June 2008

I didn’t sleep very well last night; I woke up a few hours after I fell asleep, stayed up for awhile, then took a nap. The first time I woke up I wasn’t tired at all, as if I had slept for 7 or 8 hours. But I decided to take a nap anyway, it was a lazy Sunday for the most part.

My husband and I went on a walk to town before dinner, I had a cookie before we left. I was hungry, they were on the counter… ’nuff said lol. I had planned to do 60 minutes light cardio on my elliptical today plus a walk, but I just took the walk and skipped the elliptical. That felt like enough today. I think my water retention issues are being aggravated by all the walking and cardio, which makes me sad because I really don’t want to cut down on any of it. I enjoy being active. My body has been way underused for the past 28 years, it wants to move! I’m going to see several specialists soon, we’ll see what happens.

My BodyBugg results for 6/29/08:

Went to sleep at 9:00AM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 1:00PM
Took a nap at 3:30PM
Woke up at 5:30PM
6:42PM (before walk): 1822 calories burned
7:59PM (after walk): 2261 calories burned
(439 calories burned since walk)
10:55PM: 2644 calories burned
End of day: 2757 calories burned

The only time I used my HRM today was on the walk:

Summary:

1:08:38
452 cal
149 max HR
120 avg

Less than yesterday for both BudyBugg and HRM, but HRM still reported slightly higher than BodyBugg for that period of time. I also stopped the HRM about 10 minutes before I uploaded my BodyBugg data. My burn rate is higher than usual today because I did my elliptical after midnight last night. I wish I could tell BodyBugg when my “24 hour day” starts and ends. I can set the time I sleep, but that’s always different and it resets at midnight no matter what. It discriminates against nocturnal creatures such as myself. lol

My mother made dinner tonight and I was really looking forward to it. She makes the best top round roast beef and mashed potatoes:

All I made was the side salad, but I did weigh my meat as I sliced it for my plate. It came out to 3 and 7/8 ounces, but I counted it as 4oz (250 cal), about 1 cup mashed potatoes that I counted as 300 cal, I have no idea so I just overestimate things like that and being I’m not officially menu planning or sticking to a certain calorie range, I’m ok with not knowing the exact calories — for now lol. I’m usually REALLY obsessive with making sure my portions and calories are as accurate as possible, but this week, I need to just be a little loose with my food and program. I had 2 slices of Alvarado Street no salt bread (180 cal) with this meal. It was very, very good. I think mom’s roast beef and mashed tatoes is in my top 10 favorite meals. Yeah, definitely is.

Later on I made a beautiful salad without mapping it out ahead of time. I just started building it and ended up with this:

I had a bag of Dole “Just Lettuce” which is a mixture of iceberg, romaine, and who knows what other lettuces. I really love crisp iceberg lettuces in my salads, it’s a nice change once in awhile and they’re saying now that it’s not as nutritionally shallow as they once claimed.

I started with 150g lettuce (30 cal) — it’s heavier from the water weight, so I used more than usual. Then I piled on: ½ cup Friendship no salt added cottage cheese (90 cal) in the center, 86g grilled chicken breast (140 cal), 1 slice Kraft 2% swiss cheese (70 cal), 4 Lindsay low sodium black olives (20 cal), 30g red onions (15 cal), 6 grape tomatoes (30 cal) and then I drizzled it with 2 TBSP Bolthouse Farms honey mustard yogurt dressing (45 cal) and red wine vinegar (10 cal). This was a GREAT, protein-packed salad for just 450 calories. I had 2 slices Alvarado Street no salt bread along with it (180 cal). I couldn’t even finish all of it, it was HUGE! At first I didn’t really care for the no salt added cottage cheese, but the more I eat it, the more I like it. I’ve never tried cottage cheese on a salad before, but I really loved it! I love cottage cheese in general, but with 400mg sodium per serving, I don’t eat it that often anymore. I think I’ll have the no salt added version more often though, it’s really yummy! I decided I’m not going to think of it as cottage cheese, but instead a different type of cheese being it tastes totally different without the salt. hehe

We’re going to sleep early tonight; 5:00AM, WOO HOO! lol! We have to go to the DMV tomorrow, fun! I should wear my HRM, I’m sure it will detect my heart rate being elevated the entire time LOL.

