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Weekly Weigh-In 2006-01-29 January 29, 2006

My weekly weight loss figure is creeping up, getting closer to my target of 1 kg per week. Again, I had a few events this week that didn’t help – a big dinner out at the Hog’s Breath Cafe with some friends, a big cooked breakfast for my wedding anniversary, and a visit with my parents.

I missed two days of exercise this week – one due to weather, and one due to being up half the night with a sick child. Although I try to get out for a walk every day, it seems like 5 sessions a week is a pretty good target to aim for. If everything goes right for a week and I fit in more than that, great!

I managed to touch 104 kg one day this week in my daily weigh-ins. That’s a bit of a milestone for me – I haven’t been under 105 kg in about 5 years. Even when I’ve gone on diets, I get to about 105 kg and then seem to lose interest or get derailed. I think it’s because I’d watch my daily weight measurements, see them jump from 105 to 107 in a single day (seemingly wiping out a couple of weeks of disciplined dieting!), and get discouraged. Every time that happens, it’s another opportunity for your negative thoughts to take over and for your resolve to waver.

Using the Hacker’s Diet weight tracking spreadsheet is a much better way to monitor your progress. If you go off-track for a day or two, it doesn’t hurt your running average figure very badly, so you’re still motivated to keep going and try to get some more daily measurements below the line and start dragging it down again.

It just goes to show that losing weight is about a lot more than just going on a diet.

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Weekly Weigh-In 2006-01-22 January 22, 2006

A reasonable weight loss this week, although I would like to be able to push it up closer to 1 kg per week. I might need to get more serious on the diet side of things.

I spent this week at home, on annual leave. We had a few days of rain, but also got out to the park with the kids a bit. We had a couple of meals out with friends and family this week, which were blowouts diet-wise, but lots of fun. No regrets!

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Lawn Mowing For Weight Loss January 20, 2006

Just for kicks, I thought I’d wear my heart rate monitor today while I mowed the lawn. I was a little surprised to find out what good exercise it was!

According to the monitor, it took me 30 minutes to mow the lawn (including sweeping up the driveway afterwards), and 26:18 of that was within my target heart rate zone. My average heart rate was 137 (it’s usually around 120-125 when walking), and I burned 462 calories. Pushing and pulling the mower and sweeping use a lot of upper-body muscles, so I’m getting a bit of variety in the workout. With benefits like these, it looks like I won’t be procrastinating on mowing the lawn anymore!

No wonder I’ve never seen a fat lawn mowing contractor.

It now seems strange that so many people pay others to mow their lawn, and then pay to visit the gym for a workout!

Weekly Weigh-In 2006-01-15 January 15, 2006

Not a stunning week for weight loss, but at least the trend is still heading in the right direction.

Significant events this week included my mother-in-law’s 60th birthday party (and all the food and wine that entails!), and my daughter H’s baptism the following day (with even more food and wine!). We’ve got a lot of left-over food in the fridge, which I’m generally resisting. It feels wasteful to throw out that food, but it would be even more wasteful to eat it and then have to haul my butt around the neighbourhood for a few hours trying to burn it off again!

I’m off work this week (mostly just to do stuff with the kids), so hopefully I can get the weight loss happening again.

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30 Days January 11, 2006

Today marks 30 days since December 12, the day I started getting up early to exercise. I made a deal with myself then that I was going to stick with this for 30 days, and then I could make a decision to either continue for another 30 days or quit.

I’m going to continue.

30 days is a good time frame to judge this kind of change in your habits. A week or two is too short – the routine hasn’t had a chance to take hold yet, and you can’t really judge what effect it’ll have on your life. Longer than 30 days seems like an eternity, and it’s harder to commit yourself.

I think that’s why so many New Years Resolutions fail – people ‘commit’ to making a change with no timeframe in mind, so it doesn’t feel like they’re working towards an achievable goal. Within a week or two, the change starts to feel like a drag, with no end in sight, and they don’t seem to be getting any benefit from it. They miss a day or two, and then never seem to really get back on the horse. Within a month, the resolution is broken and they’ve reverted back to their old ways.

I know I’ve done that!

