Someone I keep up with on an art community website has set a new rule for herself and I plan on following in her footsteps with it. I think that in the long run it will prove to be effective and habit changing. To her it was a matter of breaking up an addiction with the internet which honestly... I think I need to do the same.
The new rule is: Do at least 30 minutes of cardio type exercise before getting on the computer.
I'm adding on more to it - If I break this rule, I am to do the exercise for 30 minutes at least three times during the day.
The point of adding on that is merely as a consequence. My goal isn't to just do exercises, it is to change my habit of jumping on the computer first thing. I'm going to be training myself to be more responsible with how I spend my time. As my friend has said "I want to be sure to get in at least that much exercise before I sit down and lose myself with the computer all day." Totally makes sense, since some of us (myself especially included) tend to hop on the computer and before we know it, it's time for bed. Even if we get up from our chairs for food or bathroom breaks.
The cardio exercise I have in mind for mornings would be walking. More importantly, walking on the treadmill since it is inside out of the sun and I don't necessarily have to get dressed for it. I can wear shorts and not be afraid of what others would think, especially when I haven't worn shorts at all outside of swimming last year. I also don't like to walk by myself up and down the road because we don't have sidewalks in our neighborhood. I plan on starting off with walking and gradually try to get myself to jog, and then run. Hopefully by the time I'm actually able to run, I will be comfortable wearing shorts or something other than jeans.
Some cardio exercises include running, bicycling, elliptical trainer, swimming, step aerobics, rowing, rock climbing, walking, and handball. (Yeah, I looked them up on Google.. you can too!). I wouldn't recommend rock climbing first thing in the morning though, that may not be a wise choice ;)
I am really hoping to cut my time down on being on the computer. If I must be on the computer I don't want to be on there any longer than 6 hours while sitting down. I realize that I'm used to being online for 10 hours everyday if not longer and I know for a fact this isn't healthy for me. And to imagine that I have been doing this for years. I'm sure a lot of my weight gain over the years has been factored by sitting down so much and not being active.
According to the website MyFitnessPal, at my weight I can burn 207 calories in 30 minutes by walking at a brisk pace (about 3.5mph). I'm not sure how accurate the site is on this and I had hoped for a bit more, but I'm hoping to stretch my time to an hour soon, which doubles the amount of calories burned. There are about 3500 calories in a pound. In order to walk off a pound, according to the websites, I have to walk for over 9 hours. Which is impossible for me, I'm not sure about anyone else. I can possibly work in 5 hours... maybe.. and work off 2068 calories.
By the way, for all of you swimmers out there, someone that weighs at 150lbs can burn 408 calories in an hour :) 1225 in 3 hours (I personally would burn about 1960 at my weight). It would be more beneficial to swim. Since it is summer now, I can't wait to start going swimming more often!
To sum things up, it is important to keep yourself active. Don't sit down for lengthy amounts of time. Take breaks from the computer and if you use the computer a lot in your day, be sure to get a good amount (30-60 minutes) of exercise done before you settle down for a few hours or more. The weather is turning warmer outside, enjoy your vitamin D and have fun! :)
What kind of activities do you enjoy doing that makes you move around?
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Comfort Foods and Food Addictions
I realize that I have started posting once a week now instead of twice like I had originally planned. Maybe in the near future I will actually post twice a week! We shall see.
In this post I'll be talking a bit about comfort foods and food addictions.
What exactly is comfort food? It is food that when consumed, relieves negative feeling/emotions or increases positive feeling/emotions. Needless to say, if you're down in the dumps and need a pick-me-up, you generally turn to some sort of type of food that will help you feel better.
My comfort foods are usually something off the wall and enough for people to stare at me blankly or wondering if I have some sort of mental issue. Whenever I'm feeling depressed, I like to eat things such as peanut butter (especially the honey roasted creamy kind) or ice cream. These are fairly normal. However I also like food with carbs in it such as mashed potatoes if there are any located in the house. There is also sour things such as pickles, the pickle juice, olives, what have you. I also tend to attack sodas like there is no tomorrow.
One of my goals is to try and change these comfort foods into healthier choices, and to try other methods to cheer me up before resorting to food. Food also tends to be there to fend off boredom and as we all know, this isn't a good idea.
