Who wants a pair of shoes?

My foot hurts.

Yes, my foot is still broken, but I had been wearing my flip flops, or actually, FitFlops and my foot felt fine. It didn't bother me to walk and these flip flops were really comfortable.

Today, I decided to wear my sneakers. These aren't the ones that I work out in, they are my "everyday shoes." Well, my foot hurt. A lot. Come to think of it, these are the shoes that really made my foot flare up when I decided to go to the doctor.

Hhhmm.

I think I need to get rid of these shoes. In the meantime, I'm wearing the flip flops and hoping my foot is better. I'm afraid I might get a boot on my foot very soon. Needless to say, I'm going to take it easy today, in hopes that I don't mess my foot up more, and work out tomorrow instead.

Week in Review

I'll make it short and sweet this week...

Weigh-in
Last week: 241 lbs.
Today: 242.5 lbs.
1.5 lb gain :( That's okay, hopefully just a fluke and next weeks numbers are better.
Total loss: 3.5 lbs.

Food
What can I say? I didn't eat great - but I didn't eat as terrible as I could have. I've been slacking on the water intake, but I'm still relatively caffeine free, except for the occasional tea. I need to remember to eat veggies during the day and not try to cram them in at night with dinner.

Exercise
I only worked out 4 times this week!! Monday and Wednesday were cardio/weight training days. Tuesday and Saturday (yes, SATURDAY!) were cardio days. I did all of my cardio on a stationary bike and this week I decided to split it between the 2 types of stationary bikes: the upright and the recumbent bike. My butt can handle sitting on the upright for only so long.

Sleep
Consistency, consistency, consistency. I went to bed before midnight all week, and even managed to turn off the tv by 10:30 pm on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

For the upcoming week
Food - Fruits and veggies throughout the day, not just at night.
Exercise - I was able to fit in an extra day. Thursday and Fridays are just hard to do, but I can compromise and do weekends, right? I wanna do 5 days this week!
Sleep - Keep trying to go to bed earlier. I can't say it any other way. :)

Happy Sunday!

Week in Review

Weigh-in
Last week: 243 lbs.
Yesterday: 241 lbs.
2 lb loss!!
Total loss: 5 lbs.

Food
Having groceries at home makes it so much easier to make better decisions. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy a cookie with my milk when I'm wanting something sweet, or a weekly treat of frozen custard. Breakfast was really good this week - cereal, eggs, or a bagel - a banana, and milk. Lunch was pretty good - sandwiches, leftovers, one day I had Chick-fil-A but that was food provided for a lunch meeting. I brought my food most of the week but I also had Subway one day. Dinner - I ate out a few times this week but part of it was a dinner for friends who are moving away. I did make an effort to have a salad with my dinner every night with low calore italian dressing. I have to make a conscious effort to eat fruits and veggies and I had read somewhere that eating a salad a day was a good way to add more veggies. Otherwise, I mostly just tried to watch my portions. Drank water, milk, OJ, and tea all week.

Exercise
I only worked out 3 times this week: Monday and Thursday were cardio/weight training days. Tuesday was cardio day. I did all of my cardio on a stationary bike and this week it was all about staying on and despite hating it, continue doing it.

Sleep
I started my week off okay, but towards the end of the week, I was just not hacking it. It especially got bad Friday night when we planned to go to the IMAX 45 min away and ran into car trouble and ended up going to the late, late show and didn't make it back into town until 5 AM. So, needless to say that yesterday was totally messed up in terms of sleeping. This week shouldn't be as bad.

For the upcoming week
Food - I want to continue doing what I did last week, since it seems to be working alright. I'm making an effort of eating more fruits and veggies.
Exercise - My workouts feel good, as much as I hate the bike. I'm going to aim for at least 4 days this week and if I happen to find an additional day - great, if not, that's something for next week. :)
Sleep - I'm going to try to turn off the tv no later than 10:30 pm every night. It's going to "hurt" when I want to watch my recorded "So You Think You Can Dance?" when I get home and it's too late, but tough. I do fine during the beginning of the week when my shows aren't on - yes, I watch a lot of tv - but towards the end, I stay up to watch everything. I'm gonna work on it.

Happy Sunday!

The bike will not win.

I hate doing any exercise for 60 minutes.

I do 60 minutes cardio at least 2 times a week (for the moment) and I always switch it up.

