Settling Into a Good Groove

Not a whole lot to report this week.  I made it to the gym five days this week, which included four Zumba classes.  My diet continues to go well.  Seeing my food choices in writing, with the myfitnesspal app, has really helped me stay on track.  I burned some additional calories with an evening of Swing dancing to a live band.  I hadn't danced Swing in quite a while.  It was a nice treat.

I learned a new weight loss term this week:  NSV.  According to the Urban Dictionary, NSV stands for Non-Scale Victory.  “NSV is a dieting and weight loss term for noticing your weight loss success off the scale.”  Examples of NSVs are getting rid of clothes because they are too big or shopping in the "regular" stores.  So, it seems that I've had a number of NSVs over the course of my fitness journey, but didn't know to call them that.

Motivation

• I noticed stretch marks in the bicep area, so the muscles are definitely growing.  Now that the marks are apparent, it also means that it’s time to up the vitamin e.
• I got into another pair of shorts and a pair of jeans, neither of which I could wear at the beginning of the month.
• I've managed to finish under my calorie goal for most of the last twenty five days.  This is outside of the exercise calories that I've burned.

I need to find another short term goal to work towards.  I don’t have anything on the calendar, so far, to use as a carrot.  I’m sure that something will pop up soon.

That’s it for now.  I’ll be firing up the grill for the Labor Day holiday, which may become a splurge day.

Standing on the Verge

After last week, I feel like I'm on the verge of making real progress.  The MyFitnessPal app and website seem to have been the missing piece of my fitness puzzle.  Keeping a more accurate count of my caloric intake is turning into real progress.

I've been using the app for about three weeks now and the results have been noticeable.  I've moved down a belt notch and the few 38" waist pants that I'm still wearing are becoming too large.

I got in six days of exercise last week that included 6 weight training sessions and 4 Zumba classes.  After Friday's workout, I accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from a friend.  Let me tell you, having a bucket full of ice cold water dumped on my head was quite the experience.

I've been getting more positive comments on the body shaping, lately.  One person asked if I was losing weight.  Another told me that I was losing weight.  Still another mentioned that I looked cute in my workout gear.  Cute wasn't the look that I was going for, but I'll take it (lol).

I was successful in reaching the goal that I set for myself.  I was able to comfortably wear the smaller cut shorts to the reunion picnic!  As an added benefit, I got into some of the other 36" waist pants that I've had waiting in the wings.  As was the case with the shorts, they aren't comfortable...yet.  But, coming from wearing size 42s, just getting into size 36s doesn't seem quite real.

I'm feeling very positive and encouraged.  I even considered getting on the scale, but decided to wait until the end of September or the beginning of October to weigh in.  I'll have been following my updated diet plan for about 10 weeks by then and should have lost at least 10 pounds.

I drank too much Coca Cola this week.  Still not up to my old levels, but more than I should have.  I had couple of Cokes on the nights that we ate out with friends and I shared a large Coke and a tub of popcorn at the movies.  The saving grace was that the workout calories that I'd banked covered my excesses.  I was still remained under calorie count.  The value of regular exercise paid immediate dividends in this case.

Speaking of exercise, I've gotten so used to doing it, that I feel a little guilty on my rest days.  On those days, I make sure that I at least get in a walk.  Now, I've found a place to walk that is really convenient.  The city added a fitness trail to some nearby green space.  Twenty exercise stations make up the fitness trail. You walk briskly or jog between stations.  I tried it out and was able to work through about two thirds of the stations.  Eventually I'l make it through all of them.

Jumping back a paragraph, the movie that I saw was "Get On Up (The James Brown Story)."  It was an excellent movie. I predict a Best Actor nomination for Chadwick Boseman and Best Supporting Actor nod to Dan Aykroyd.  I highly recommend it.

Like I wrote earlier, I think that I'm on the verge of finally breaking through on this fitness journey.  Suddenly, the journey doesn't feel like I have that much longer to go before I reach my goal.  Not that it has gotten any easier, but I feel like I have a good plan and that its paying off.  I'm feeling more confident that I'll get it done within the time frame that I'm shooting for.  The last thing I want to do is to be facing the same challenges as I'm dealing with now, at the two year point.  Hope and fear are great motivators!