So I will instead try to change my comfort foods into things such as baby carrots (preferably without anything to dip it in like the all holy ranch dressing that tastes good with just about everything), apples, raisins, or drink flavored water. Turn those used to be not healthy comfort foods into a healthier, more satisfying snack. This will be hard because mentally, you want to eat something that tastes good to you. I have to mentally train myself that eating healthier snacks will taste just as great as well as being the better choice for my body. Easy, no but healthier, yes.
I will admit that I am rather addicted to food. When I get bored, I usually find myself spending 2-3 hours each day wandering around the kitchen at the very least looking at the food we have and wishing we had more. I don't always eat anything, but it tends to be on my mind a lot and I hate it. I have better things to think about. I will also admit that I used to nibble on food here and there in the past, but I have broken that habit by simply opening a pantry door, looking only in the spots where I know there are no food of interest, and then walking away. I will most likely post a follow up on food addictions in the near future for something more in depth of how I'm dealing with it.
So to sum things up for this post: I will need to find better choices of comfort food that are healthier for me and won't add on unnecessary weight. I will need to choose food and drinks based on what sort of vitamins and nutrients it will give me while keeping in mind of the calorie intake. Keeping in mind the serving sizes and limit myself based on those to keep up with how many calories I am consuming in comfort foods alone. I also plan to evaluate this week (starting today, Monday) on just how many times I want to turn to comfort food. This will determine how I will find other methods to cope with my emotions.
What are your comfort foods? Do you turn to sweets or convenient foods? If you find yourself nibbling on candy or other 'sugar coated' foods more than once a day, toss those out and focus on fruits and cereals that have lower sugar amounts to help switch over to better for you choices. :) See how much better it affects you!
In this post I'll be talking a bit about comfort foods and food addictions.
What exactly is comfort food? It is food that when consumed, relieves negative feeling/emotions or increases positive feeling/emotions. Needless to say, if you're down in the dumps and need a pick-me-up, you generally turn to some sort of type of food that will help you feel better.
My comfort foods are usually something off the wall and enough for people to stare at me blankly or wondering if I have some sort of mental issue. Whenever I'm feeling depressed, I like to eat things such as peanut butter (especially the honey roasted creamy kind) or ice cream. These are fairly normal. However I also like food with carbs in it such as mashed potatoes if there are any located in the house. There is also sour things such as pickles, the pickle juice, olives, what have you. I also tend to attack sodas like there is no tomorrow.
One of my goals is to try and change these comfort foods into healthier choices, and to try other methods to cheer me up before resorting to food. Food also tends to be there to fend off boredom and as we all know, this isn't a good idea.
So I will instead try to change my comfort foods into things such as baby carrots (preferably without anything to dip it in like the all holy ranch dressing that tastes good with just about everything), apples, raisins, or drink flavored water. Turn those used to be not healthy comfort foods into a healthier, more satisfying snack. This will be hard because mentally, you want to eat something that tastes good to you. I have to mentally train myself that eating healthier snacks will taste just as great as well as being the better choice for my body. Easy, no but healthier, yes.
I will admit that I am rather addicted to food. When I get bored, I usually find myself spending 2-3 hours each day wandering around the kitchen at the very least looking at the food we have and wishing we had more. I don't always eat anything, but it tends to be on my mind a lot and I hate it. I have better things to think about. I will also admit that I used to nibble on food here and there in the past, but I have broken that habit by simply opening a pantry door, looking only in the spots where I know there are no food of interest, and then walking away. I will most likely post a follow up on food addictions in the near future for something more in depth of how I'm dealing with it.
So to sum things up for this post: I will need to find better choices of comfort food that are healthier for me and won't add on unnecessary weight. I will need to choose food and drinks based on what sort of vitamins and nutrients it will give me while keeping in mind of the calorie intake. Keeping in mind the serving sizes and limit myself based on those to keep up with how many calories I am consuming in comfort foods alone. I also plan to evaluate this week (starting today, Monday) on just how many times I want to turn to comfort food. This will determine how I will find other methods to cope with my emotions.
