Decision

Well after my last post I started to think about my plans and I think I have decided to try out the online version of Weight Watchers starting in the new year.  I admit I don't want to try and start it during the holidays because I am not sure I could keep it up if I did.  I don't really love the cost of it but I can see that right now I am not finding it really possible to modify my eating behaviours with just the little bit of self direction I am doing now.   There is also the husband factor - if I can say clearly that this is what I am doing and I would like a bit of support with it then maybe we would start making meals that are more healthy than our current meals.

Need something more

Looking back on the previous week it was a good week for workouts.  I pushed myself a bit and made sure I did a good workout every day.  But my eating was pretty spotty and yesterday and last night was a complete and utter disaster area.  I ate way too much and I ate late into the night as I stayed up reading late into the night.

What it convinced me of is that if I want to lose weight I need more than some vague plan that I kind of follow when I feel like it.  I have stuck to a plan in the past when I was away from home. The big challenge is to do it now that there is another person around who has such a strong influence on my eating patterns (especially since he does a lot of the cooking and food shopping).  So the question is how do I accomplish this.  I have been thinking of signing up for one of those weight loss programs - but honestly I have no idea which one would be the best idea.  I was in weight watchers before and I liked going to it and the system they had at the time.  I just couldn't afford the weekly meeting at the time.  Maybe I will look into it again and see what it costs.

So probably from all of the above you can tell my weigh in this week did not go terribly well.  I am back up 0.4 kg.  I know because I am very overweight I should be having no problem losing 2 pounds a week - but clearly I am still not as dedicated to the process as I need to be.  I will keep trying, and I will keep examining myself to see ways to improve.

Follow the dog

Today I did the long distance run (not the island lap) and I did like I read on some discussion board about going ahead of your run leader character when you see the dog at the start of the run.  And that lets you follow the dog along a different path than the one you normally run.  The dog's route is definitely more interesting than the normal route - so I think I will follow it the next couple times I do the run.

Not much else of interest today so I guess I will be back tomorrow!

Pushy Pushy Wii

Just yesterday I was talking about the lure of the daily weigh in and boy the Wii designers sure want you to be hooked on it.  Today because I have been using the Wii every day but not doing a body test it stopped me before I could do my workout and asked me what I thought I weighed.  And I couldn't get away from it there was no "cancel" or "exit" option.  I had to answer the question to carry on.

What is up with that?  I suspect that the more hooked on the daily weigh in you are the less likely you are to abandon their game for some other game without that hook.  Although since you already bought it I don't know what they would gain from that -- guess I just see nefarious motives everywhere ;-)

Despite the little irritation at the beginning I had a good and fun workout today - just mostly played the games today and less of the yoga and strength training.  It is a fun little change but I actually really like the routine I do with yoga and strength stuff too.

Discovery of the day: at the end of my workout I was doing the zen focus one and I realized how tight some of my muscles are.  I need to start doing a bit more stretching each day at the end of my workouts.  Somehow I was feeling like I was doing a fair bit because a lot of the yoga poses provide some nice stretching.  But it is clear to me that I am not getting good enough stretching coverage because I definitely have some muscles in dire need of additional stretching.  So I am going to try to work that into my workout.

The Lure of the Body Test

I NEVER understood people who would say "Oh god I gained a pound today" because I pretty much never stepped on a scale except at my physical.  So I really just didn't get the whole weighing yourself every day thing. Until now.  That is the one thing after a little while with the Wii that I don't love.  Each day that I go on to do my workout it says "don't forget your body test".  And because I started out doing it each time I find the lure of the body test very strong - especially since they paired it with the fun of the wii fit age test.

But what I see from having done it for a while is that for me it is actually kind of counter productive.  Our bodies go through some natural shifts in weight - and even the Wii acknowledges that when you try to weigh in at a different time than you normally do.  For me when I see a weight result that I can attach to a reason, to something I clearly did or did not do then it is fine.  But then when I have one or more results that don't seem to reflect how I feel I was doing then I feel very discouraged.  I feel like the odds of me getting a result I don't really expect when I weigh in once a week is probably less likely.  It will probably be obvious to me where I went right and wrong.  Plus I think the odds of having it happen multiple weeks in a row is very unlikely.

