2016 Goal

Things I Know Now

12 Comments Posted on May 29, 2017May 28, 2017 by Snoskred

I have been on this eat less move more journey for almost a year and a half now.

Every human body is different, and we are not issued with instruction manuals for our bodies. What works for me will not always work for someone else. Some of the things I have learned only apply to me, but there are a couple of lessons which will be of interest and possibly work for most people. I’m putting those up front. :)

1. My portion size was too big.

I remember the days when I used to eat a whole pizza in one sitting. My pizza is 170 calories per slice and there are 6 slices. Eat all six, and that right there is 1020 calories. I now aim for 1200 calories a day spread out over 3 meals and one snack. I still have my pizza, but I have three slices which is 510 calories. The remaining slices go in the fridge for dinner the next night.

2. Protein shakes are important for me.

My lunchtime protein shake is so simple. I have updated the recipe as I now use almond milk and more protein. It removes thought from the equation and for me that is quite important and useful. I know what I’ll be having for lunch if I am at home, every day, forever.

I now buy my unflavoured protein online in bulk and I have switched to the Whey Protein Isolate from Bulk Nutrients. I buy 4kg at a time and it lasts me between 4-6 months depending on whether I am cooking other things with it. They do have some awesome treats you can create.

My protein shake tastes like a great milkshake that I would get from somewhere like Max Brenner or an upscale cafe. Who wouldn’t enjoy one of those every single day especially if one knows that it is giving you vital nutrients for your body? :)

3. Eating is the key.

If I eat right, I can do less and sometimes even no exercise and still lose or maintain my weight. I can still have the occasional calorific meal and it makes no difference in the long run. With that said, I have grown to love our new diet and generally prefer it to take away or eating out.

4. Some foods & medicines slow down my digestion.

This one might apply only to my body but I add it because it is worth trying to work out which foods work best for you. The one thing I really do not want to do above all other things is end up getting diverticulitis again. I’ve noticed that when I eat some foods my digestion slows to a crawl and I am bloated, gassy, and generally feel Not Great. Those foods are – potatoes – bread – pasta – anything containing a lot of flour.

I also know that codeine has a similar effect. This is a problem for me as that is my main heavy duty pain killer. It is ok if I have a once off headache, but I can no longer take cold and flu tablets with codeine in, as I take those for 4 days at a time.

5. I struggle with the cold weather.

This is likely related to my thyroid issues. I have antibodies which are attacking my thyroid and have to take a small dose of thyroxine daily to compensate. In summer I am fine but when the cool weather hits, I’ll be the one layering up to sometimes hilarious levels. Scarves, gloves, beanies, all the jackets, plus those super warm Ghanda hoodies are my best friends on a cold night now.

You might think I mean when going outside, but I have taken to wearing gloves and the occasional beanie in the house now. It just helps keep me warm without needing to put the gas heater on all the time.

2016 Goal, 2017 goal

New Year, Same Goals

5 Comments Posted on January 2, 2017January 1, 2017 by Snoskred

Almost the same goals as 2016, because I do not really want to eat less than I presently am. I am aiming for 1200 calories each day.

Move more is back on the agenda after taking a break since late October when I injured my hip. At the moment I am aiming for 30 minutes on the treadmill each day and adding in a minute more of running each day.

Across 2016, I lost over 20kg – that’s 44 pounds. More importantly, I am a lot fitter than I used to be. It has made a huge difference.

This journey to better fitness has not been without problems – I had a big interruption in February 2016 when I had diverticulitis. In September I was diagnosed with thyroid problems – antibodies are attacking my thyroid as a surprise to myself – and I began taking a small dose of Thyroxine daily.

I only need to lose another 5kg to meet my goal weight and I would like to do that by mid-February when I have my colonoscopy scheduled.

The Other Half is having some health issues which required us to reduce our sodium intake. We ate much less processed food in December as a result, and I am cooking almost everything from scratch. Rather hilariously, I’m now having to make sure I get extra salt because I have the opposite problem of low blood pressure.