What are your comfort foods? Do you turn to sweets or convenient foods? If you find yourself nibbling on candy or other 'sugar coated' foods more than once a day, toss those out and focus on fruits and cereals that have lower sugar amounts to help switch over to better for you choices. :) See how much better it affects you!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Rebuilding Self Esteem
This video proved to be very inspirational and will be the backbone to today's post! If you can take about 8 minutes or so to watch it, it will help you keep up with the rest of the post.
I want to really rebuild my self-esteem, my confidence in myself so that I will not look at myself in the mirror and think nothing of bad thoughts about myself. I want to be able to look at myself and smile. I want to believe that the size of my clothes, the number on the scale does not define who I am.
I originally started this post Friday, but never finished. Sorry! After several days of deep thinking, I can say that what I like about me, is that nothing is set in stone. I always change my mind, I'm always wanting to do more to help myself. I like that I don't try to fit into the smallest size clothing possible. Sure, some clothes can get kind of tight but I know I shouldn't wear them. I also don't wear baggy clothes out in public (my pants/jeans don't always count because the way my body is shaped there just isn't any escaping bagginess somewhere).
The next post will be about comfort foods, what they are, what mine are, and how I'm going to change them. :) I may also post the diet schedule that my parents wants us to try. We had tried it before and it appeared to be helping but we got off track..
Here's hoping that my blog may be of use for someone so far!
Do you have something you want me to talk about specifically? Comment and let me know! :D
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Motivation
mo·ti·va·tion - noun \ˌmō-tə-ˈvā-shən\
Definition of MOTIVATION
1: the act or process of motivating b : the condition of being motivated
2: a motivating force, stimulus, or influence : incentive, drive
— mo·ti·va·tion·al \-shnəl, -shə-nəl\ adjective
— mo·ti·va·tion·al·ly adverb
1: the act or process of motivating b : the condition of being motivated
2: a motivating force, stimulus, or influence : incentive, drive
— mo·ti·va·tion·al \-shnəl, -shə-nəl\ adjective
— mo·ti·va·tion·al·ly adverb
After several hours of thinking long and hard about what exactly are my motives for me to lose weight and be healthy… I have a few to share. Just to write a post a bit about why exactly I decided that enough was enough and I wanted to lose weight.
1a. Health – I know that the more a person weighs, the more likely parts of their body will not function as properly as it should/could. I feel like the more time goes on that I am overweight, the more tired I feel every day. I don’t feel upbeat and bouncy like other people and all I ever actually feel like doing (deep down inside) is to sit down and do the things I always do. Play around on the computer. My feet will hurt after walking or standing on them for a period of time, and sometimes my knees will be sore after walking around all day. I don’t normally admit to the smaller pains, but nevertheless they are there. As of now my main concern is my back and the pain I’ve started to have to deal with there.
1b. Energy – I’m so tired of being tired and not having the energy to get up and about. As stated above, I feel tired pretty much every day. Deep down inside I want to be able to get up and be an active person. Instead I just sit around so much when I’d really rather go do something and interact out in the world. I honestly don’t like being cooped up in the house so much.. but I just feel like whenever I go to do something I can feel myself getting tired. When I get tired enough I start getting cranky and eventually I mope around until I’m back in the house.
2. Image (clothes) – All right, as a woman I have the need to look as good as I possibly can. That is pretty much what many women do right? Even if you don’t feel like going out you’d still want to put on comfortable clothes that you think look nice. I may be partially wrong but I do admit that I have subconsciously been trying to match the clothes I wear. I really want to be able to look for clothes that are for my age group. I don’t know how many people have noticed but in a lot of clothes stores these days it is hard to find plus sized clothes for a young woman. A lot of plus sized clothing is styled for older women (I’m not separating people by ages but I’m sure a lot of people know what I’m talking about) and I really miss being able to wear more clothes that make me feel feminine. I miss wearing shirts that have really colorful patterns and textures, shirts with lower cut neck lines, etc. I walk by the smaller sized clothes and I see so many clothes I’d LOVE to have... if I could only fit into them.