Well I just came across a little discussion board and it is clear there are a lot of people with a scale obsession and I can definitely see how that happens (NOW).  But a lot of them also have eating disorders so....  But one person posted how her daughter had a 5 week weight loss cycle of 4 weeks of bouncing around right around the same weight followed by a 5th week with a substantial drop.  So the weekly weigh in will be good for me to see if I find myself on any kind of cycle.

Wii Trainer Gripe

Okay, I selected the male trainer long ago and have become accustomed to the voice etc.  Yesterday I set up a new and pretty long and challenging workout in the My Routine (at least it is challenging for me right now!).  And the stupid trainer comes up as the female trainer.  "I hope you don't mind but I am standing in for your normal trainer" - YEAH like the binary code that makes up the male trainer needed a day off to relax.  GRRRRR.  I just find the female trainer's voice very irritating - and perhaps it is a self consciousness issue or something but I don't like the look of her either - is the midriff baring workout outfit really necessary????  I suppose the female trainer is probably targeted for the male audience and vise versa.

Oh well, gripe out of the way!

So the new workout is a big challenge for me right now - and mostly I like that although I do think I probably need to do a little bit of tweaking so the order works better.  Just a couple of the exercises seem like if they were switched around it would work better for me.

Made it back

Well I am glad to have made it back to where I was before my terrible week.  And really a little strange given how little effort I was making in terms of eating.  So I guess it just goes to show that the body is a complete system and you can't just think there is only one single thing that will solve any problems you have with it.

So, I am targeting 1.2 KG in two weeks - that has been my normal target.  But as I mentioned before I am only going to weigh myself once a week - I just feel like the daily one was feeling a bit counter productive.  Am hoping the next two weeks will go pretty well - guess we will see!

Pushing myself

Today in my Wii workout I did a higher level on the rhythm boxing (expert) than before - I have been doing advanced for a while.  And boy the extra 4 minutes and the increased pace really made for much more of a workout than the lower level.  It actually felt really great - I enjoyed it a lot.

I most definitely did not push myself in terms of diet though. I ate very poorly today and that is not a great idea if I really want to get back into some semblance of shape.  But at least I did drink my water and yesterday I ate my veggies and drank my water.  So I suppose I am making some progress - just not as good as I would like to do.

Well I guess there is always tomorrow available for me to improve.

Off the Rails

After the disappointment of how things went last week I pretty much went off the rails this week and wasn't doing just about anything right. Although I guess yesterday I did have my 4 servings of vegetables and my 8 glasses of water.   And perhaps that is the start I needed to get back on track.

I hit my Wii again this morning and had a good fun workout with it.  And I want to mention that I found a discussion board somewhere where someone recommended putting the wii remote into her bra strap during the running - I tried it out and it really does work for keeping your pace even.  I was always holding it in my hand and struggling to keep my little mii from looking like a drunk staggering home.  The bra works so much better because I don't have the distraction of what is going wrong with my mii I can concentrate on just trying to improve my running in spot - which oddly is one of my favourite activities on the thing.

So I am hoping that today is a good back on the rails day.  I feel much better and feel much more like getting myself back on track than I did earlier in the week.

Consumer Products Rant

Well I am irritated beyond belief with the constant inundation on tv.  Ads for all kinds of junk that we don't need and most frustrating of all is the ads that prompt us to replace good reusable products with disposable things that will go in the garbage.  And especially galling is how those ads go about trying to convince reasonable people to throw away their money and the environment along with it - by building up fears upon fears upon fears.

Don't get me wrong I think we should have a healthy respect for what viruses, bacteria etc can do to us but we should also have a reasonable approach to this.  Just because the media has pumped up massive fears of whatever the virus flavour of the day is doesn't mean that we should cover ourselves in anti bacterial whatevers and spray every surface in our home with some awful chemical compound and throw away all of our cloths, towels etc and replace them with some disposable handwipe covered in who knows what kind of product to make it white and soft and "nice" smelling.

