So long Week one and Hello week Two

Week one went by so fast,
and didn't say hello.
I hope week two will be a blast,
and my points will grow,
and not be so low.


 Tis sad that exercise has been not my friend,
 what I did, I do not know.
I hope this week we may make amends.
This week it is time to plough,
and let my points grow.

I'm still working on this rhyming stuff.

Food Journal you say...?

(I was going to make a journal out of food, but this was more fun)

Soon, soon I will have this thing called a food journal, then just watch my points sky rocket!
My plans for exercise were thwarted most of last week, but we got to go to the zoo today with friends who go through the zoo fast, so lots of walking :-).

Anyway, I'm getting going, and I've been doing well with sleep which is nice :-). I do like this day on and day off diet, I laughed at Nikki when she told me about it last time, but it does seem to be working and it is a lot easier to do than most diets, so it's all good. It's my first time actually counting calories, and it's helping me control portion sizes instead of just eating because the food is there (and seriously doesn't it just look inviting?)

Mom's Notes

``Most of you inherit your ferocious appetites and efficient metabolisms from me.  Somewhere in our DNA there is a feasting, hardy Celtic Viking and this body type was prized anciently.  Not so much now.  Anyway,  due to this phenomenon I have spent a lot of my life dieting or wishing I could stay on one. Because of this I know lots of "diets"  My plan for this challenge is to do a different diet each week with 1200 calorie caps. This week I did the "Lemonade Cleanse" for about 4 days and then tried to eat light.  I made cookies for Eli to sell at our garage sale this weekend so that day was a bust, but otherwise I stayed pretty close and lost 3 pounds.  This week I'm feeling more like a carnivore, so I'm going Atkins! I have resisted starting to exercise  because I know my body will hurt and be stiff for a couple of weeks, but I'm shooting for three days to start with this week. Jenna printed off a chart for me and just today checking I can see I don't drink near as much water as I thought. I am going to put a liter water bottle in the bedroom and drink it as I'm waking up and getting going in the morning.  I'm glad to see everybody post.  We should all get to climb a mountain for exercise and it would be more fun!

Excuses, excuses

So I started strong last week, then got really stressed out by work things and other issues and decided that that was a good reason to stop doing anything for the rest of the week. How do you guys deal with stress? Turns out my preferred method is to sit at home eating ice cream and playing video games until it all blows over.

Here are some of the other excuses I use when I want to get out of exercising:

• I'm tired
• It's too dark (in the morning)
• There are too many people out (in the afternoon)
• I haven't put together the right playlist yet
• I ate terrible food today, so activity is going to be more difficult today and I should probably just watch TV and eat more terrible food instead (see Brett's post about vomit)
• It's too warm
• It's too cold
• My hair looks really good and if I put it in a ponytail it might ruin it
• I don't feel like getting sweaty because sweat is gross

I'm sure there are others.

That said, Jenna did vote for me so I got points from that, and I already don't drink soda. I've started keeping a 24 oz water bottle at my desk at work, which is helping me get my water points. I drink water whenever I get bored, think I'm getting a headache, notice that I'm thirsty, or happen to look at the water bottle. It seems to be working out well for me.

Also, it's good that I'm tracking my food again. For example, this week I discovered that contrary to my expectations (being a mostly vegetarian), I do not in fact eat very many vegetables. Turns out I just supplement with grains instead. So I bought some spinach to put in my smoothies. Speaking of smoothies  I have discovered the joys of frozen, overripe bananas. I wait for them to get all brown and squishy, then chop them up and put them in ziplock bags in my freezer. Then they can double as both ice and sweetener in smoothies and shakes! Pretty neat, huh?

Anyway, this week I plan to stick with it for at least 3 days in a row. It will be great.

EDIT: Also, Ben said that he plans to do the fitness plan and I think he's going to start this week, so go bug him about that.

I stuck to my diet plan!

So week one went alright for me.  I stuck to my diet plan all week!  I love the every other day diet.  It works great for me.  So I participated in this fitness deal last year and lost 20lbs.  Then I fell off the wagon again and gained 18 of those pounds back over the year.  Its been one year since finishing the last fitness challenge.  So the goal this year is to lose the weight again, and keep it off.  I'd really like to get back into the park ranger uniform again, but that will take closer to 30lbs lost.   I lost the weight and got the uniform on after all my babies, except Duke.  Of course Duke is his own ball of wax - the other kids were all sleeping through the night by this point and he's not.  So I rarely get the sleep points, but to make up for that I never drink pop.  Anyway, its late and I'm rambling.  I came in second last year, I'm going for first place this year.  So watch out!

WEEK ONE: a little weak

I talked big about exercise points and I'm not living up to it. I only got my hour of exercise two days this week. One was pretty intense: pull-up, push up, and sit up maxs followed by hill sprints with "recovery time" spent in planks. *gross alert* I actually threw up on my last sprint, which I've never done in PT (but have seen). Though I think this had as much to do with the effort I was putting in as the BBQ chicken I had for lunch and amount of coffee I drank that day.

The other day of exercise I got by hiking up this:


Had lunch by the top of the waterfall on the left.

I'm doing great on eating fruit, veggies are a little harder to come by (I've mostly been eating a lot of carrots but I'm looking for new sources that don't require cooking) and I challenge any of you to drink as much water as me!

Hope your first week was a stronger start than mine!

p.s. do I post points here or just write them in on the side? I'm going to just type them in, tell me if I'm wrong