3. Image (body) – For so many years I have not liked the way I looked. Period. The older I get, the more I really start looking down at myself and wondering how in the world did I let myself get this way. I don’t like seeing the way my stomach looks, I hate it when I find more stretch marks showing up. More importantly I hate it that whenever I go to a mall or somewhere with people more around my age, there are so many skinnier girls out there. It seriously makes me wonder of all places in “Overweight US” I have to live in the area with skinny people that appear to be constantly eating and never gaining a pound?
4. Relationship – The past couple of years have been a huge step up in my life compared to how I was before. Not only did I start going to college, but I’ve also gained the first serious relationship. This guy means the world to me, and he doesn’t care if I’m overweight, he just wants me to be happy and to be healthy and loves me for who I am. I want what he wants, and in order to become healthier I have got to shed off a lot of this weight. I want to be able to live a full life with him.
So what are your motives to lose weight? What makes you really want to get into better shape?
Write a list of the reasons why you really want to lose weight, tell yourself that it isn’t just a matter of wanting or needing to get healthy, that you actually have reasons to do this! Keep those in mind or have that list nearby whenever you go to eat or before you exercise, see if that helps motivate you to keep going!
Write a list of the reasons why you really want to lose weight, tell yourself that it isn’t just a matter of wanting or needing to get healthy, that you actually have reasons to do this! Keep those in mind or have that list nearby whenever you go to eat or before you exercise, see if that helps motivate you to keep going!
Apologies and Honesty
No excuses really, I just got distracted from this blog!
And update is that no, I haven't lost weight. I'll be honest with you that I haven't really tried to lose weight yet.
Honesty is really going to be important (to me) while I try to do this, because this is my blog to show progress on how I am doing. If I'm not being honest with you, I'm not being honest with myself. That isn't going to get me much of anywhere. If I want to lie to you and myself I may as well say "Hey, I already lost 25lbs in 3 weeks that I haven't been posting!" We all know that losing that much in 3 weeks is simply impossible, especially when I'm just starting out.
Be honest with yourself. What are you going to get out of telling yourself that you have or have not done something? Sure you may temporarily feel good about it but the bottom line is, the truth will always show up in some shape or form. When you tell yourself you lost so much weight, and yet your clothes still fit, that isn't going to make you feel any better.
Also a tip I've had to learn the hard way: When you DO see that your clothes are fitting more loosely, don't automatically think that you did lose weight and you just didn't realize it. I've come across this many times. Ask yourself how long have you had the clothes you're wearing. Could it be possible that they are simply getting worn out and stretched? Still not sure? Stop by a clothes store and try on the SAME SIZE clothes you're wearing just to be sure. You don't have to buy more clothes unless you really feel it is necessary (I swear I'm not promoting shopping!) but this trip is just to confirm if your current clothes are wearing out.
I'll post again later on today about motivation, but to those of you that are reading this before I do:
What is your motivation to lose weight? Comment and let me know!
And update is that no, I haven't lost weight. I'll be honest with you that I haven't really tried to lose weight yet.
Honesty is really going to be important (to me) while I try to do this, because this is my blog to show progress on how I am doing. If I'm not being honest with you, I'm not being honest with myself. That isn't going to get me much of anywhere. If I want to lie to you and myself I may as well say "Hey, I already lost 25lbs in 3 weeks that I haven't been posting!" We all know that losing that much in 3 weeks is simply impossible, especially when I'm just starting out.
Be honest with yourself. What are you going to get out of telling yourself that you have or have not done something? Sure you may temporarily feel good about it but the bottom line is, the truth will always show up in some shape or form. When you tell yourself you lost so much weight, and yet your clothes still fit, that isn't going to make you feel any better.
Also a tip I've had to learn the hard way: When you DO see that your clothes are fitting more loosely, don't automatically think that you did lose weight and you just didn't realize it. I've come across this many times. Ask yourself how long have you had the clothes you're wearing. Could it be possible that they are simply getting worn out and stretched? Still not sure? Stop by a clothes store and try on the SAME SIZE clothes you're wearing just to be sure. You don't have to buy more clothes unless you really feel it is necessary (I swear I'm not promoting shopping!) but this trip is just to confirm if your current clothes are wearing out.
I'll post again later on today about motivation, but to those of you that are reading this before I do:
What is your motivation to lose weight? Comment and let me know!
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