I'll leave you with couple of pics taken near the fitness trail.  I was goofing around, having "Fun with Boulders!"

No boulders were harmed in the making of these photos.

Strange Sources of Inspiration

This was a very balanced week.  I did well on both fronts; exercise and diet.  I’m finding the MyFitnessPal app and website to be a very useful tool to help keep my eating on track.  I’m consistently falling below the goal calorie count.  Not far below, but a noticeable amount.  I’m not starving myself, just choosing which calories to consume more wisely.  I actually snack a lot during the day, especially during the workday.  The photo below shows a variant of my usual snacks.  I eat half in the morning, after breakfast.  The other half gets eaten in the afternoon, following lunch.  They keep me from hitting the vending machines, which is a good thing!

I had one glass of Coke and one cinnamon raisin bagel this week.  That’s a big win for me.  My wife and I split a decadent dessert this weekend, but I had the calorie count to cover it, so I wasn't overly concerned with eating it.  As an example of how my numbers stack up, here's my MyFitnessPal results for Sunday.

Since I exercise on most days, I usually have a lot of "bonus" calories to burn.  For Sunday, I had 90 minutes of resistance training, followed by 60 minutes of Zumba.  We also got in more dancing this weekend, which was added to my exercise calories.

Inspiration?

I was having an issue with irritation in my armpits.  I tried switching soaps and deodorants, but neither seemed to help much.  To make it even more difficult to pin down the cause of the problem was the fact that it wasn't happening daily.  It took me a while, but I finally figured it out.  With all of the weight lifting I've been doing, my shoulders, back, arms, and chest have gotten larger.  Some of the smaller cut shirts were actually rubbing against my armpits, chafing them!  It’s probably a little strange that I was more pleased about the muscle growth than I was relieved for finding the cause of the irritation!

Nov 2013 ---------------- Aug 2014

Goals

In my last post, I mentioned that I wanted to be able to wear certain pair shorts to a picnic at the end of the month.  So, my goal was to be able to wear the shorts comfortably.  Well, I got my dates wrong.  The picnic is this coming weekend, instead of the end of the month.  I lost a week that I thought I would have.  I don't plan on making any drastic changes to my diet, so the only thing left is to add exercises and see what happens. 

Well, that's another week in the books.  I'll let you know if I meet my goal, or not, in next week's post.

Celebrating The Calories That Weren't Consumed

This was a very successful week, both workout-wise and diet.  On the workout side, the week was very consistent, then I got to really pound it over the weekend.  The diet was good, too.  I removed or limited my consumption of two foods that I felt were holding up my progress:  Coke and cinnamon raisin bagels.

Before I get to the food portion of this post, I wanted to finish up with the workouts, particularly the weekend's workouts.  I took Friday off from work, as it was the day of the wedding that I mentioned in a previous post.  I got to the gym early and hit the weights really hard.  I'm happy to report that my new suit fit fine and was comfortable through the wedding and reception.  The reception was a cardio-fest for me.  Lots of dancing, plus I learned a few new line dances from the teens and twenty-somethings.  I made it to the gym Saturday morning, blasted my legs in a series of exercises, and then went to a spirited Zumba class.  I got to the gym later than usual on Sunday and found that I was in time for the start of yet another Zumba class, just as I finished my upper body workout.  Finally, I tackled the lawn and yard work to finish out the day.  I've also started using the True Stretch Cage, to work out some of the after exercise kinks and to improve my flexibility.

I mentioned my love of the fizzy beverage, Coca Cola, a few posts ago.  That hasn't changed, but I decided to push back against it.  A 20 oz. bottle of Coke contains 240 calories.  I could easily drink two a day during the work week and order a glass or two if we're eating out over the weekend.  One pound equals 3,500 calories.  I've been doing nearly 3,000 calories a week in Coke alone!   I'd been having cinnamon raisin bagels as part of my work week breakfast.  They're 280 calories a pop.  That's another 1,400 calories per week.  Obviously, that had to stop.  This Business Week cover and article, "Coke Confronts Its Big Fat Problem," helped to seal the deal for me.