• 60 minutes split evenly between treadmill/elliptical/bike
• 60 minutes split between treadmill/bike or elliptical bike
• Uneven split between treadmill/bike/elliptical

All of this just serves to keep me entertained while I'm working out.  (I get bored easily.)  It also allows me to work my butt of on each for X amount of time, stop, go get a drink of water, and then start on something else and work my butt off - again.  But as any of you who have been reading, I've got a stress fracture on my left foot and the doctor has forbidden me from all forms of cardio (including long-distance walking) except for the stationary bike.  

I'm not a big fan of the stationary bike.

After the doctor's recommendations, I immediately hated the stationary bike.  Of all the things to "allow" me to do, the bike?  Why not the treadmill - which I can switch up for an hour no problem?Well, I can't change anything now, and I surely don't want a boot put on my leg.  So I biked Monday for 30 minutes before doing some weightlifting.  Not bad, I'd done this before as well.

Yesterday was going to be the test.  60 minutes of cardio depended on it.  I got on, not excited about the programming on tv - baseball, I hate watching baseball on tv.   The first 30 minutes were no problem - I've done that before.  By 40 minutes, I was ready to quit.  So, I started playing games - when a hit was made, I'd pedal like crazy for 15 seconds.  (also made the game more interesting)  By 50 minutes, I didn't think I could sit on the seat any longer - my butt was very sore!  But by 55 minutes, I was counting down!!!  I got a surge of energy and pedaled away.  I finished my 60 minutes.  Monitor said 12 miles.  Yeah!

My spirit will not be broken, even if my foot is.

Mizfit, you are so right - no more negative talking, especially now. (I went back and reread my post and decided to... do away with a lot of that negativeness. Thanks!)

Yep, if you've read my Week in Review, which I posted late, you'll see that my foot is broken. In order to prevent getting a boot - which will be absolutely useless in driving a stick shift - I have to take it easy.

I've been given permission to do my daily routine, but I've been forbidden to even think about walking long distances, run - at all, or jog - at all. Let's hope no one comes chasing me in the next few weeks!

This is a serious bummer, because I've been trying to get myself back into running. I love running and I feel thinner just doing it. I'm also a calorie whore. I want to do the exercises that burn the most calories and running is one of those for me. I went onto this calories burned estimator and these are the results for 30 min at my weight: 243 lbs.

Activity	Calories burned
Stationary Bicycle - moderate	386
Elliptical Trainer	627
Jogging	386
Running 12 mph	1,232

Although I can't run 12 mph yet, I know that I burn more calories doing something between running and jogging. I can do 30 min - even longer - but I normally switch it out with stationary bike and elliptical because I think it uses different muscles and I can tell that I work out differently.

Even so, it is what it is and all I can do is make the best of this situation. Stationary bicycle is a challenge for me to do for long periods of time, but that just means I can improve with it. I will try to devise some interval training amongst other stuff to make it more interesting. Besides, now I have another goal for myself. 60 min on the bike. That's a long time for me so that's the first thing to tackle. Then I can tackle speed, and distance. :) I'm just going to have to ignore the calories and know that they will follow once I get stronger on the bike.

At least my doctor didn't take away the stationary bike too.

Week in Review

Thanks for the encouragement Chubby Chick and Mizfit! I did good this week! :)

Weigh-in
Last week: 245 lbs.
Yesterday: 243 lbs.
2 lb loss!!

Food
I feel good about heading in the right direction. I bought groceries and managed to stock up on some good stuff. Breakfast was good - mostly Raisin Bran with skim milk and a banana for breakfast. Lunch - not bad. I brought my food all week, either a sandwich with carrot sticks, or leftovers. I also brought an apple and some cheese (pepper jack, my favorite!) for snacks. Dinner - I ate out 1 time but I cooked at home otherwise. Thursday is "Wings" night and though we normally don't go get wings anymore, we still go out. I've been planning for this now and I just try to get something that's a little "healthier" than my usual. Even if I get something greasy (which I still like to eat) I just try to watch my portions. Got frozen custard a few times but this is not usually the case, I usually only go once a week. Drank water and milk all week - no tea since my labmates are both out of town and I had no one talking me into going to Starbucks for a break.

Exercise
I went to work out 4 times this week! Yeah! I tried to do the whole 30 min in the morning/30 min at night thing - did not work. BUT, I went Monday and Wednesday night: 30 min cardio/ 30-40 min weights. I went Tuesday MORNING and worked out for an hour doing cardio. This may be really good time to go since the gym is practically empty after 7 AM. We'll see how I get up in the morning. And, I went to work out on Friday doing about 40 min of cardio.

