January 21, 2011 - I am GLADIATOR!!!

Breakfast:

• 1 package of apple and cinnamon instant oatmeal (130 calories, 1.5g total fat, 170mg sodium, 26g total carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 3g protein)
• fat free milk (1/8 cup)
• 1 banana
• 8 oz water

Lunch:  Lunch was brought in from The Corner Bakery.  I had 2 half turkey sandwiches on sesame rolls, a bag of plain chips, a bit of Greek salad with feta cheese and Greek vinaigrette, 1 large chocolate chip cookie and a 16 oz cup of water.  Not truly conducive to healthy ... but healthier than SOME things.

Dinner:

• Patio Beef & Bean Burrito (310 calories, 12g fat, 10mg cholesterol, 830mg sodium, 42g total carbohydrates, 5g fiber, 9g protein) ... kinda sodium rich, isn't it?
• 1 banana

Snack:  Mike 'n' Ikes and Cajun-style Trail Mix.

This evening (since I wasn't required to do either the Gold Gym's Dance Workout or the Zumba Fitness) I decided to play around with my Playstation 3 Move Sports Champions game.  I started out playing that frisbee golf game.  I lost like 3 games before finally winning one.  =__=  Then I did the gladiator game and did the bronze championship tournament.  I WON - totally undefeated!  HOOHA!  FEAR ME!!   For I wield the spiked club!!  *beats fists against chest*  I think it was a good workout.  Don't know how long I did it for though, but I did sweat. Sweating is good.  *thumps chest again*

I'm going to try to do a little bit of that game this weekend (either both days or just one day), and the following week stick with what I was doing with Gold Gym's Dance Workout + Zumba Fitness, but I also want to try to do the Kettlebell challenges from the LiveFit Revolution website (7 days on the elliptical doing walking, 4 days of kettlebell, etc.).  I'm having a visit from a friend who visits me monthly so ... we'll see how it goes.  :Oo

January 20, 2011 - Wanna Zumba!

Breakfast:

• 1 small wheat bagel (110 calories, 1g total fat, 180mg sodium, 22g total carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 2g protein)
• 1 Tbsp I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
• 1 package of apple and cinnamon instant oatmeal (130 calories, 1.5g total fat, 170mg sodium, 26g total carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 3g protein)
• fat free milk (1/8 cup)
• 8 oz of orange juice

Lunch:

• Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers - Grilled Basil Chicken (270 calories, 6g fat, 35mg cholesterol, 600mg sodium, 690mg potassium, 34g total carbohydrates, 7g fiber, 20g protein)
•  Large orange
• Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Granola Bar - Almond (160 calories, 7g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 150mg sodium, 22g total carbohydrates, 2g fiber, 3g protein)
• Utz plain potato chips (150 calories, 9g fat, 0g cholesterol, 95mg sodium, 14g total carbohydrates, 1g fiber, 2g protein)
• 16 oz water
  

Dinner:  Leftover Spicy Beef from Chinese takeout.  Probably LOADED in sodium and other nasty things.

Snack:  Mike 'n' Ikes and Cajun-style Trail Mix.

Walked home from the bus stop:  ~10 minutes.
Performed Day 3 of the Gold's Gym Dance Workout:  ~10 minutes (~70 calories burned)
Performed Zumba Fitness Day 2 Beginner:  ~20 minutes.
Total workout:  40 minutes.

