5/28/12: Week 13 Weigh-in and Yesterday's Photo

5/27/12 - End of Week 13

2/26/12 - Start Photo

Progress Continues!  My end of week 13 weight is 199.4.  I was hoping for just a little more, but we ate dinner very late last night, and even though it was a salad, eating late always makes a difference.  I like comparing my before and after photos now, because I can see such a difference!!  It keeps me encouraged to keep on keeping on.

In addition to passing one significant benchmark this week, which is dropping under the 200lb mark, I have passed two others as well.  I now weigh less than my husband, who is 5' 10" tall and my brother who is 6' tall.  I, of course, am only 5'6" tall.  Now my goal is to weigh less than my dad, who is 6'2" tall.  I called him yesterday, thinking I might have made it to find out that he is at 194lbs now.  I give my dad a lot of credit.  He has worked hard to be very healthy as he has gotten older.  In fact, his amazing health is one of the things that inspires me.  He watches everything he eats and exercises regularly, and, in general, has become an overall health nut.  The results are amazing.  He never seems to get any older or more frail, he's just as healthy as he was 5 or 10 years ago and definitely healther than he was at 55, when he retired from the World Bank.  I figure if Dad can do it, I can, too.  After all, half my genes are his. 

Remember my post from a couple of days about about what I eat and my number one rule, count calories?  That was reinforced this morning when I read this article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/weight-loss-success-raul-robles_n_1534212.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Chp-desktop%7Cdl17%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D163495   about a man who lost 150 pounds because he started counting calories.  His wife was the one that got concerned about his health first and asked him to consider bypass surgery.  When attending the mandatory education classes prior to the surgery he had to estimate the number of calories in one of his regular meals.  The meal he guessed to be 700 calories was actually 1,880 calories.  He was stunned.  So he started counting every calories using SparkPeople.com and immediately started losing weight.  He had the exact same aha moment I had when I started counted calories.  Sometimes it is rather shocking to learn how many calories are in certain foods, if you just take the two seconds it takes to find out.  I love Raul's story because at the end of the day he did not have bariatric surgery.  He discovered all he had to do to lose the weight was eat less and exercise.  Go Raul!!

I recommitted to counting calories last Wednesday after I had a night of gluttony Tuesday night, and I have been doing better about that, though I have been recapping my calories the next day instead of recording as I go.  That behavior of recapping is not great, as it is easy to forget things, so I am going to be more disciplined with that, starting today.  I have my phone with me all the time.  There is no reason I cannot record every calorie, as I am eating it.  I appreciate finding little gems of stories like the ones above.  It reaffirms the things I already know.  It's about doing the simple everyday things.  Eat 1500 calories and exercise every day!

Here is my calorie recap for the last several days, such that it is:

Wednesday, May 23:  Calories consumed - 1,229;  Calories burned (55 minutes weight lifting) - 499; Net Calories - 730

Thursday, May 24:  Calories consumed - 1,456;  Calories burned (100 floors stair master, level 6, 2500 strides on elliptical machine, level 7) - 523;  Net Calories - 933

Friday, May 25:  Calories consumed - 1,538;  Calories burned (55 minutes weight lifting) - 497;  Net Calories - 1,041

Saturday, May 26:  Calories consumed - 1,740 (grazing at wedding = extra calories); Calories burned (90 minutes - at least - dancing with my husband Jack) - 407;  Net Calories - 1,333

Sunday, May 27:  Calories consumed - 1,313;  Calories burned (5 mile jog/walk) - 566;  Net Calories - 747.

Yesterday the exercise was hard.  It was 93 degrees and very humid when I left for my jog.  I made it the first two miles before I decided to walk the rest of the way.  I still made it the five miles, but I was dragging butt home, for sure.  I don't know if it was the heat or the exhaustion in my legs from dancing the night before, it may have been a combination of the two.  We also went bowling yesterday and went for about a 45 minute walk after dinner after it cooled off a little, but I didn't count that.

Speaking of exercise, the other day I said I would talk about exercise in another post and it might as well be this one.  So, here goes:

This would not be working without daily exercise.  That is a fact.  I mentioned the book, Younger Next Year, by Chris Crowley & Henry S Lodge, M.D., in a previous post.  Well, I am mentioning it again.  I have intentionally exercised on and off (more off than on, I will admit) since my last year of high school.  I have read several books on the subject, listened to motivational speakers, read articles and talked to family and friends.  Over the years I have picked up a lot of facts about the importance of exercise and have, for as long as I can remember, known the importance of exercise and known that I should incorporate it into my daily life.  Well, as you and I both know, "should" does not mean "am doing."  Younger Next Year changed all that.  The way Crowley and Lodge talk about exercise in their book changed the way I have looked at not exercising completely and forever.  I cannot miss a day of exercise anymore without thinking about my body hiss-bumping its way to heart disease, stroke, weak joints, or some other type of decay.  They make a very convincing argument for 60 minutes of daily exercise.  They describe in laymans words what happens to your body (cells, muscles, bones, nerves, brain, etc...) if you don't exercise (it decays...every day that you do no exercise your body decays) and what happens to your body if you do exercise (it grows new healthy and vibrant cells and actually gets younger!).  If you have not read the book and you have trouble exercising every day, I highly recommend it.  It is worth the $8 and the time it takes to read it.  That book has changed the way I will look at not exercising every day, forever.