Sleep
I'm still having some trouble sleeping, but I think it's starting to get better. I've slept on average 6-7 hours a night, but I could still use some consistency.

For the upcoming week
This week, I'm just going to try to keep everything up.
Food - I did better this week and I hope to do the same this coming week. I'm about to go get some more carrots since I ran out and some more salad and get ready for a new week. Drinking water has been so much nicer with the new Brita Pitcher I bought. I actually taste the difference and I like the taste of my water a lot more now. :)
Exercise - I did better last week, I'm going to try to keep it up. Surprise, surprise. I finally went to the doctor about my foot. Wednesday night I went jogging and Thursday morning it hurt to walk from the parking lot to the chemistry building. I had to stop, let the pain subside, and then keep walking. NOT GOOD. Well, turns out I have the beginnings of a stress fracture in my left foot. This means no more treadmill or elliptical. I can't even do walking for distance. I can, however, ride a stationary bike. That's it. So, all my cardio for the next few weeks is stationary bike. I'm not one to stick to one particular exercise - I usually do all three during my cardio - so this will be... different. Otherwise, if in a week my foot feels worse I'm getting a boot. I can't have that, so it's only biking for me. Weights are okay, so I'll keep doing that.
Sleep - Consistency. I've been getting into my book and that just means I need to go to bed earlier. I'm hoping to go to bed by 10:30 PM and go to sleep by 11 PM every night.

Have a great weekend!

Week in Review

I've been bad this week.

Weigh-in
Starting: 246 lbs.
Today: 245 lbs.
Not much difference, but it's in the right direction! And considering my week - yay!

Food
Again, I was bad this week in this area all around. I was okay with breakfasts all week. Lunch, well, I brought my food twice but ended up buying something the rest of the week. I ate Subway (roast beef sub) and tuna salad on wheat and then I had... TACO BELL. :( Drank water, tea, milk all week, no sodas! :) Dinner was worse. I bought take out every night, using the excuse that I had no groceries and had nothing to eat at home.

Exercise
This week, I only worked out twice. I know, I know. I was supposed to do 3 and try to increase to 4. No such luck. My ankle started hurting really bad on Wednesday - not too sure why, but I'm sure my attempt to run on Tuesday was to blame. So, I took Wednesday off to recuperate. The rest of the week, I had stuff going on at night that prevented I chose to do instead of working out.

Sleep
I have been sleeping terribly since last week. I guess it didn't help that we went out Saturday night to celebrate someone's Ph.D. defense going well. (Way to go M!) Drank too much, stayed up til 2:30 AM. All I have to say is that I don't usually drink and this event wore me out. I think the alcohol triggered my insomnia, but I'm not sure. I'll look it up and let you know what I find out. I tried going to bed by 11 PM all week, but between reading my book, my a/c going out (I can't sleep when I'm hot and sweaty), and insomnia, I slept on average 5-6 hours a night. Not good.

For the upcoming week
Next week, I'm trying to revamp everything.
Food, eat better for sure. I already went grocery shopping so that I can't use the "I don't have food at home..." excuse. Bought tons of fruit, veggies, lunch stuff and other things much better for me than eating out. :) I also bought a new Brita Pitcher the green pitcher(!!) so that I can drink even more water and fill it for during the day. Just so you know, I bought it at Target for $5 off, and it came with a $5 gift card to Target. If you visit the website you can register to receive a $5 coupon for the pitcher and a $1 coupon for the filters. Okay, back to me.
Exercise. I need to go to the gym more consistently and I've been devising a plan. I think I'm going to do a revised version of my workouts from 2005. In the morning. I know, I don't want to get up early. Yet. So, for the meantime, I'm going to go 3o minutes every morning (M-F) which shouldn't be a huge problem because I normally get up at 7 AM but I waste time and don't get around to getting ready until 8 AM. You heard me right, 30 minutes everyday. That will give me no excuse not to work out everyday, but this won't be all. I still enjoy my workouts on M-W nights, so, I will work out then as well. In order to not overdo it, I will do cardio Tuesday night for 30 min but weights on Monday and Wednesday. This will bump my workout time for the week from 3 - 60 min workouts to 8 - 30 min workouts. Basically adding my 4th workout for the week, but spreading the time out. Then, I can start increasing times, doing more in the morning if I get in the habit of getting up earlier, and switch it up more. Right now, I need more workout time and more consistency. The last post really made me realize that I like working out period. In the morning, in the evening, I just do. We'll see how this works out.
Sleep. I just need to force myself to go to bed and shut off the tv. My goal will again be to go to bed by 10:30 PM and go to sleep by 11 PM.

