New Years resolutions and funny things you see

So it is January 1st...all resolutions are made, 2012 is officially done and all that jazz.  Like I stated before I no longer make resolutions..I set goals, there is a blog floating around here somewhere about my 2013 goals.    So it is Tuesday this fat mama's gym night....Hubby is home last day of the four day and back to work full time as of tomorrow...Thank God.  Don't get me wrong, loved having him home everyday around 12, but it threw me so far off schedule.  Then two four day weekends back to back plus all the holiday running and people to see, things to do, shopping, and lunches out here and there...MY HOUSE IS A DISASTER!!!!  Abbie's little piece of the living room is good, rest of the place....yeah but anyway I digress.  So I am thinking hey, I will go to the gym a little early today...so I get everything together, leave a screaming baby with dad, walk in the rain to the gym to turn around and walk home.  Now my apartment complex gym is small.  One treadmill, one elliptical,  one bike, one bow-flex looking thing, one set of free weights and a weight bench.  The place was packed...so I returned home waited an hour and went back.  Got there and slowly the place filled up again.  Now here is the part that made me giggle....me the fat chick was the first one in the gym and the last one to leave.  Crazy right?  Well it got me thinking as I was finishing up my workout.

I have been going to the gym three days a week for 2 months now.  There is a mom and her two kids that normally join me half way through on Tuesdays and Fridays other then that.  I have never seen the same person in there twice.  Sundays it is normally empty the whole time I am in there.  But on January 1st, I had to wait.  Will this last two weeks?  I have not seen the "fuck that" chick back in there.  I am not one to put anyone down for trying but seriously?  Weight Loss is not about making that effort on the 1st and throughout the month of January.  Weight loss is about the effort you put in everyday.  It is about pushing yourself to do more then you did yesterday and planning to do more tomorrow.  I love my gym time and yes I come home tired and sore but when I step on the scale or I see parts getting smaller it makes it all worth it.  It made me realize that we are a nation of I am going to do it on the 1st....and then by the 5th it is too much work.  It doesn't work that way.  Yes I have slip up days and I suffered a three pound gain this week because there was more eating out and on the go then normal and I have gotten away from my Just Dance workouts with Daddy being home early.  Yes, I did recommit to this January 1st, but if I am going to be under 200 lbs by Dec 31st, I have a lot of work to do.

So here is my New Years Challenge to all...

Make this the year that you not diet, but make life style changes.  Make this the year that you focus not on ughh I have to exercise but, making it part of your day to day life.  Make this the year that you look back in December and realize you did it.  365 days of fitness, eating right, and putting you first.  Remember to take baby steps, everything in moderation, and enjoy what you are doing.  This should be fun, not a load of laundry.

Happy Dieting!

Simplifying the Math....hopefully

Yesterday I did a blog on what the nurtionist said about calorie intake and what I actually do in a day and after a comment realized that the math can be scary for some.  Unfortunately there is a lot of math in dieting.  From counting calories, to tracking how many you burn, not to mention the BMI charts, and of course setting your differential.  So it got me thinking that maybe there is a way to make it a little more simple.  It also got me thinking how many people give up because they simply don't understand it or because it just seems like there are other difficult things that need more attention.  So here we go.....

To figure your BMR go to a website that has a calculator. http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm

After plugging in my height, weight, male/female, and activity level it tells me I need....3294 calories a day to MAINTAIN my current weight of 265.  Well I don't want to maintain my weight I want to lose weight so I create a differential by simply subtracting 500 calories from that....3294-500=2794 calories a day to consume to stay healthy and functional.  So that was easy right?

Now to figure the fitness part....Now I have a nifty website that I use to track and figure all this stuff together for me.  There are a few that are free and most now have smartphone apps as well.  Fitbit.com and sparkpeople.com are two of the more popular ones.  You simply plug in what you do and they figure the calories for you.  You can also get a pedometer which will track the calories, steps walked, and miles you do in a day.  They range in price from around $5.00 all the way up to $100.00+.  Find the one that works right for you.  All of my figures below are from the sparkpeople.com tracker.  

Gym:

1 hour on treadmill walking 3+miles=452

20 min on elliptical=405

total Gym Workout=857 calories

Home work out:

Just dance 30 mins=145

Crunches=134 calories

Wall Pushups=90

1 hour of housework=607

Jumping Jacks=52

1 hour of playing with Abbie=699

These here are just the numbers up top added together broke down by day:

Sundays (Just Gym)=857 calories

Mondays(complete homework out)=1727

Tuesdays(Just dance/Gym)=1002

Wednesdays(complete home)=1727

Thursdays(complete home)=1727

Fridays(just dance/gym)=1002

Saturdays(3 hours housework/playing with Abbie)=2520

Total Calorie Burn for week=10562

Now remember that just sitting and watching TV, breathing, sleeping we are still burning calories....check out http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php to see exactly what you are burning in just a nights sleep.    

So up top I figured I needed to eat 2794 calories a day to function.  So we take 2794*7=19558 calories to consume in a week.  Burning 10562 in all the "fitness stuff".  19558 (calories consumed)-10562 (extra calories burned)=8996 calories left for week for body to burn by just being...sleeping, watching TV, breathing.  Which is around 1265 a day and at my current weight I burn 811 in just 7 and 1/2 hours of sleep.  

Tomorrow I will break down figure your cycling and making it work with your differential in better detail.

Happy Dieting