Well rant over for the day.

New Weigh In Plan

Well I see that the daily weigh in with it's little ups and downs is a bit too much of a roller coaster for me.  I like that I have never been obsessed with weighing myself and knowing if I gained a half a pound or lost a half a pound.  And I saw that changing with the daily weigh ins.  And I definitely know I was frustrated the other day - and I let that make me decide on a "who cares" kind of a weekend - at least as far as eating was concerned (think I only had 4 servings of vegetables all weekend long and I don't want to talk about the junk food I consumed and the late night eating I did).  The one thing I will miss about doing the daily weigh in is the age test. I kind of enjoyed doing those each day.

So I now plan to weigh myself once a week and I think I will do it every Monday morning.  So that is today and unfortunately I am back up half of what I was down since I started this 109.1.  Needless to say I am disappointed with my results but am going to work on improving.

Yesterday was interesting though.  I got a chance to try out the XBox Kinect yesterday and it was a lot of fun and a pretty good workout (my quads got more of a workout from it than they really have from most of the Wii stuff).  But overall I would say that both are really good and it is nice that I might have the chance to go over and use the Kinect on occasion to change up the routine but that overall I am just as happy to have my regular workout be on the Wii which I consider just as much fun.

Frustrating week

Okay so I know I did bad the one night and ate really bad for me snacks etc but since then I have been doing decently on the food front (admittedly I did eat 6 pecan halves last night).  But for the last several days my weight has been going up steadily and I just can't figure it out.  I have been doing my workouts and I have been eating relatively good choices.

Yesterday I did pretty much miss lunch though. So I guess it isn't just about what I am eating for me it is clearly also very much about when I am eating.  And it isn't just about the late night snacks being a problem.  So I am going to try going back to trying to get into the routine of eating a bunch of smaller meals several times a day and see if that gets me anywhere.

Bad Crystal

Well I guess not really so terribly bad, but still I would sure like to see myself be doing better than I am right now.  So this morning I had to change my routine a little bit to give the spousal unit a ride to work.  So what did I do, instead of taking an orange or apple to eat on the way (prior to my morning workout and body test on the wii) I stopped at good old Timmies for a breakfast sandwich.  I suspect it's clunky presence in my gut is the reason my weight went up today - otherwise I suspect it would have just sat at the same amount as yesterday.

So I guess it is time for me to stop deceiving myself that all I need to do is stop eating late night snacks and somehow magically my little short workouts each day will transform me to the slim and in shape girl I once was.  But I also know that here at home I am not terribly likely to get into a perfect eating routine, the influence of the other household member is a bit too strong for me to overcome.  So I will start with a couple small things.

1.  Eight glasses of water a day (I will add something to the side bar on this blog once I figure out a good way to note it).
2. 4 servings of vegetables a day and ditto on the tracking on the blog.

Also just thought I would mention this article http://stillettochick.typepad.com/blog/2010/11/making-peace-with-your-body.html.  I appreciate the sentiment of it, I am not sure if I will be kissing or writing a letter anytime soon but I do believe that we need to make peace to move forward.  I find it easiest to make peace with my body when I am doing some of the yoga on my Wii.  I am very happy that my body has maintained a lot of flexibility despite the other challenges I have with it.

Figured it out

Ah the snack was so not science, unless it was some kind of sneaky olfactory science.  I realized the trigger for my snack the other night.  We have this Saskatoon berry tea and it smells amazing.  The remains of a cup of the tea were sitting near me and the smell was incredible.  But instead of going and making myself a cup of the tea to satisfy the cravings it created with its smell I ate that stupid muffin.  Well I am glad I recognized what the trigger was.

Today it is minus 40 out and I overslept so no Wii workout this morning, just a very cold walk to work today and hopefully I will work in a workout when I get home from work.  Wish me luck since I am not usually that good at getting in an evening workout.