As we all know, there are two basic types of exercise, strength training and cardiovascular.  The cardiovascular exercises like jogging, swimming, riding a bike, the elliptical and stair master machines, etc... elevate your heart rate to somewhere between 65 - 85 percent of your maximum heart rate for a period of time and improve the capacity of your heart and lungs while burning calories.  The book gets into details about ideal heart rates for fat burning, etc... but simply put, it is a reasonable goal to exercise for 60 minutes a day at 65 - 75 percent of your maximum heart rate at least 6 days a week.  The book stresses the importance of using a heart monitor, which does help you figure out how hard you should be working.  What I learned when I started using a heart monitor was that I was working too hard.  What I thought was a reasonable pace was actually getting me between 85 - 95 percent of my maximum heart rate.  Whenever I started exercising I would get too tired, eat too much, and end up burning myself out.  By wearing a heart monitor I learned that I was working too hard.  Most people accept that cardiovascular exercise, or cardio, is something we all need to do.

What's harder to get people to accept is the importance of strength training, partifucularly for women over 30.  I read an article about this a long time ago, so I don't remember the statistics, but the gist of it has always stuck with me:  women start losing muscle mass at about age 30 at a steady and somewhat alarming rate.  Are you over 40?  Have you wondered why you eat the same amount of food you always ate and now you are gaining weight?  Well, it's because you do not have the muscles that you did when you were twenty-something years old and muscles are what burn calories.  You must, as you age, work at retaining and rebuilding that muscle mass that has slowly, but surely, been waning from your body.  The most efficient way to do that is to hit the gym and start lifting weights.  One of the beauties of lifting weights is that, if you do it right, it is also a cardio exercise.  If you alternate types of exercises, you can spend 50 - 60 minutes at the gym, work out all of your major muscle groups, and keep your heart rate elevated for the entire time.

For me, to get back on track, I decided I would solicit the help of a trainer.  I had to find a gym first and I chose 24 Hour Fitness at Ward Parkway Center for two reasons.  First, it's open 24 hours a day and I like to exercise at about 4:30 in the morning, before most of the other gyms even think about opening.  Second, it is two miles from home.  When selecting a gym, I think convenience has to be at the top of the list.  If it is not open when you want it to be open and it is not very close to either work or home, you will not go.  Once there, I decided to hire a trainer.  Jeremy and I got lucky, I guess, he was the only trainer there at 5:00AM on Wednesday morning when I was trying to sign up for my 3 for $99 introductory pack.  After those three sessions, I decided to sign up for 10 more.  I am now into my second set of 10 session.  I meet with Jeremy once a week, so 10 sessions lasts me 10 weeks, or 15 pounds.  Jeremy designs my strength training work out for me, he walks me through it at our weekly sessions, then I come back and do it on my own two more times before we meet again, a week later.  So my weekly workout routine consists of 60 minutes of cardio three days a week on my own, one 50 minute strength training session with Jeremy, and two 55 - 60 minute strength training sessions a week on my own.  Here is this week's strength training workout, as a sample:

4 rounds of the following set:
-- Side steps (hold a 25lb weight in both hands, side step up onto an 18" stool, alternating feet - for one minute)
-- Body weight squats (hold hands out straight in front of you, stick your butt out, keeping your back straight, and squat as if you are going to sit on a bench.  Stand up and repeat for one minute)
-- Run up the stairs, skipping a step each time, and run back down
-- Shoulder presses ( hold 8 pound dumbbells in each hand, start with elbows bent and hands near shoulders and press straight up, repeat for one minute)

After 4 rounds of that set - which gets my heart pumping because of the combination of the side steps and running up the stairs I do:

5 sets of chest presses on a machine.  Each set is 8 reps and I am lifting 50 pounds with each rep.  This is heavy enough that I can barely complete the last two sets.  My heart is still pounding...

Then:

5 sets of dumbbell presses on an incline bench.  This is with 15 pound weights, I have to do 16 reps per set.  Almost impossible.  And my heart is still a-pounding...

Then I do 3 rounds of the following set:

-- Walking lunge/arm raises (hold 5 pound weights in each hand, take a long step, lower down into a lunge, and do a side arm raise while in the lunge position, stand up, and repeat with the opposite foot.  Do this ten times)

-- Bent over rows (with the same 5 pound weights, bend over about 45 - 60 degrees, keep a flat back, lower the weights, and lift them up with wide arms - 12 times).

When I have done that set 3 times I am done...and boy am I done!!!

So, that's an example of a strength training day...

Now I gotta run...chores to do.  I can't let Jack do it all.