9-11-2015: Numbers and Tools

Hey everyone.  I spent so much time yesterday getting my son some school in since he is home schooled and doing the grocery and getting stuff ready for this blog, I so lost track of time and didn't get to get to posting it.  Sorry it is a day late, but here we go.  This focuses on the NUMBERS that I am focused on.  And ones I refuse to pay attention too.

YOU HAVE TO KNOW YOUR NUMBERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Without knowing them you can't really do anything.  At least I don't think so.  And on this please be HONEST with yourself.  You have to be honest about your age, your height and weight to get the right numbers.  Whether you are like me and share it for the world to see, or you keep it to yourself either way.  Just be honest.  I got mine using the free android app Fitness Calculator.

My numbers are as follows: (In feet and inches as well as cm and pounds as well as kilos)

Height: 160cm or 5'3"

Weight: 210lbs or 95kg

Goal Weight: 130lbs or 57kg

Age: 33 (yes I know old lol idc)

Sex: Female

Life Activity: 1 of five stars (Because I won't lie right now my exercise is limited lol)

Now using that information I get the numbers that I am really REALLY concerned about.  My Daily Caloric intake to maintain this weight, Max Heart Rate, Training Heart Rate.

Daily intake to maintain weight with light activity level: 1,950

Max Heart Rate: 181

Training Heart Rate: 121-158

NOW I go back and change the numbers of my weight.  I keep them both at 130lbs or 57kg, AND change my life activity star.  I am not going to go hard core get up and work out ten times a day every day and eat salad every day.  Nope.  I am just going to take it up from 1 to 3.5.  Here is what the new result are:

Height: 160cm or 5'3"

Weight: 130lbs or 57kg

Goal Weight: 130lbs or 57kg

Age: 33

Sex: Female

Life Activity 3.5 stars

Daily intake to maintain weight with higher activity level: 1,822

Max Heart Rate: 181

Training heart Rate: 121-158

Not much of a change I know.  But that is because even though you are dropping weight your activity level is going up and contrary to popular belief, your body does need calories lol.  It is like fuel for a car as I have been told.  If you don't have the calories in your body to burn for the energy to do what you want to do, you won't have the energy, you will be tired and just blah.  Not good.  Not good at all.

You will see that with this post I IGNORE 100% the BMI number.  Body Mass Index is flawed I swear.  For my height and everything it says that I am severely obese and I am not I know I am not.  It also says that a healthy BMI for me is for me to be between 100-115 pounds.  OH HELL NO.  I want to be healthy not look like I starve myself.  I want to be healthy and fit to stick around for my son.  Not keep going this way and not end up being here to take care of him, or getting too skinny and that stops me from doing it.  I was 115 pounds at one point in my life, a very dark point in my life and I looked sick.  Really just sick like I didn't eat anything at all ever.  I didn't like that.

Anyway back to the plan.  Okay, so to get to my goal of 130 pounds (57 kilos) I need to stay UNDER 2,000 pounds right?  With the way everything is processed today and what not, kinda hard I know.  But if you take your time, put the time into it, and do the research you can do this and not feel like you are starving yourself either.  You can feel full and eat ALOT while you diet and lose weight.  I know it and I am going to prove it.

1. Make a list of your absolute fave foods that you love to eat.  Read all the nutrition information about it.  Calories per serving, serving size, sodium, sugar, starch all of it.  Because some foods, like pasta, white rice, bread and what not are LOADED with starch and that turns to sugar in the body, which adds to the sugar intake of everything else, which adds to your calories.  See it is all linked in and tied to each other.

2. DO NOT DEPRIVE YOURSELF!  Cut back yes.  If it is something you don't care if you eat or not you just do cause it tastes good, cut it out.  If you look at something like I look at Mt. Dew and you would go insane if you gave it up, you couldn't do it.  DON'T just cut back and supplement some things.  Like I am cutting back on it.  I will drink a glass or two, then three or four cups of green tea.  Then more pop.  Then more tea.  I still get my pup just not a two liter a day that way.  If you can drink more water do that too.

3. DO IT THE RIGHT WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can't tell you how many people I hear saying they want to lose 10, 20, 30 pounds in a a week or two.  That isn't good for your body and typically means that you are doing it in a way that is harmful too.  NO way should you do that.  Do it right.  A pound or two a week.  It may take a little longer, but you will get there and be better off when you do get there.

4. COUNT!!!!!  Counting is a pain yes I know.  But once you get into the habit of it you will be fine.  It took me a while but now I find when I pick something up at the grocery store I go right to the sugars and the calories in the nutrition facts.

Tools.  Pills no.  Tools yes.  I am going to invest the money into a fitbit watch and put the app on my phone.  That way I will be able to adjust my daily intake according to how many calories I am burning that day.  Since it monitors your heart rate and tells you how many calories your body burns.  SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO important to do that.  You got to know how many calories your body burns durring an activity.  There is no universal it will burn this much if you do this for this long.  Nope.  I tried that with a 50 dollar watch I had a year ago.  Turbo Jam.  Zumba.  And even a Tae Bo workout.  Said I would burn, depending on the one between 500-850 calories.  I was a good 100-150 calories off each!  One size does not fit all in how a body burns calories or how fast for how long.  Other than this, and the rest over it, This is the only tool I am going to be using folks.  Promise.