Zumba Fitness is going to be a little ... "meh" because I'm doing it on a carpet and some of the feet movements are hard to do on carpet.  =__=  I wonder if I could do it wearing just socks.  *ponders*

January 19, 2011 - Dancing Machine

Breakfast:

• 1 small wheat bagel (110 calories, 1g total fat, 180mg sodium, 22g total carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 2g protein)
• 1 Tbsp I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
• 1 package of apple and cinnamon instant oatmeal (130 calories, 1.5g total fat, 170mg sodium, 26g total carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 3g protein)
• fat free milk (1/8 cup)
• banana
• 8 oz of water

Lunch:  Umm ... again ... lunch didn't happen quite the way I was expecting.  This time my employer order pizza for us.  It wasn't very good pizza.  I had 2.5 slices.  Way too much grease and sodium.  I also had a can of soda (ginger ale).  I really must give up soda.  :Op~


When I got home, I decided that I would do Day 2 of my Gold's Gym Dance Workout for the Wii.  Of the estimated 169 calories they wanted me to burn, I burned about 143.  I was going to stop with that, but then my Zumba Dance Party for my PS3 was looking at me.  I decided to give that a try as well.  One thing I WILL say about the game thus far ... for me being obese and all ... is that it is HARD!!  It's not that the dance moves themselves are difficult or anything.  They truly aren't as bad as the ones in the Gold Gym's Dance Workout.  No ... the difficulty (and keep in mind that I have the game on EASY mode) ... is in the cardio.  The fast-paced movement about did me in!  It reminded me of doing my Tae Bo VHS (the Advance workout).  WHEW!!  I have no idea how many calories I burned, but I did Day 1 of 2 Beginner Workout under the Zumba Class selection.  I will do Day 3 of my Gold Gym's Dance Workout and Day 2 of my Beginner Workout for Zumba tomorrow.  That will constitute my 3 days of working out this week.  I will, if I'm up to it (assuming that installing Windows 7 on my computer and reinstalling all of my software doesn't drive me too crazy), I will do my PS3 game with the archery.  That'll be fun.


Dinner:  Take yesterday's "meal" ... and repeat (basically).  I don't feel like eating much of anything.  I may have an apple, too ... with some peanut butter.

January 18, 2011 - More Challenges

I don't know what I did, but I did something to my back early yesterday.  Somewhere between my left shoulder blade and my spin ... there's a pinched nerve or a pulled muscle.  If I move in a certain way ... it hurts like someone is stabbing me.  >_<  It made it kind of hard to get the amount of sleep I was trying to get.  I mean, I certainly did try to go to bed at 9 PM ... and I did.  Then I woke up sometime around 11 PM.  Then around 2:30 AM.  At that last time point, I had to get up to take care of some business ... then I had a hard time falling back to sleep because my shoulder was bugging me.  =__=

I had too much sodium yesterday.  Eat the full can of soup totally put me over the top ... then I decided to gorge myself on salted sunflower seeds (in the shell).  I'm not going to go into too much detail on how much I had of that ... more than a cup for sure.

Lost 1.4 pounds since last week.  :O)

I wanted to try to exercise this week ... but I don't want to with this pain.  Yeah, I know - "Excuses, excuses!"  If I feel better Wednesday, I'll do Wednesday, Friday, Sunday.  Until then, here's my food intake for today.

Breakfast:

• 1 small wheat bagel (110 calories, 1g total fat, 180mg sodium, 22g total carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 2g protein)
• 1 Tbsp I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
• 1 package of apple and cinnamon instant oatmeal (130 calories, 1.5g total fat, 170mg sodium, 26g total carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 3g protein)
• fat free milk (1/8 cup)
• 8 oz of water

Snack:

• Twix - 2 cookies (250 calories, 12g total fat, 100mg sodium, 33g total carbohydrates, 1g fiber, 2g protein)

Lunch:  Umm ... lunch didn't happen the way I thought it would.  Because of various circumstances, my Employer paid for sandwiches from the Italian market.  I got my usual - "Steak-N-Cheese" with lettuce, tomatoes and ... something else (I forget what).  And I had a bag of chips as well as a can of ginger ale.  I really should stop drinking soda.

Dinner:  Because of the above, I didn't eat anything for dinner except for some Mike 'n' Ikes and some Cajun style trail mix.

Neither lunch nor dinner is truly conducive to losing weight.  BUT ... I did try out my Gold Gym's Dance Workout for my Wii.  I only did "just for fun" so it was only a 10 minute thing.  It's going to take some getting used to.