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My BodyBugg results for 6/28/08:

Went to sleep at 8:00AM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 4:00PM
4:42PM: 1561 calories burned
6:36PM (before walk): 1864 calories burned
7:53PM (after walk): 2294 calories burned
(430 cal burned since walk, HRM reports 503)
9:17PM: 2465 calories burned
End of day: 2892 calories burned

My BodyBugg has been telling me I burn a good amount of calories when I go shopping and my heart rate monitor pretty much backs that up. I do a lot of walking when we’re in stores; my husband pushes the cart and I usually make several trips around the store to see if I missed anything, etc. — like I said, I shop for sport lol. 2 different devices both reporting similar results, I highly doubt that they are both inaccurate. I guess at my current weight I naturally burn more calories than someone that weighs much less than me. One of the [few] perks of being in the 200’s club. Someone that weighs significantly less than me or even when I get to lower weights will not burn as many calories shopping, cleaning, cooking, going up and down stairs, exercising, existing, etc. Right now it doesn’t take much to get my heart rate up; it was in the 120’s to 130’s while we were shopping, between 110 and 154 on my walk to town (with little effort) and between 120 and 164 on my elliptical and around 70-90 when I’m sitting or doing light things like walking from one room to another. I noticed that since last year when I was over 300 lbs that it took much less than it takes now to get it up, and probably a year from now will take even more effort to get in the zone. Just the way the cookie crumbles.

I didn’t do my elliptical until way after midnight last night, so that will be included on tomorrow’s report. Now that the BodyBugg web site is back up, I can compare it to the HRM in real time.

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I decided today that I’m not going to pre-plan a menu from now until after 4th of July weekend. I’m still going to be doing my low-sodium challenge, counting calories, and weighing/measuring my food and servings (most of the time), but I’ve been counting calories for over a year now and I’m just feeling overwhelmed this month. Ever since I got sick in the beginning of the month, I haven’t felt the same, mainly because of the water retention which makes me feel like a rock. I did a week of maintenance after I was sick, but I didn’t give myself the mental relaxation along with it. The scale is going down to where I was being I’m watching my sodium intake, but I still feel like I’m overdoing it a bit and need to ease up or I will surely burn out by trying to juggle too many things at once. When what you are doing stops being enjoyable and starts making you feel uneasy, that’s when it’s time to make a change; even a small change.

I genuinely enjoy my diet and new way of life; I love being more active now than I’ve ever been in my entire life, I love cooking, I love grocery shopping, and when it comes down to it, I even like counting calories — a lot! It’s lots of fun to me to create menus, experiment with new foods and finding out how clever I can be with X amount of calories in a day. Like I’ve said, it’s like a game to me. But sometimes even your favorite games need to be played less for awhile lol. Speaking as a gamer that loves video games, I know that when I don’t play my fav games for awhile, then I go back to them and it’s like the first time I ever played it. I still play 10 year old Nintendo 64 games on and off lol, I’m a loyal game player!

So, I’m definitely in this diet/lifestyle game for the long haul, but every once in awhile I like to change my strategy. I like to change my calorie cycles, my foods, my free days, my exercise; change can be good, especially if it rekindles your passion for something that you’ve always enjoyed doing.

In the beginning I didn’t think I made many changes, but now that I look back at the past year I see that I made a lot of subtle, gradual changes. My diet and exercise program has been evolving from day one and it probably always will, but I still have the same basic beliefs: Eat enough, eat well, stay as active as you can, indulge at your discretion, don’t feel guilty, no deadlines, no parameters, and strive for balance, not perfection.

For the next week or so I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “free week”, but I’m going to attempt to eat when I’m hungry and not really have a specific set of calories, even though I’ll be tracking them. If I should decide to overindulge, that’s ok too, I’m not worried about it. Whatever I feel like, I’ll go with. I don’t feel like I need a week of splurging or anything like that, but I do feel like I need a break from structure, if that makes any sense. *giggles* I feel like being spontaneous!

I guess I was somewhat spontaneous today. I did strength training and kind of went on a walk to town with hubby. Kind of. He was dilly dallying at his computer, so I was like, “I’m going on a walk, I’m not waiting anymore! ” He probably didn’t take me seriously because I left, figuring he’d be right behind, but he wasn’t! Well, I was already on my way so I kept going lol. I got into town and I heard something behind me and I turned around and there’s Dustin with his bicycle lol!! He was so out of breath, he could barely talk lol — aww! He was going really fast to try to catch up to me, but he got really winded from it, so I called my mom to come pick him and the bike up LOL. There’s no way he would have made it back home going uphill, he was exhausted. So, I finished my walk by myself, then went home to cook. My husband said that riding the bike was much harder than walking. I thought it would be super easy being it’s downhill on the way to town. Guess not!

