Practice What You Preach

Do I practice everything I preach?  UUUH....EErrrr.  No.  Don't tell my kids! 

OK.  There are a few things I recommend to those trying to lose weight that I don't do myself.  I am going to lay it out there for you to scoff at me.  I weigh myself every day.  Sometimes more than once!    There.  I said it.  Just saying it out loud (blogging)  makes me feel better.

Why not weigh every day?  If you are losing 1 or 2 pounds per week it stands to reason that there are going to be days when the scale stays the same.  Or heaven forbid, goes UP!!!  ACCCKKK!  Like all humans, we get frustrated when we are working toward something and we don't see results.  Intellectually, we know that our weight-loss results don't always immediately follow our good behavior.  When we step on the scale after a stellar day of healthful eating and see no change, it's a recipe for frustration.  Frustration equals cookie binge.

Our bodies are a fluid universe.  Daily fluctuations in hormones, body temperature and other factors can influence our fluid retention.  This fluid can show up on the scale after a day of fish and vegetables and exercise just to aggrivate you.  Your aggrivated self just might not make the same effort it did the day before just out of sheer frustration.  Do yourself a favor, save yourself the aggrivation.  Weigh youself once a week so you can see the scale move!

Vitamins?

I get many questions about taking vitamins.  The most common one, "Should I?"  The short answer is yes.  But you know I'm going to give you the long answer. lol.  Let me start by reminding you about my deficiencies.  Remember the ones I learned of on myfitnesspal.com?
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies?  I'm still flabbergasted about my remiss.

Remiss:  Lacing care or attention to duty; negligent.

I love food.  We have a close relationship.  Obsessive even?  Maybe.  I cannot think of one food I don't like.  Not one.  Brussels sprouts?  MMMM.  Halved and grilled to a caramelized deliciousness.  Yes.  Lima beans?  Soft and buttery sauteed with a bit of spicy sausage.  I'm in.  It is not hard for me to get my servings of veggies in every day.  I love them.  Just this morning I threw baby spinach, red bell pepper, and green spring onions in my scrambled eggs and loved it.  With all these veggies flying around you would think I was meeting my nutritional needs.  WRONG.

What I'm getting at is even with the best diet, there are nutritional gaps that need to be met.    You don't want to be running around with deficiencies!  Why?  Disease prevention, heart health, mental well being to name a few reasons.  So a good daily multivitamin in essential.  I would recommend a good omega 3 for everyone too if I had my druthers (my grandpa used to say that! ) And you want to get the good stuff.  Talk to Dr. Jakob or Dr. Murphy about what they would recommend for you.  

Part II

Part II of the I can't get enough of my app series...lol!  MyFitnessPal has you enter your exercise for the day (if you did any) AND the amount of time you spent doing it.  No.  You don't have to log 0 minutes of jumping rope!!  The app then tells you how many calories you burned doing that exercise.  It takes into account your age, gender, weight etc.  Why?  Because everyone is different.

My husband and I went on a 30 minute bicycle ride...he burned 350 calories.  I burned 265 calories.  FOR THE SAME BIKE RIDE!  Yes, I know he weighs more and has more muscle mass and he has to work a little bit harder to peddle that additional 50lbs around...but come on...almost 100 more calories worth?!!  UUUUGH!  Men, you don't know how lucky you are.  By the same token, I'm 5'6" and burn more than my friend who is 5'1" and weighs barely a buck 10.  I guess we all have our crosses to bear.

So not only do we all burn at a different rate, we don't burn as much as we think.  Or at least as much as I think we should!  Walking at a brisk pace for 30 minutes burns 166 calories for me.  Jogging 12 minute miles for 30 minutes burns 265 calories.  It really isn't all that much.  Don't get me wrong.  We should still do it.  Cardiovascular health, muscle tone, stress relief, bone density are just a few of the reasons we should exercise.  Just don't use it as a license to eat what you want.  That will certainly backfire!

The key is to exercise AND eat right.  Don't we hear that all the time?  lol.  It sounds so easy.  But if it were easy we'd all be doing it...super fit and trim.  For all of us normal folks trying our best, each day is a new day to eat right and exercise.  And tomorrow, and the day after that too.