Tags
apps, blog, blogging, C25K, challenges, Curves, diets, exercise, goals, health, Hydro, massages, Pandora, Raelyn Barclay, S Health, Samsung, Vegetarian, walking, weight loss, Yoga
Back at the beginning of the year I stated I was going to lose 50 pounds this year.
Yeah, that hasn’t exactly gone as planned.
Around my one-year anniversary at the Day Job I realized I’d put on 10 pounds since starting. :head desk:
And the birthday rolled around with the realization the big 50 is looming all that much closer.
Here’s what I’m doing:
- I downloaded Hydro on my phone. This app allows you to set your choice of measuring units and your weight, gender, and lifestyle. It calculates how much water you should drink daily. You also have the option of hot day and/or strenuous activity. It then reminds you every hour (or whatever notification alarms you set). This alone has helped me constantly increase my water intake to the point I regularly exceed my daily goal.
- I also downloaded C25K. Due to my bum knee, my plan had been to power walk the running segments of this program. Sadly, this aggravated the injury. I’m not ready to give up on this program but it’s on hold for now.
- The big change occurred when we changed cell carriers and I upgraded my phone to the Samsung S5. One of the standard features on this is something called S Health. S Health has a Pedometer, Exercise (walking, running, biking, hiking) Tracker, Heart Rate Sensor, Food Diary, Weight Tracker, and a “Coach.” I’m still learning my way around all of this stuff. (Samsung has wearables that work with S Health but I’ve seen less than stellar reviews of them.)
- The first thing I did was activate the Pedometer. The second, order an arm band for my phone, LOL. It showed me just how inactive I’d become. Rather shocking considering the wee beasties pull me in a gazillion different directions. In fact, I’ve only managed to reach the 10,000-step goal once since Easter weekend. Because I can’t carry my phone around all the time with me at work I still plan to get a wearable pedometer.
- The Weight Tracker was next, only because I needed to fill in that info during the profile set-up, but I’ve been steadily entering my weight each morning since April 30th.
- When I realized the C25K wasn’t going to work for me at this time I turned on the Exercise feature. You can set this either by distance or time. You do need the GPS feature turned on to track the distance. It signals the start, half-way, almost there, and goal complete marks and will work with Pandora running.
- Then I did a kick-start. A co-worker of mine has a friend who is a holistic coach and has a juicing business. One of her programs is a 3-day cleanse which I completed. I dropped 7 pounds in those 3 days. Since I’m drinking more than my recommended water intake I know this was not just water weight.
- Based on recommendation of this holistic coach, I now also drink 16-20 ounces of water each morning BEFORE I even roll out of bed. I just take up a big glass of ice water with me when I go to bed, so yes, it’s room temp in the morning. This water shouldn’t have anything in it, like lemon juice, because when you add stuff like that to your water your body needs to metabolize the additive before it can metabolize the water. Who knew.
- During the cleanse I made the decision officially return to a vegetarian diet. I also researched what my daily calorie intake should be for maximum weight loss and how many calories I should be burning each day. I updated my settings accordingly.
- By making sure I have pre-measured snacks and eat something every few hours, I’m not hungry. In fact, I often have a hard time MEETING my daily calorie goal.
Now, I have not managed to lose any additional weight yet but nor have I gained any back. I’m sure once my knee is appropriately healed and I can return to my morning walks with Beastie Girl the weight will start dropping again.
Other things down the pike:
- Regular massages. I’ve been reading up on the health benefits and decided to add them to my routine.
- Joining Curves (or similar) for strength training.
- Joining a Yoga class because it isn’t happening at home. I’m also sure more regular, and consistent, practice in this will help my knee.
I have an initial goal to reach before Christmas. With a secondary goal to reach before my next birthday. I’ll keep you posted 🙂
How do you stay healthy?
Raelyn Barclay 
Staying healthy has been something I’ve done more thinking about than doing as of late. However, before falling off the wagon, I found the My Fitness Pal app to be rather helpful in keeping up with my caloric intake and losing 8 pounds over a four week period.
Yeah, I know, time to get back on the wagon and getting healthier. 🙂
Good luck as you continue on your trek to staying and maintaining a healthier lifestyle.
I’m loving the various tracking within the one program. It definitely helps me stay on the plan.
Thanks Angela, and good luck to you as well.
It’s more of a thinking than doing for me these days. I just don’t seem to have any energy. But I found something a bit motivating.
I was looking at something on YouTube, and something else caught my eye. It was/is a British show called “Fat Families.” Wow. Talk about eye-opening! I’ve been playing close attention to my habits since I first saw that a few days ago. I’ll see how long I can keep it up, but so far, so good.
Good luck, Raelyn, on your goals. You’re a great inspiration to us all.
I’ve seen that show…BBC addict here…and you’re right, shockingly scary stuff.
Thanks Lara, and good luck to you.
Good luck to you, too, Raelyn. Wore my pedometer to work today…thanks to Fat Families!
When you think of the recommended 10,000 steps, were you surprised at the number you actually walked in a day?
Yeah, I was surprised all right. It was so damn small!!!
Happy walking Lara…I’m cheering you on 🙂
You too, Raelyn! I’m on my butt right now with students till 8 tonight. We’ll see how it goes.
Staying healthy is always on my mind–especially since I’m a klutz who’s always hurting herself. 🙂
Consistency is the key. If I get off my routine for any reason, it’s that much harder to get back on the wagon.
Re: massages
I can’t afford regular massages, but I promised myself after this move was over that I was going to pamper myself with massages for a whole month.
Yeah, that consistency thing… I hear you on the whole climbing back on the wagon.
I didn’t think I could afford regular massages either. That Man had gifted me one for Mother’s Day and the spa was running a membership promo. It was surprisingly affordable.
Thanks Maria, and no more hurting yourself allowed 😉
I’ve been revamping my getting healthy routine, too. Step one for me was to stop my gym membership, because I was spending too much money for the benefits I was getting out if it. Instead, I’ve been trying workout DVDs from the library. I also bought a stability ball to use with my free weights and for crunches. All that plus the old fashioned stickers on the calendar to track progress… We’ll see how it works!
Oh – but I’m intrigued by the apps you mentioned. I’ll have to try them out. And I still use and love my FitBit pedometer. 🙂
I have always hesitated on the gym memberships partly because I hate being locked in but mostly because I never use them to the fullest. On the other hand, working out at home is not happening. It’s too easy to get distracted or interrupted.
Yeah, that FiBit pedometer is on my radar. I’ve had too many big ticket items recently but plan to pick it up.
Good luck with your plan Nicole!