When I came home, I fired up the grill outside and started making pasta salad and BBQ sauce in the house. It was really awesome to make one meal for everybody instead of multiple meals. In a small saucepan I made balsamic BBQ sauce:

1. 2 gloves minced garlic (10 cal), 1 Tablespoon olive oil (120 cal), 1 cup Red Pack no salt added tomato sauce (80 cal), ¼ cup balsamic vinegar (40 cal), 2 TBSP sugar (90 cal), and onion powder.
2. Bring to a boil and let it simmer

300 calories, 3 servings; 100 calories each

While the sauce was simmering, I boiled 1oz spelt/quinoa pasta (105 cal). When it was done, I drained it and made a pasta salad with:

The pasta
2 teaspoons olive oil (80 cal)
Red wine vinegar
1 thick slice vine ripened tomato, diced (15 cal)
3 sliced Lindsay low sodium black olives (15 cal)
60g diced cucumber (5 cal)
1 cup Birds Eye broccoli florets that I steamed in the microwave (30 cal)
1 TBSP shredded pecorino romano cheese (20 cal)
Black pepper

= 280 cal, 1 serving

On the grill I made boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I had 5oz (175 cal, cooked) and dipped both of them right into the BBQ sauce I made. It didn’t use even a third of it, but I still count it as 100 calories.

This was an awesome, semi-spontaneous dinner for 555 calories. I loved the balsamic BBQ sauce, it didn’t miss salt at all! It was fantastic. After dinner I had some Blue Bunny limited edition cheesecake ice cream. SO GOOD! But you don’t get very much for the 72g serving. ! The ingredients aren’t very wholesome, but that’s ok, I’m sure this week is going to be filled with lots of “Umm, is that even food?!” calories. lol I actually want to take the time to do some baking, but it’s a little warm out for that. Doesn’t bother me though, the oven is on for one thing or another anyway! lol

I don’t know what my BodyBugg results are for today yet being BodyBugg’s web site is down. I did however use my heart rate monitor today! It was a little tricky setting up the “Own Zone” thing, but I got it and used it 4 times today. The first time was on my walk to town:

Summary:

1:09:47
503 cal
154 max HR
125 avg

———————-
Being BodyBugg gives me such a generous burn rate for shopping, I decided to wear it when we went shopping this evening, just to compare it to what BodyBugg says. I only tracked while I was actually in the store and not in the car and it erases the screen before I could save the info (I’m still learning how to use it). I jotted down the results after each store:

378 shopping store 1 = 1 hour 10 minutes
112 shopping store 2 = 40 mins

= 490 shopping

I’m sure that includes what I’d burn just existing too, but that’s still a really good amount of calories for shopping, isn’t it? I guess that could be considered physical activity if it’s getting my heart rate up enough to burn that many calories. I’m wondering at what point your body gets used to these “everyday tasks” and they don’t count? There’s no way of knowing that, but that’s just another reason to change things — often — and take breaks from your usual routine.

I finally got around to my elliptical after we got home from shopping (and eating a bunch of not-so-healthy things ). These are the HRM results:

Summary:

0:30:52
327 cal
164 max HR
154 avg

——————————-
I figured out that my elliptical actually reads my HRM! I was thrilled! lol My elliptical came with a wireless HRM but I never used it and never paid attention to the sensors on the handles because I assumed it was always inflated. Then tonight when I was on with my HRM, I realized they were in sync lol. It was the coolest thing ever. I’m like, “Wow, they both say the exact same thing!” Then I’m like, “Hmm, I wonder if it’s reading it?” because I have seen other people say that equipment at the gym picks theirs up. So I took my hands off of the handles and usually that makes the heart rate go to “0″, but this time it was still displayed and read exactly what my HRM watch said. I was so excited! lol

I was on my elliptical for ~30 minutes on highest resistance, changing my speeds every so often. I wasn’t going as hard as I sometimes do because my HRM kept telling me to lower my heart rate. It showed the little heart with a down arrow. Was I being bad? It says I should be between 131 and 153 BPM. I kept going way over that, not even on purpose all the time. Even when I eased up, it was still way up there. This is all still new to me, so I have a lot of learning and experimenting to do with it. I really wish BodyBugg was up so I could compare the results and stuff, but I guess I have no choice but to be patient.

My Polar F6 heart rate monitor diary for 6/28/08:

1320 exercise calories (how many calories I burned exercising?)
4 Exe. count (how many times I used it?)
3:44:30 Exe. time (duration of usage?)

That’s what I’m assuming, I haven’t read through the entire thing yet, I was just happy to get through the “OwnZone” set up lol. I don’t know for sure if BodyBugg under-reports, but I think the HRM reported more than my BodyBugg does for my elliptical and definitely for the walk. Typically my BodyBugg says I burned between 400 and 485 calories on my walk to town, HRM reported 503. I guess we’ll see tomorrow. It’s going to be even trickier trying to subtract/add between the BodyBugg and HRM. I’ll have to leave the Bugg off, then put it down as “doing nothing” for that time, then add in what the HRM reports. Ugh! lol I just want to know how many calories I really burn during the day. It’s going to take a little more investigation, but I’ll get to the bottom of this! My curiosity has been growing ever since I got the BodyBugg lol. Of course, both of these things have a margin of error, so again, personal experience is definitely the way to go. It’s still fun playing with these numbers though!!

