

I love looking back and stuff like this, it shows where I have been & where I don't want to go back to...

I have also looked today back over my history since I started tracking body fat percentage (when I learned more about why it is important taking my nutrition certification class) - and since September I have lost 11 lbs and maintained my Lean Body Mass - so all 11 lbs were of fat!  That is good, means I am doing what I am supposed to do - eating correctly to release and burn stored body fat!

No, No I can't do that...

Started out in a good mood, as the sun is shining and they are forecasting that it is going to stick around for several days into the future... :)  That always makes me :)  Then there were a few communication break downs at the office - a major pet peeve of mine, and I found myself frustrated and down...  My mind kept thinking about what I could grab to eat as a "comfort."  But my mind also knows that comforting myself with food is not what I should do...  I need to break the cycle for myself of comfort eating...

There are lots of ways that I am trying to combat the comfort food cycle... The biggest help is not having junk around that I could comfort myself with... At work that really isn't a problem - because I simply don't have anything other than my meals with me to eat...  (Home is another story with kids in the house, and a hubby that is able to eat just about anything and maintain his waistline...)

Along side not having the junk around to eat, at work I am able to just get into a "zone" and work on stuff by  getting my treadmill going and starting to walk at my TrekDesk - and I can't forget the headphones at the same time - they are an integral part of the "zone..."

All of what I am talking about are simply choices - choices to eat better, choices not to cram food in to drown out my frustrations or stress... Finding a different way to deal with the stress is forming a good habit - rather than continuing on the path of bad habits and comfort eating.

There are so many ways to deal with stress other than eating through it...

• Take a walk
• Walk away from the area where the stress started
• Take deep breaths
• Talk it out with someone
• Exercise
• Read a book
• And so many more...

Thought this was cute - as I usually have salad for dinner each night & am working hard at making good choices on the toppings for the salad - to keep the salad "healthy"