If you commit to a change for 30 days, it’s going to feel achievable. It’s only a month out of your life, so if it doesn’t bring you the benefits you want you haven’t really lost anything. You can put other stuff on hold for 30 days while you work on this one change, without feeling like your whole life is being turned upside down. If the change is uncomfortable, you have an end in sight so you’re more likely to be able to stick it out instead of just quitting.

Steve Pavlina has written a great article on this idea of committing to change for just 30 days at a time: 30 Days To Success.

Now seems like a good time to review what’s happened over the last 30 days for me.

Weight

My weight this morning was 106 kg (234 lbs), so I’ve lost about 3 kg (6.6 lbs) since starting to walk in the mornings. It’s a little bit noticeable – I’ve gone down to the next hole on my belt, and someone at work asked if I was losing weight because my face looked thinner – but not huge. I think maybe part of the weight loss has been offset by muscles putting on weight and getting into shape. So this month has probably been more one of weight redistrubtion, rather than one of weight loss. If that’s true, hopefully I’ll lose even more weight next month.

Still, 3 kg lost over the Christmas gorging period is not bad! Many more people put weight on than lose weight during this time of year.

Fitness

This is the area I’m most pleased with over the past 30 days. I used to sometimes be slightly out of breath just climbing the stairs at work or walking up my driveway, but now those things are no problem at all. For the first 2 or 3 weeks of walking, I’d come home with quite sore and tired legs. Now my muscles seem to be accustomed to the exercise, and they can handle it fine. I can run much further than I could at the start of all this, and I have more energy during the rest of the day as well.

Sleep

Despite getting up half an hour earlier than I used to, I feel more alert during the day. I sleep better during the night, too.

Using A Heart Rate Monitor January 9, 2006

Another good walk this morning with G.

According to the heart rate monitor, I burned 441 calories this time. The monitor is really good for letting you know when you need to put in a bit more effort to keep your heart rate up, rather than just strolling along and taking it easy. I can feel it in my muscles afterwards – I’m definitely walking harder and making better use of my exercise time. I figure, if you’re putting in the time anyway, you may as well get the most out of it you can!

Weekly Weigh-In 2006-01-08 January 8, 2006

I’ve switched to using the figure from the trend line in my Hacker’s Diet spreadsheet when quoting my weight each week, instead of just using the Sunday measurement. Daily measurements have a fair bit of random variation in them, depending upon how hydrated you are, how much food is in your stomach, how much waste is still passing through your body, etc. Using this weighted average gives a much more stable and accurate measure of progress.

Overall, this was an OK week. My weight went up very slightly, and I was disappointed to be unable to go out walking for 3 days due to rain. Things seem back on track now, though, and I’m sure the week ahead will be good.

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Never Trust 4-Year-Olds

I finally got back into the morning walking routine. I took G with me this morning, and decided to walk a little further than usual (about 45 minutes instead of 30). Partly it was because I had just gotten a new heart rate monitor and wanted to see how it worked, and partly it was to make up for all the missed exercise sessions this week.

About 3/4 of the way around my chosen walking route, I noticed that G was missing a shoe. Damn, she must have kicked it off somewhere along the walk! Nothing for it but to back-track (my route is a loop, so I was coming home via different streets to where the shoe was dropped).

So, I backtracked. I walked and walked, and there was no sign of the shoe. I was beginning to think it must have been picked up by someone, or that maybe I’d missed it again. I got all the way back home and found it in front of my neighbour’s house! Oh well, at least I had a good long walk!

According to the heart monitor, I burned 562 calories with 55% of that being classified as fat-burning. That means I burned around 309 calories of fat. Not bad!

No Walk, But An Active Day January 7, 2006

I slept through the alarm clock again this morning, but it was wet outside when I woke up anyway. This is getting frustrating!

I spent about 2 hours doing yard and garden work, carrying stuff around, wheelbarrowing, pulling weeds, etc, and we took the girls to the beach this afternoon (we walked down instead of driving), so hopefully I at least got the exercise equivalent of a walk out of the day. I guess that counts.

It’s Turning Into A Wet Week January 6, 2006

Another rainy morning! That’s three walking sessions I’ve missed this week! I’m starting to get antsy to get back out again.

Does anyone have any suggestions for indoor exercises on rainy days? It needs to be something quiet, so I don’t wake the rest of the house up – so no stair-running or aerobics tapes!

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