Doom

I think that I have made some definitive strides in my health goals since April, if nothing else but having a more healthy focus and definitily being better about at least THINKING about exercising and even most of the time, wanting to exercise. I also seem to like my body as it is more and more often, which is good. I don't know if it has changed or I have changed. My mom keeps reminding me to stop lamenting that I look like a woman and not a 16 year-old girl anymore. Yes, I have hips now and body fat. It has taken me years to figure that out.

However, I am nervous. Internship is coming very quickly upon me. I am worried about maintaining these goals I am so imperfect on during a year of extreme physical and mental duress! Things like:

80 hour work weeks-- meaning lack of sleep, physical exhuastion, lack of time, stress--all that may negatively impact my eating and exercise habits
Early mornings-- rounds by 6:30 am, sometimes earlier.
Late nights--being on call about every 3rd night.
Stress--cheeseburgers and fries? vegging out?
Cafeteria food-- (see above)

I can see 2 events occuring.

1) gain a million pounds because I am too tired/busy/stressed to exercise, eat right, etc
2) lose too much weight because I am too tired/busy/stressed to eat...

We'll see how I fair! I think I need to develop some very specific goals to combat these changes. Not sure what but something like eating only salad or veggies for lunch or walking the track for an hour each day during lunch or after clinic?

Any suggestions?

Sparkpeople.com

Hi everyone!

It's been awhile since this blog has seen any action, and I definitely haven't done my part as a contributor, but I wanted to let you know about a website that I just started using ("just" meaning today--but so far it seems great).

sparkpeople.com

You put in your goal (lose weight, maintain, etc.) and it comes up with a customized plan for you. It gives you menus for exactly what you should eat for each meal and snack, as well as the breakdown of calories, carbs, fats, and protein in each item. If you don't follow the recommended meals, though (which I didn't), you just enter in the food that you did eat. You can search for just about anything, even restaurant food (I had Subway for lunch and it was in there). You can see the range of calories, carbs, fat, and protein you should be eating each day to reach your goal, and the site keeps track for you.

It does pretty much the same thing with exercise; gives you a recommended work out for the day (complete with demos), or you can enter in whatever you decide to do on your own and it will calculate the calories you burn. The site also has groups you can join of people in your area, age group, etc. if the group dynamic helps you.

I've seen sites like this before that seemed confusing or time consuming, but this one seems to be really intuitive and fun. Like I said, it's only been a day, but I like it so far...

I promise I don't work for sparkpeople.com either--I was not paid to write this:) Oh, and speaking of money, the site is free (or you can bet I wouldn't be bothering with it).

I've also heard of one called fitday, but haven't tried it.

Let me know if you give it a try!

Running questions?

I went jogging again yesterday. Abe and I have slowly been incorporating this into our workout schedule. Okay, we don't really have a schedule, but it seems we end up going once or twice a week amid other things we are doing to stay in shape.

We have developed a little run that takes exactly 30 minutes. This is a good sized run for two non-runners. However, the past few times it has been very difficult. About minute 20 I feel wheezy and exhausted. I haven't been able to finish the entire run without taking some walking breaks in between. It is so frustrating because I used to be able to run an hour or more without trouble.

It seems it is very trendy to do marathons or half marathons and if you are super cool, triathlons. It seems everyone is doing it.

So my question is, HOW do you do it? I feel like I am dying after probably 2 miles (I hope it is at least 2 miles!).

What tips do you have for a poor runner who never seems to make improvements?

Sweatin

We took our bikes in to the shop to get serviced. After 550 miles, it was probably time. I have only logged 8 miles this year. Rain, cold, darkness have kept me away. Now that it is finally getting warmer I look forward to some more biking and another good form of exercise.

I also bought some well needed running shoes for $30! Yay. They were so comfortable and I really think they seem to propel me forward. I still can't believe how tired I get while running. I used to be good at going for at least an hour. Now, 15 minutes is almost a killer. I hope to change this with consistency! It is so hard to see results, though. I hope I do!

Consequences??

In real estate, we have a quarterly newsletter where all the bad things other Realtors did get posted to the whole Utah REALTOR Organization. It is very motivating to stay out of "the funny pages".

I was thinking that since we never figured out a common incentive for this forum, we could just publish on Facebook if someone doesn't post at least once every 2 weeks. At least if you are keeping us posted on your progress, good or bad, you are still trying.

It would be like a public disgrace to see your name posted on Facebook that you are ???

Starting to Feel Good

I've forced myself to the gym pretty regularly...family scuba vacation pretty motivating. I have been hitting the weights hard on my legs...100 reps. Yesterday, I think I actually noticed a difference in the shape of my thighs. I think I am starting to feel good about the work too instead of dreadful to continue. That is a good motivator.

Victory!

I want to share a small personal success. I revamped one of my goals last weekend and I want to say that this was week 1 of VICTORY. My goal was to not eat candy/treats/desserts this week except for on Saturday/Sunday and I DID IT. And, I plan to do it again this week! Yay for achieving goals even if they are simple and small.

FYI: My one treat this week was frozen yogurt with cookie dough pieces. yum!