Week 2 went pretty well over all and I was feeling empowered! In fact one of my tweets was "i am kicking a$$ and it feels goooooood!" I had just gotten back from the gym and had ran my normal mile but this time I had increased the last lap to 7.0! I was pouring sweat and feeling so energized that i was close to bouncing off the walls. Then week 3 happened.... but we will get to that in the next post. (NOTE: I am writing this post a week late due to schedule conflicts revolving around birthdays!)
And I present to you: Week #2 in Bullet Points
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• I exercised 6 out of 7 days! (My goal is to workout 5-6 days a week.)
• I haven't technically researched restaurants that we frequent but I have been good about researching before we actually go.
• Tried the Zumba class at the gym and LOVED it! Also I confirmed I still have no rhythm.
• Zero fast food! Whoop Whoop!
• Jogged 3 laps at 5.5mph and last lap at 7.0 - no problem!
• Woke up Friday at 8:00am!
• Finished blogging about resolutions.
• Got my reading back from the last time I gave blood and my cholesterol was back to 181!!! yay!
• Lost 2 pounds
FAILURES
• Totally missed my calorie goal 2 days and possible missed it a 3rd day. On the day I am unsure about we ate at my Aunt's house and I can not for anything find calorie info on the stirfry stuff she fed us. She is on weight watchers and has been very successful at it so im thinking it can't be too horrible but still i couldn't find anything close on the internet.
• Ate 2 desserts!! One of them i accounted for because it was my birthday dinner with my family but the second i just pigged out and it unfortunately it was the beginning of a downward spiral into week #3.
• Water intake was hit or miss each day. Some days I would drink plenty, the next i would barely down 2 glasses.
• Snoozes all over the place! Ack! I continue to fail horribly at the morning person thing.
LEARNED
• Drinking enough water greatly reduces the hungry urge. I noticed on days i didn't drink enough water i stayed hungry and kept wanting to snack throughout the day. On days I did drink enough water I sometimes would be okay to skip snacks. Which is good on days i go straight to the gym after work because i end up eating 3 snacks to get some "fuel" in my system for the workout. I read somewhere long ago that the hungry urge and thirsty urge were actually really similar and a lot of people get them confused and end up over eating. After observing my water intake i totally agree with that statement.
• Beans are surprisingly fatty. I know they are good for the protein but you are looking at close to 150 calories just for a cup of beans. For example Kidney beans are 110 for a HALF of a cup!
• Last week i wrote that i learned that a grilled chicken breast has 430 calories and i was floored! Well this week i can happily correct that statement! I had gotten the 430 from "thedailyplate.com" which i thought was pretty accurate but when i requested the nutritional info direct from Tyson on their 5oz boneless/skinless chicken breast I found that it is actually only 170 calories! yippee!!! This just reaffirmed my issue with trying to find calorie info on the internet - it can be so drastically different so you dont know who to trust. I try to check at least 3 sources and take an average of them.
• Speaking of references to trust for calorie info, i found "myfoodapedia.gov" and i feel really good about it. It seems to have a lot of foods in there (except kiwi for some weird reason) and it lets you put in your own serving size so it is really flexible. Also I trust their info a little more because most of it (maybe all?) has been verified with the Department of Agriculture and i figure they should be good at determining that stuff, right?
• Last week one of my goals was to get a Heart Rate Monitor Watch for my birthday....well as I researched them i realized that the really accurate ones require the use of a chest strap and im not so sure about that. I would really like to find someone, preferable a girl, that has used one to see if they are more trouble than they are worth. They do have some watches that don't require a strap but those seem to be a lot less accurate and wouldn't be any different then the monitor on the machines. I want the truest reading possible and i think to get that i would need to constantly monitor my heart rate.
• If you skip all the other ones, read this one. I think no matter what diet you are on you will find circumstances where it is near impossible to make a good choice. Sure, there will be "best" choices but that doesn't make them good. I have two examples:
1. Certain restaurants just aren't healthy. One example is eating at Red Lobster, we were thinking about going there so I looked up their calorie info and not one thing on the menu was under 500 calories! Not one item! We didn't end up going there needless to say.
2. Social outings can be difficult. My husband and I have decently busy social lives. It is pretty much guaranteed that at least one night a week we will eat out with friends. For the most part we decide ahead of time and i can look over the menu and everything is dandy. However, one night this week some friends called us and asked us to eat and we were trying to figure out where to eat at. Several ideas were thrown on the table from both sides and we slowly vetoed each location because one couple didn't feel like that type of food or because i couldn't find one healthy thing there. This decision making process ended up taking 45 minutes!!! We didn't get to sit down to eat until 8:30! (and then we ended up changing our minds at the last minute and going somewhere totally different, haha) In the end I felt really bad because I felt part of the reason it took so long was because of my "diet" restrictions.
The most common solutions to this that i have read about are: To have one free day a week where you can eat what you want. (Use this day to fit in your weakness foods, like chocolate or fries.) Or after a goal has been met, like a certain weight, have a reward day.
Well, I don't like these solutions. Now that I have been eating better I feel really crappy when i eat horribly for a whole day and i also feel that would create a set back in a week's worth of progress that i have made. Also if I am so happy about meeting a certain goal, why in the world would I celebrate by doing that one thing that caused me to be miserable in the first place?!
I think I have found a good compromise: Have one free MEAL a week.
You can cushion this meal by saving up as many calories as possible before or after so you aren't completely defeating your over arcing goal but at the same time it isn't impossible to decide where to eat with friends. This would also help special situations like birthdays or family dinner nights since you don't want to be too demanding on what they cook and even if you were, who knows what they are cooking with (butter VS margarine, mayo VS light mayo, etc) Trying to figure out how many calories are in Grandma's famous meatloaf would be pretty much impossible. The key here is, as always, planning ahead. You don't want to use your free day on Tuesday with family night and then on Friday your friends call and want to go to Red Lobster for their birthday.
GOALS
Since i am blogging this a week behind I'm not going to do goals because that would be cheating since i already know what happens, haha.
SUMMARY
Well, even though I missed my calorie goal i really feel like this was a great week. I tried new things, I increased my workout, i learned a lot and theorized some new things. I might have actually done better during week 3 if I had blogged about this when I was suppose to because I feel pretty pumped about all my successes!
I can't change the past to I might as well go ahead and tell you about week #3... gulp! (see next post)
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