The plan.  Here is how I have figured out that you can eat OVER what your goal is without going over it.  Hehehehe offsetting it.  It really is everywhere, but so many people I see out there don't seem to know about it or won't talk about it with others so I am going to put it here for the world to see today.  At least maybe someone might read this blog and it help them.

My daily goal is 2,000 to maintain.  Well 3,500 calories are in one pound.  Sooooo, I took the 3,500 and divided it by 7.  I will need to shed off 500 calories a day.  Well that can be done with just a little moving around.  Shaving off 500 of 2000 is now at 1500.  My goal for each and every day is 1500 calories and in that time, I will lose at least 1 pound a week.  It can be more, because as you move around and do the exercise, that not only helps you burn calories, but it also helps transform some of the fat into muscle which will help you lose weight also.

Want to feel like you are eating between 2000-2500 calories a day and feel like you are not depriving yourself of food?  SIMPLE move around some more.  You can eat up to a pound a day if you got workouts that will help you burn off anything over than what your goal is.  But if you don't have the workouts that will offset it, then you have to be more careful about what you eat and really count your calories.

1500 calories in a day.  Then lets say during the day I go for a walk, around my local township lake which, 2 laps is 1 mile and I walk around it six times for a total of three miles and in that time I burn off 250 calories.  Then I come home, and I get on my Gazell that I have.  I do that for about an hour.  I burn 175 calories (Cause lets be honest again, walking and swinging your legs is not going to burn 500+ calories all the time).  Then a few hours later I do a small 20 min cardio workout and burn 300 calories.  Instead of eating ONLY 1500 calories that are still sitting in my body, I actually burned off 725 calories.  That means that at some point before I go to bed, I could if I wanted to eat another meal, or snack or whatever that is up to 500 calories.  The end result is that I ate 2000 calories.  Burned off 725, and the end result is that I actually only ate 1,275 calories that are still left in my body.  WHICH gets destroyed by my RMR.  (Resting Metabolic Rate, the amount of calories that your body burns when 100 percent at rest.  Mine is a 1,625,)

That is how I am watching my numbers and what tools I use to keep track of everything and go from there.  I hope that this helps you all when you are doing the research to start losing weight yourself.  Also I think before you go any further than here you need to decide exactly what it is you are losing weight for.  Yourself.  Your family.  Your health.  Those are all great reasons and I encourage you to want to do that for those reasons.  NOT because the egotistical society says you have to look a certain way or you are not pretty or some junk like that.  To hell with them, they don't live your life and deal with your problems or pay your bills.  They got no hold over your life that they can have the right to tell you what you should or should not look like.

9-9-2015: Weight Loss Journey Day 1

Well today is September 9, 2015 and this is the start of my blog that I am going to do each day.  That's right EVERY SINGLE DAY I will post a blog post about what I am doing and how I am doing in my journey through weight loss.  Not a topic that most talk about really, but something that is hitting home for me.  I find myself getting tired all the time, and just feeling not right.  I have had my cholesterol checked, blood pressure, sodium, thyroid, and even an EKG to check my heart and breathing tests.  Everything is coming back normal and the way it should be.  So that only leaves the fact that I am about 60-70 pounds OVER WEIGHT.

*drops head with long sigh* I had always been about 125-135 when I was in high school.  No matter what I ate or what I did.  It didn't matter I was never over that.  Well then I found out on May 5, 2004 that I was 8 weeks pregnant.  My son was born on December 31, 2004.  He was a 42 week baby, and I didn't get to have him naturally.  My bones did not give enough and my body just wouldn't do what it needed to do so that I could have him the natural way.  I had to have a C-Section at 5:50 in the morning with him on the last day of the year.

While that is by far the absolute BEST day of my life.  But that was also the start of my problems with weight loss and weight gain.  I was 125 pounds on the day that I found out that I was eight weeks pregnant.  I was 230 pounds the day that I gave birth to my nearly nine pound son.  And only just in the last few months have I gotten down from that.  I was all elated at one point that I was actually 198 pounds.  I was under 200, which I had never been since the birth of my boy.  I was happy as a lark as they say.  But then I checked my weight yesterday and I am back up to 210.  Not the 230 that I was when he was born.  But it still depressed me that I was back over 200 after all.  That hit me really hard.

I have been doing LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of research online about different things that I can do to help me start to lose it again, and keep losing it but at a healthy rate.

