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.