Happy New Year everyone! :)

2016 Goal, 2017 goal

Goal Met, Part 1

4 Comments Posted on June 1, 2016May 31, 2016 by Snoskred

You might recall me telling you what my goal was for 2016 back at the start of the year. It was pretty simple –

Eat less, move more.

I had also set myself a personal weight loss goal of losing 15kg by June. I achieved my goal on the 27th of May, yay!

Eat Less

I limit myself to 1200-1400 calories a day. Since meeting with the dietitian, the calories I am eating are better than they have ever been. I’m on a high protein diet. I’ve switched out white foods as much as possible – aka I rarely eat bread, pasta or rice, potatoes have been switched for the lower GI sweet potatoes.

I’ve begun to see food as fuel for my body and I am much less likely to eat poor fuel these days. I prefer my protein shake to a hamburger. I gotta tell you, I love that protein shake. I would say irrationally love it, but my love for it is NOT irrational, it is quite sane, because that is great fuel for my body.

What does eating less look like? Don’t worry, I still get my dark chocolate treats in there.. ;) for those wanting to know, here’s a recent day.

You’ll note breakfast is a weird amount of 32 grams – I do actually weigh it out. My stomach is not a morning stomach. It really does not like a lot of breakfast. This particular cereal is quite fluffy and my eyes say whoa, that is enough! When I eat the Weetbix Protein Bites for breakfast, I do get a full serving of 40g. I switch back and forth between these two cereals.

The protein shake is very filling. I used to eat a lunch which was 129 calories but I can no longer fit it in most days, because I have mostly moved my exercise to mornings and I have my protein shake just after exercise. It keeps me full until dinner time.

This particular dinner I like to call savoury beef, it is delicious. If I’m too full after dinner, I might skip the chocolate or the other snacks that day.

The rice cakes mentioned above are amazing and have stopped my craving for potato chips entirely. Oranges are in season at the moment so I am eating one a day and enjoying them, sometimes I might switch that out for an apple and in summer it was mangoes all the time, with some greek yoghurt.

The only thing I don’t log is cooking oil – I don’t use much – and spices – I use plenty but the calorie amount is negligible, and I log my two coffees as one coffee in the morning, just to save some time.

Move More

As you saw here on the blog with my recent 5 week challenge posts, I’ve got move more down to a bit of an art at this time. For 5 weeks, I either walked 5km or burned at least 500 calories each day.

The Next Goal

I would like to lose a further 10kg by the start of October. If I manage it, I will reward myself with fake skydiving! ;)

I also want to add in more yoga and pilates before and after treadmill workouts. I did a pilates class which broke me for a week, so I want to build up slowly before trying another class.

2016 Goal, health

The Five Week Challenge – Week 2

4 Comments Posted on April 27, 2016April 25, 2016 by Snoskred

Another fitness week! This is more for my own records and to put all of this together in one place, so you can feel free to just skip past this post.

Friday April 15th –

Todays workout was in two parts and was different to the normal. I did 1k treadmill, 10 mins elliptical, 1k treadmill, 10 mins elliptical, then 1k treadmill. There were also some floor exercises for abs. YAY. Above is part 1.

This is my personal best for a 1km since getting back into exercising. 8:06 – sorry my treadmill quite uncooperative, with the photography! Above you see todays first km..

And here is part 2. 552 calories burned total.

Saturday April 16th –

Todays 6.5km walk brought to you by the Volkswagen Polo, plus Psycho Killer by Talking Heads which was the last song that played in the car before we got out, and thus, played in my head the entire 77 or so minutes.

Plus, I took a couple of pics, for you. Cloudy day, warm-ish, excellent for walking. YAY CLOUDS!

Sunday April 17th –

Todays workout brought to you by The Village People, specifically U can’t stop the music – Queen, specifically Don’t stop me now – plus my chicken Rosie who decided this music meant she should make a run for it into an offlimits area! This was a super tough workout involving circuits between the elliptical and the treadmill.

Monday April 18th –

Todays “rest day” slow walk brought to you by episodes 18 and 19 of The Good Wife which I am hate watching now, and Skye from Tinykittens, I am watching and waiting for her kittens to arrive. I got on again for another 16 minutes later, just to get some extra steps in and watch the last of episode 19.