Not to sound like I am being rude, but those that would want to comment on this, before you do, you need to get this.  And I know it is in all caps but I just want my point across.  I WILL NOT EVER BE TAKING ANY KIND OF A DIET PILL TO HELP ME LOSE WEIGHT AT ALL IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

I know that it isn't the case for some.  But I just feel that if you use a pill that makes you not want to eat ONLY when you are taking it, if you don't make that lifestyle change to do so then you aren't going to keep it off.  Garcinia Gambogia for example.  Some say it works.  Some say it doesn't.  To be honest the one time that I tried that I was constipated a lot.  Didn't like that much at all.  But if you have to take a pill to lose weight in the first place, my way of thinking is that if you don't make the changes to your life and how you think then when you stop taking that pill.  You will end up gaining it all back because you aren't changing what and how you eat.  If you don't do that there is no way that you can ever hope to lose weight and then keep it off when you stop taking the pill that you helped you lose it.  None.  So I am DETERMINED to do it the right way and change my lifestyle and how I eat to keep the weight off and maintain a healthy weight and keep it there.

I will be eating of course WAY more protein and veggies than anything.  I guess it is a good thing that I like most veggies that are out there.  There are a few I don't like, but that can be worked around and who knows.  With the way and style of cooking I want to adopt, maybe I will be able to work those I don't like into my diet.  Ya never know.

Okay.  Here are the steps that I have been taking recently on how to really get a mind set on the changes that I am going to have to make in my daily routine and my life as a whole to not only lose weight but just be healthy.

1. Know my numbers at start and know my numbers when I reach my goal.  This is important for a few reasons I think.  I don't really put much stock in my BMI number though.  That says that my healthy weight should be between 110 and 115 pounds.  If I get bellow 125 I look sick and anorexic.  That isn't good.  But for the 130 that I want to reach it says I am obese.  I know I am not but it says I am so I just don't put much stock in that.  But now your recommended intake to lose, maintain or gain weight I do follow.  Especially with activity levels.  What most don't get and I have gotten is that if you don't eat enough calories in a day to get the energy you need to keep up with the level of activity that you want to have.  It won't happen at all.  You can't eat say 1500 calories a day and the go out and do a 3 hour work out.  You are going to do more harm to your body than good that way.  I also watch my heart rate while at rest and when I am doing things.  I don't want to over do it, but I don't want to do too little either.

2. As much as people say it is a pain, and it can be, counting counting counting COUNTING everything.  Whether it is from the amount of sugar per serving and the serving sizes to the calories or cholesterol.  It doesn't matter what it is you kinda gotta know what the numbers are of the stuff you eat and keep track of it to a point.  But that goes in with the life changes.  If you drink 5 glasses of Mt Dew (using this cause it is in front of me.  One thing I will never give up on totally) out of a 2 liter bottle, you are drinking 850 calories right there.  Then add in a 750 calorie dinner, along with the 300 calorie lunch and say 500 calories of snacking.  If 5 glasses of Mt Dew is 850, that is not so far fetched ya know.  So that would be a grand total of: 2400 Calories that you ate.  And that is not counting the sugar, or starch or anything else that is in the foods that would turn straight to fats the second you eat them.  If your goal to lose weight is 2000, and you only lost 250 calories for that day.  You are 150 calories over.  You won't lose weight, but over time you would still gain weight becasue you are not at your goal.  But but but but but but but but but BUT there is a way and I will talk about that in a different blog that you can continue to eat and eat and eat and eat as much as 3000 in a day, and still maintain your goal of 2000.

3. Eating foods from other countries.  If you really look into it and you do the work that it takes, there are lots of 'super foods' that are in different countries that are really good, and they can help you lose weight.  Like Konnyaku.  There are lots of videos on youtube and other information you can get about it online.  And it comes in many different ways.  But it is a jelly like food that can be cooked in a noddle formed, seasoned with the rest of the stuff you make and helps keep you full, full of fiber which you need and no calories or anything.  It is actually really awesome and you can't tell that they are jelly like before they are cooked when you make them.  I have tried them in with the tofu for miso soup and they are wonderful.  And Miso is actually good for you too.  A lot of the Japanese foods, the traditional, not over processed foods are really good for you.  Because aside from the sumo wrestlers, not many Japanese people are really that big, unless they eat all the unhealthy stuff that you can get at any restaurant there just like here.

4. Portion sizes.  Smaller meals, more often has been clinically proven to help someone lose weight no matter the country.  Couple that with something that is extra good for you that makes you feel full without feeling like you committed some huge crime.  Perfect right.

5.  Commitment.  You have to commit yourself to not only doing these things or it will never work.  You can't stop what you are doing now for three days, lose a few pounds and think 'Oh I can treat myself to some chocolate' and then you eat like 10 pieces and go a few days with no moving around.  Yeah that weight is gonna come right back.  No doubt about it.  If you are going to do this, and you are committed to doing this like I am right now.  You will be able to do it and thrive I am sure of it.  This is to help you out with a few things that I learn over the course of this.  As well as things I know now and anything that helps me or doesn't help me.

Tomorrow I will do a series of blogs that will highlight where I am now, where I want to go, and a few things that I want to get to help me out.  Like a Fitbit watch that will keep track of not only my heart rate but calories burned for the different thing that I am going to be doing. :D