Have a great weekend!

What a week!

I've let this week get the better of me, I'll explain tomorrow.

Back in 2005, I managed to lose 60 lbs just by drinking water, sleeping well, watching portions, and working out 5-6 days a week. Just. Like it was that easy... Actually, it didn't feel as hard as it does now. I had a roommate at the time that worked out every morning. At 5:30 AM. After a few months of hearing her leave early in the morning for the gym, I finally decided to ask her a huge favor. "Wake me up in the morning before you leave." You see, I am notorious for not wanting to get up in the morning. I always have, but I hate it. If someone talks to me however, I have to think in order to respond, so it wakes me up. So that's what I did. She'd talk to me for a few minutes on her way out and I would wake up (slowly), change, and follow her to the gym. After a month or so, I would hear her door open and I'd already be up. I devised my own workout plan. It consisted of mostly cardio, but I threw in a couple of weight training sessions every week, which also involved a simple ab workout and back exercises (I think they were called "Good Mornings" but I'm not sure.) I have weak core muscles and a bad back, and I was carrying a lot of weight. Anyway, it caught on and I was losing about 10 lbs a month at the height of my working out. I was doing great, but then I started writing my thesis for my Master's and I couldn't get up in the morning, I couldn't sleep, and I stopped working out. I gained all that weight back.

These last few weeks, I've been talking about working out at night and how I was surprised I'd like it so much. But I've been slacking this week, and only fit in a couple of workouts so far. I'm going to the movies tonight (Watching the new Batman flick!!!) so I know I won't workout. So I'm starting to rethink my plan of action.

Working out in the morning

I loved, LOVED, working out in the morning. John left a comment that he loves working out at 5:30 AM. You may think it is crazy, but what a way to start off your day?

• I didn't have a good excuse not to get it done. I could get it "out of the way," which is how I thought of it at first, but then it became my first priority. It turned into my favorite way to wake up and I felt so much more awake throughout the day.
• My nights were free to socialize, study, or catch up on some tv time.
• I also didn't have to worry about forgetting my clothes or mp3 player or anything else because I was coming from home.
  
• It forced me to eat breakfast, since I was always so hungry afterward. Because I'd worked out, it also made greasy breakfast food not sound so tasty so I would reach for a bowl of cereal. (I'm from Texas, so egg and chorizo always sounds so good, but it's really, really greasy!)
  
• I didn't have to take multiple showers in a day. Need I say more?
• It forced me to go to bed early because I knew I was getting up at 5:30 AM. None of this staying up until 1 or 2 in the morning. If I didn't go to bed early, I was going to drag the next day.
  

Working out at night

Now, I have 2 precious dogs - Chiquita ("little one") and Scrappy - that I have to feed, take on walks, and spend time with. I'm still not sleeping great and I'm still getting used to working out. Working out at night has been surprisingly nice.

• I get my day done and then I have time for me. Working out is such a nice way to relax at nights. I zone out during my runs (or anything cardio) and I just... relax. I leave feeling so peaceful and open-minded about everything going on.
• I can work out as long as I want - as long as I get to the gym early enough. If I get to the gym at 8 pm and I want to work out until 10 pm, then I do. There are no worries about coming in late to lab, or being in at a certain time, or taking too long to get ready afterwards.
• No after-dinner snacking. I've been really bad about snacking at night. Something about watching tv at night that I just crave bad food. Working out takes that time out and I end up forgetting I was "hungry."
• I am tired at night so I tend to go to bed about an hour after I get home. Some minor reading, play with the dogs while I'm in bed, and then I'm out.
• An evening shower is nice before bed.
  
• My dogs really love their after-workout walk around the complex which I use as a cool down.

The Conclusion

Well, for me, it seems as though both work well. Working out at night has been hindered some by my socializing. Random things get planned on a Tuesday and then there goes my workout. Morning workouts are bit hard now that I have the dogs because I have to take them out and I feel bad that I'm constantly in and out of the house. That, and my sleep pattern is still inconsistent. I think my lesson through even writing about this is that I don't have to pick all mornings or all nights as long as I work out. I think I am going to do an experiment this coming week, but I'll tell you more tomorrow, when I have it sketched out better.

By the way, when do you prefer to workout?