In the name of science? right

I would like to tell myself that my late night snack last night (half of a big chocolate muffin) was really a test of my belief that late night snacking is the worst culprit in my quest to lose some weight.  Yeah right, it was all about science and testing my theory.  It couldn't have anything to do with my entire lack of willpower and a completely unexamined need to eat that muffin that was sitting there.  The worst part is that I had stayed up later than I should have, I was tired and I wasn't hungry at all but I still insisted on eating that muffin.  And to add to the bad, I also didn't really reflect - to try to see what was driving the urge to eat that.  I just told myself I would see how it affected me.

Grrrrrr! But the good thing is that I can't get away with using that same excuse again.  Hopefully not after writing this down.  Well - I am going to work really hard on keeping those night time snacks off the plate as it were.

Batteries!!! :(

Well batteries were a little bit of a bane of my existence this weekend.  The batteries in my Wii remote were done for and I had no replacements.  And despite my best efforts I could not find any place in the city that has a solar battery recharger - I found some on line that have a nice flexible solar panel that you plug your batteries into and they get recharged.  Instead I ended up having to get a standard battery recharger.

Saturday morning I had to work so I didn't work out in the morning and then the battery issue kept me off my Wii for both Saturday and Sunday.  But this morning I got in a nice workout and I am happy to say I am down in the Kg department once again.  Just need to keep up this pace and I will be slim and slender in about another 3 years :).  But seriously it is good to feel engaged in something like this, where I feel bad about missing days because I like what I am doing.

Changing the type of digital dummy I am

Last night I watched a documentary on Doc Zone http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/ on whether we are becoming digital dummies.  Some of what they said certainly rang home - especially when I think of my phases where I was completely hooked on an internet game.  But I am glad to say I am not currently playing any internet games that have me sitting at my computer for hours and hours at a time!  What I am hooked on is my Wii but in a good way.  Still going strong with a half hour workout each day.  And planning to get myself another fitness game so I can add some variety to the mix in case I start getting tired of this one.

Today I finally managed to hit one of my goals.  I hit it early but I think my pace is good and safe I haven't been going crazy with dieting or anything like that, just avoiding the late night eating.  So I am pretty happy with my progress although tonight (Friday) is always one of the harder days for me to avoid my bad habits so we will see how I do tomorrow.

And colour me confused.  The other day when I was posting I could swear I remembered the weights on my chart just fine so when I wrote about it I was sure I knew what they were.  But alas perhaps I am becoming a digital dummy and maybe my reliance on technology is shrinking my brain and killing my memory!  On the 17th I was actually 109.2 so down 1.2 Kg not 108.4.  But nevertheless today I am at 108.3 and I reached my goal as I mentioned before.  So the new goal is 1.2 Kg in 2 weeks - wish me luck!

New Options

Just found a really interesting list of fitness games for the Wii.  Am looking forward to trying some of them out!

http://www.nutwiisystem.com/best-wii-exercise-games.html

A Huge Success?

I have been Wii, Wii, Wiiing all the way home.  Well technically I guess I have been Wii, Wii, Wiiing at home.  Just about a month ago I got a Wii and Wii fit plus as an advance present for my big 40.  I had tried it out at my sister's place and really enjoyed it.  So knowing that I don't really like the whole "go to the gym and exercise" thing I was hoping this would be an enjoyable alternative to that.  And it has been!

While my first month has not seen me lose a tonne of weight (just 4.4 pounds) it has been a great discovery process.  I have zigzagged all over the place on improving my eating habits in conjunction with using the Wii fit almost every day.  And what I have discovered is that those dirty old night time snacking habits are the most certain way for me to see an upward spike in my weight chart.  It seems like regardless of how good or bad I have done during the day with my food choices, the one that seems to currently be making all the difference is the after 8:00 eating choices.  When I don't eat after 8 I go down in weight, if I eat anything more than an apple slice after 8:00 my weight goes up.  And the more I eat late the more it goes up.

So my goal for right now is to just avoid those late night snacks and see how I do.  At some point I am sure that will no longer be enough for me to concentrate on but I can't wii, wii, wii, all the way home if I don't start out with some first steps!