After my elliptical, I took a shower and then made a turkey burger and oven fries. I love turkey burgers, I would love to eat them 2 or 3 times a day hehe.

4oz ground turkey breast (120 cal) on 2 slices Alvarado Street no salt bread (180 cal) topped with 1 slice Kraft 2% swiss cheese (70 cal), 1 TBSP Heinz no salt added ketchup (20 cal), 60g red onions and 50g no salt added canned mushrooms (15 cal) that I cooked down in 1 teaspoon olive oil (40 cal). I baked 1 serving Alexia crinkle oven fries (120 cal) in the oven on 450F for about 14-16 minutes. I really need to make my own ketchup, the only no salt added ones I have seen have high fructose corn syrup in them. *sigh* I’m sure it can’t be that hard to make, I’ll try to make a batch of it sometime. With all the no salt added ketchup on the side (HFCS! ), this was a REALLY GOOD swiss mushroom turkey burger and baked fries for 615 calories. A little skimpy on the veggies and nutrition, but hey, it could have been worse. Trust me. Much worse!! LOL

We’ll see what tomorrow brings; hopefully some BodyBugg data! I like the HRM a lot, it’s nice to be able to take it off when I’m not using it, unlike the BodyBugg. They’re both pretty cool though and I’m glad I have them. I think. I don’t want them to consume my “diet world” and drive me nuts. It’s good to know what ballpark you’re in though, so I’ll take all the input I can get.

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My heart rate monitor came today!!

I’m going to try it out tomorrow. I’m so excited! Yay! hehe

BodyBugg’s web site says there’s more maintenance scheduled for tomorrow; this time it’s for 12 hours! Ridiculous. So I won’t be able to get my results until the next morning. *sigh* No big deal, but still annoying. My husband thinks it’s a ploy to get people to buy the digital display lol!

I took 2 walks today and if I didn’t take a nap between 10:30PM and midnight, I probably would have burned even more calories.

My BodyBugg results for 6/27/08:

Went to sleep at 9:00AM
BodyBugg reset at 12:00AM
Woke up at 2:55PM
3:14PM: 1296 calories burned
4:45PM (before walk): 1468 calories burned
6:21PM (after walk): 1969 calories burned
9:10PM (after walk2): 2640 calories burned
10:33PM: 2784 calories burned
End of day: 2898 calories burned

I don’t know why I took 2 walks today, but I just felt like it after we ate dinner lol. We went on our first walk in late afternoon, came home, ate, then I’m like; “Hmm, I think I’ll go on another walk!” — My poor husband. lol We were exhausted!

My first meal of the day was actually in the middle of my menu but I’ve been craving it for a few days now:

2oz (before cook) brown rice pasta (210 cal) drizzled with 1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil (120 cal) and 3 TBSP pecorino romano cheese (60 cal). With 1 cup (84g) Birds Eye broccoli florets (30 cal), this was simple comfort food for only 420 calories. I really love pasta with butter and grated cheese, but it’s just as good with olive oil and grated cheese too! I didn’t use all 3 TBSP of cheese, it ended up only being 4g on my food scale, it looked like way too much, so I stopped lol. In hindsight I should have mixed the broccoli with it and used all the cheese, but it was great as-is.

After our second walk, I came home to have my Luna bar and milk, then I made an EXQUISITE salad:

Absolutely FANTASTIC! 3 cups (84g) Bibb lettuce (15 cal), ½ cup (72g) fresh sliced strawberries (25 cal), ½ ounce chopped walnuts (93 cal), 14g reduced fat blue cheese crumbles (40 cal) drizzled with 2 TBSP Bolthouse Farms blue cheese yogurt dressing (70 cal) and red wine vinegar (10 cal) for just 253 calories. I’ve never had strawberries in my salad before, but with the blue cheese and walnuts, OMG! LOVED IT!! I’m going to make this again very soon. Mmm, delish!

We were both really tired from all the walking we did. So we took our little cat nap and then had breakfast:

1 cup Health Valley no salt added vegetarian chili (150 cal) topped with 24g Hass avocado (40 cal) that I scooped out with a little melon baller, 30g diced red onions (15 cal), and ¼ cup Fage Total 2% plain yogurt (40 cal) with 2 slices Alvarado Street no salt bread (180 cal) for just 345 spicy-creamy-calories!

I can’t wait to try out my heart rate monitor tomorrow. Except now that BodyBugg is going to be down, I won’t be able to compare my results if I wait too long. Ugh! lol 12 hours is a long time. I’m such a whiny baby lol! Just impatient I guess.

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