January 17, 2011 - My Challenges

I have a dream today ... to one day be at a healthy weight that I will be able to maintain for the rest of my life.  Being at a healthy weight has been a struggle for me for a good chunk of my life - like from the start of puberty (age 10 or thereabouts).  I've always been overweight.  I really don't know any other way to live, to tell the truth so I know this is always going to be a struggle for me.  No one likes to struggle through anything.  We all want something that's going to be "quick and easy".  Losing weight has never been that ... unless one takes rather drastic measures.

While I have a clear idea about working out, the area that I currently struggle with is the nutrition.  Not having a car makes things kind of difficult in as far as grocery shopping.  Going more than once a week gets to be inconvenient.  So while I fully plan to take part in LiveFit Revolution, I first need to get a handle on how I'm going to do the nutrition thing.  Off of the top of my head, I'm thinking that I'm probably going to have to buy a lot of frozen fruits and veggies ... not to mention meats.  I do worry about things getting freezer burnt though.  This is going to be tough.

My next challenge is getting enough sleep.  I'm usually up by 4:40 AM to leave for work by 6:00 AM.  As such, I tend to get around 6 hours of sleep per night during the week.  I'm thinking I probably need to get closer to 7-8 ... which means going to bed at 9 PM.  =__=;;  Again, no car = public transit = timing is IMPORTANT!  So I take care of that by getting up early and leaving early.

Other challenges:  (1) a sweet tooth that just won't quit (I <3 sugar!); (2) a craving for salt ... especially when I've had sugar; (3) getting enough water (I'm never truly thirst, so I don't drink ... and being thirsty usually means you're already dehydrated).

Anyway, again, while I fully plan to attempt LiveFit Revolution with its six weeks of 4 days exercising with a kettlebell, exercising everyday for 30 minutes of walking (or equivalent), and its one day cardio challenge ... and with its nutrition plan, I don't think I'm ready yet.  I have my kettlebells.  I have no food (since I just got back from my Christmas holiday).  I need to figure that part out before I can really begin, because I really don't want to rely on frozen meals like I have been in the past.  I need to cook more.  *nods*

What I plan to do (for now) is exercise 3 days a week (30 minutes of walking on my ellipitcal followed by a kettlebell workout or something on my PS3 or Wii) and careful eating.  I'm trying not to snack from the cart at work, but I know that I need to including snacking throughout my day to keep from getting hungry and thus causing my body to store its fat.  I will also attempt to keep track of what I'm eating.  I'm not doing calorie counting just yet.  I just want to see what I'm putting in my mouth.

Breakfast:

• 1 small wheat bagel (110 calories, 1g total fat, 180mg sodium, 22g total carbohydrate, 3g fiber)
• 1 Tbsp I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
• 1 package of apple and cinnamon instant oatmeal (130 calories, 1.5g total fat, 170mg sodium, 26g total carbohydrate, 3g fiber, 3g protein)
• fat free milk (1/8 cup)
• 8 oz of water

Lunch:

• Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers - General Tso's Spicy Chicken (320 calories, 3.5g total fat, 500mg sodium, 410mg potassium, 53g total carbohydrate, 4g fiber, 15g protein)
• small orange
• 12 oz of tea with one pack of Splenda
• Utz plain potato chips (150 calories, 9g total fat, 95 mg sodium, 14g total carbohydrate, 1g fiber, 2g protein)
• Nature Valley Granola Bar - Crunchy, Oats and Honey (190 calories, 6g total fat, 160mg sodium, 29g total carbohydrate, 2g fiber, 4g protein)

Dinner:

• Chunky Beef with Country Vegetables (whole can: 260 calories, 6g total fat, 1840mg sodium, 900mg potassium, 36g total carbohydrates, 6g fiber, 16g protein)
• Pinapple slices x5

I will attempt to write a daily journal update.