A friend mentioned that she was using a free calorie counting app called, "myfitnesspal" to help stay on track with her diet.  I decided to check it out.  I'd kept food diaries in the past, once back in the pen and paper days and again, on my Palm Pilot, using a Palm database based on Weight Watchers' point system.  This app is leaps and bounds over the old methods. myfitnesspal determines how many calories per day you need to consume to lose a pound by the end of the week.  It has a large, searchable database of foods items.  You can also use it's bar code reader to input food information.  It takes calories burned during exercise into account and adjusts your calorie count accordingly.  It really makes you think about what you're eating when you do the math.

This past week, I had two Cokes and no bagels, eliminating approximately 3,900 calories from my diet.  If I can do similarly for the rest of the month, I won't have to worry about needing to work off an additional 15,600 calories or 4.5 lbs!

Below are the goals the myfitnesspal recommended for me.  To lose 1 pound per week, I should consume 2200 calories daily.  My exercise calories burned are subtracted from my food calories consumed.  You can clearly see how valuable regular exercise is.  The exercise calories are the total of 1 hour of strength training + 1 hour of Zumba + 30 minutes of lawn mowing.  Because of the exercise, I was able to eat a little more and still close the day with 1007 calories to spare.

Motivation

Having my new suit fit comfortably during actual wear was a motivating factor for the week.  Wearing a ribbed tank top this week that I hadn't thought I'd be able to wear this summer was also a plus.  Seeing the numbers on how my fitness regimen affects my overall calorie count was also gratifying.

Short Term Goals

In another post, I mentioned that I'd be attending an reunion picnic at the end of the month.  I bought a pair of size 36 shorts from the Young Men's department to wear to the event.  Young Men's clothing is cut smaller than Men's Regular (I think that its the equivalent of "Juniors" for Women's clothing.).  I tried them on, once I got them home.  I could fasten them, but they were tight.  My goal is to be able to wear them comfortably to the picnic.

That's all that I have for now.  I just plan to build on this week's successes.

Burning Calories on the Dance Floor

As far as exercising in the gym goes, this wasn't a very productive week.  My first day in the gym was Sunday.  For what it’s worth, Sunday’s workout was pretty good.  Instead of doing upper or lower body, I worked everything.  I kept the weight moderate and only did one exercise (three sets of ten reps) per body part / muscle group.  I also threw in some time on the elliptical.

The diet continues to go well.  I think that I'm making better choices.  For snacks, I've increased the amount of fruit and nuts and reduced much of the junk food.

I’d planned on being at the gym more this week, but I wound up spending time with the family and enjoying the weather.

I did get in quite a bit of cardio.  As I mentioned in my last post, this was the week for a big Latin dance event.  I spent some time in the evenings practicing.  I'd forgotten that another Latin band was performing a set in the park on Wednesday evening.  We attended that event and spent the evening dancing.  My legs ached the next day.  We'd danced on grass and uneven ground, not the best surfaces to dance on.  Luckily, I was fine by Friday, the day of the larger function.

Friday night's event was packed!  We got there early, when there was still a fair amount of room to actually dance.  By the end of the evening, we were pretty much shoulder to shoulder.

I know that I talk about dance as a form of cardio exercise, but I was curious to know if any serious studies had been done that might support my hypothesis.  I did some research and came across a recent study on Latin dancing and exercise which had been published in the journal, Human Movement Science.  The researchers concluded that adults seeking to become more physically active could select this particular genre of dance to take part in as engagement over two sessions weekly would mean meeting the physical activity guidelines for physical and psychosocial health maintenance (Garber et al., 2011; WHO, 2005, 2010).

Physiological and perceptual responses to Latin partnered social dance

Pablo A. Domene, Hannah J. Moir, Elizabeth Pummell, Chris Easton

Human Movement Science 37 (2014) 32–41

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2014.06.009

Perceived benefits of dance were assessed via the Exercise Benefits/Barriers Scale, and measurement of state intrinsic motivation during dance was undertaken using the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory.

I know that I've always felt better after a good evening of dancing!

Finally, on a completely unrelated note...SEE THIS MOVIE!  We enjoyed it immensely!