Leida

That’s what you do when life hands you out a basket of lemons. 

My foot is a bit out of sorts (old bunion problem), so I had to miss one of my fav classes today (a dancy aerobics thinggy). Instead, I headed to the gym and went on the stationary bike for the first time.

Boy, it’s hard! Or maybe I shouldn’t have started with level 7? I did treadmill before, but yep, it uses some really cool muscles that running either doesn’t activate, or activates in a different way. I could only do 15 min cycling intervals, so I did a workout routine in between made from the 10 most effective excersises (in E-diet’s trainer view). Apart from lunges. Can’t do lunges because of my foot. What a pity! (A sly wink… if there is one excersise I hate, it’s lunges!)

I even used A Machine… for lateral bar pull down. Doesn’t matter that I wanted to sit down the wrong way round on it at first, and I suspect didn’t put my feet in the designated place… heh.

The main thing was I could excersise and I tried new things It was fun, and I didn’t notice how an hour slip away… well, apart from those 2 last minutes of my second cycling interval. Those lasted forever! Good thing I had wits enough to bring a book!

Real curious if I get sore tomorrow.

Have a glorious day, everyone!

I found this article to be an extremely interesting; it’s candid and one sentence is particulary important to me: “normal body weight is percieved as fat.” The weights mentioned in the article are: 10 stones = 140 lbs; 9 stones = 126 lbs and 8 stones = 112 lbs. Models are averaging 110 lbs at the height of ~5′9″-5′10″. The author doesn’t provide her height though.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article1625715.ece

Aww, one of those… haven’t had them for a while, what with the cruise and a few extra pounds. But now the protective pounds are gone, and the pangs are back with a vengeance. Now, I expect the hunger in the afternoons, that’s normal, but when the pangs come in in the mornings, that’s the worst, because then the whole day can turn into one hungry blurr!

 It’s 8 am, 4 hours since I had my 280 cal breakfast, and I am hungry even after a snack of 1/2 grapefruit and a small Granny Smith.

Well, well. Welcome back, hunger! Chewing gum to the rescue, and hope it’s not going be one of those hell on earth after lunch days, when I start thinking about shewing off a corner of my desk. It kindda looks like tofu, you know.

From all Disney cartoons I’ve watched with my daughter, Mulan is definetly my favorite. If you’ve seen it enough times, you might remember it when Mulan reads ‘Think before you snack…” instead of “Think before you act” off her wrist. Every time I keep thinking how wise that statement actually is when it comes to the weight loss! So, I went ahead and jotted down even more rules like that valid for me in a form of a poem. Confucius I am not… but hey, it was fun:

 Think before you snack

Use a little plate

Cook your own grub

Do not eat too late

Drink enough of water

Lock away the shaker

Walk 2 miles a day

Ditch that backer

Plan your every meal

Journal ins and outs

Catch up on your sleep

Run away from troubles.

Folks, I don’t want to sound like a know it all, but just want to share some interesting info.

People often gain a bit of weight when they start a new excersise regimen. Quite often I hear the ‘you must be gaining muscle!’ responce to it. But it’s actually a bit of a misconception that seems to be as common as the good old ‘muscule weight more than fat’ (they do not, they are denser). Recently I’ve read that a human female takes ~ 6 months to put on 2 pounds of muscle. It’s more likely that the physocal activity stimulates appetite in the short term and more calories are consummed unconsiously or the water weight play tricks with your system. Or there are not enough calories consummed and the body tries to hold on to the weight. It’s nothing to worry about though, as it takes only a few weeks to find a proper balance of nutrition and activity, and excersise will start driving the weight down, instead of that seeming temp. increase. Do check though how many calories you are burning - excersise often doesn’t burn as much as one thinks it would.

And, of course, arm yourself with a measuring tape! Inches going away will tell you all about your fat-muscule ratio and effectiveness of your excersise program!

Folks, I was wondering if anyone has the same problem as I do - not being able to incorporate enough proteins in their diet? For months now I am averaging 20% prots a day, with 60% carbs.

I do what they say - combine all food groups at every meal and snack, but I am always short on proteins!

I am looking at my food logs and it seems that it’s my breakfasts that kill me - I do oatmeal with banana and something else (like cocoa powder or raisins), and it always comes very heavy on carbs. I barely eat any grain sides nowadays, but lots of friut and veg, and still I can’t shift up from the 20:60 ratio. What I really would want to see is ~30% proteins.

I will be trying to alternate oatmeal breakfast with 2 eggs + veg breakfast starting this week to see if that will help me.

So, has anyone succesfully dealt with this before or is working on it now?

Hello everyone, I am back (well, if you still remember me that is).

I hope everyone is well and doing great, and to anyone who is new to the site - hi and welcome to the great community! I  went to the beautiful Britsh Columbia to visit family and catch a cruise to Alaska with my husband of 10 years to celebrate our anniversary.

 I brought a few extra pounds back from the cruise, of course (but hey, those cakes were delish!).  But I also swam, hiked (the hike to Mount Roberts above Juneau was particulary beautiful), excersised and it was tons of fun!

I’ll wait till my regular weigh-in day on Tuesday to register the exact surplus (~5 to 6 pounds), but I am starting to work on losing the pounds right away. My husband has the weigh-in on Saturday, so I will now how much he came up then.

The first order of the day is to restore 3 meals + 2 snacks ~1,500 cals eating plan and gradually get back to regular 1.5 to 2 hours activity a day.

And, I’ve got one of the best compliments on that cruise - my husband told me that my cooking (healthy and lean) can easily compare to what we were served on the cruise by the professional chefs. And that it’s definetly better than my mother’s and my mom in law’s. (Hey, I love them both, but it’s nice to hear, right?)

Lol, who wouldn’t run to restock the kitchen after such lovely encouragement and try yet another cool recipe from Eating Well or search library for an interesting cook book?

Hugs, and let’s keep cooking, excersising, having fun and being beautiful!