Tuesday April 19th –

I don’t know why my iPhone hates me. Every time I think I will walk a little slower, it plays yet another tune of awesomeness that makes me speed up or even run. And today it made me have a personal best ever time! 7.45 for the first 1k, and then this great time for the 5k.

Wednesday April 20th –

Todays workout brought to you by umpteen annoying boy children at the pool, plus 5 annoying girls. I set a goal of burning 800 calories aqua jogging, and I very nearly did a u-turn in the carpark when I saw this busload of boy children being lectured by one of the adults. But then I thought, piffle, ain’t gonna let no noisy kids stand in the way of my exercise! :) YAY WINNING. There is two tracks – the above one for the jogging and one to follow for the cool down —

Thursday April 21st –

Todays workout brought to you by new water shoes! Yay 713 calories burned total. I’m showing you a different screen today.

Another highly active week. Weigh in at the end of this week was 83.2.

Week 1 is here.

2016 Goal, exercise, Fitbit

My Main Goal For 2016

15 Comments Posted on January 8, 2016January 8, 2016 by Snoskred

I have a few things I would like to achieve this year. There is one major goal, though – and it is –

Eat Less, Move More.

This is a pretty simple goal. It needs to happen. My weight has been quietly creeping up to a place I am not a fan of. At the start of January, I weighed in at 95.2kg – (209.88 pounds) – if I let things continue this way, I’d soon be over 100kgs.

The Other Half and I bought ourselves the Fitbit Charge HR for Christmas. We got them on special for $124 each. This little gadget has changed my life in a good way – I will do a post all about it later this month once I have been using it a little longer. Here is a quick look at the dashboard, which you will see in more detail in my upcoming post. :)

As a part of the Fitbit thing, I’m also tracking my food intake. I was doing it with the inbuilt Fitbit food logging software, but I have now switched to MyFitnessPal. You can find me here – MyFitnessPal & Fitbit.

We bought the Fitbits on Tuesday, so I weigh in on Tuesday mornings and in the first week I lost 1.3kg (2.86 pounds).

Of course one of the very first things we did was go out for a long walk, during which I managed to pinch a nerve in my foot, making it difficult to get my 10,000 steps a day for that first week. In fact for two days I had to rest and limp about – then I injured it again and had to take another rest day. That has been quite frustrating. However even on a rest day I managed 6468 steps which is pretty decent.

I know I have a couple of readers who have set themselves the same goal and at least one thinking about buying themselves a Fitbit, so here are my lessons learned after one week.

Start Out Slow.

As soon as you get that Fitbit, you’ll want to get moving. However if you do that, you will not have a baseline to know how many steps you would usually do in a day. So my advice the first day is – do what you would do on a regular day.

Be Careful

An injury will hinder your progress and frustrate you, so rather than go all out, ramp up your exercise slowly. If you are not doing 10,000 steps to begin with, aim to add a thousand steps each day.

Work It Out

It is useful to figure out how many steps you get from things you do regularly. For example, if I need to run to the shops, it will be 2,000 steps or so. A shower is usually 200-300 steps – I keep mine on, you don’t have to, of course. Why is this important?

Step Budget

If you know that you have to do grocery shopping tomorrow, and you know that is going to be around 2,000 steps, you might want to cut back on your other activities.

For example – I like to get on the treadmill and do a walk but I will always stop around 8,000 steps because I know the rest of my daily doings (dinner, cleaning, etc) will be around 2,000 steps. On the day you see pictured above, we discovered we did not have an essential dinner ingredient, so off to the shops we went – and I went way over on my steps for that day.

Not that going over 10,000 steps is a major problem, but at this stage with the injury I really want to try and stick to 10,000 -11,000 a day.

Sleep Is Interesting

Sleep stats, that is. Above you see one of my best nights of sleep since getting the Fitbit. Interestingly, I had stayed up late reading a truly great book. When I did go to sleep, I was out solidly for 4 hours. I woke up so refreshed the next morning.

This sleep was less good but it seems like this is a more normal sleep for me.

Fitbit Thoughts

Why does it seem like this is going to work well for me? Putting this little tracking band on my wrist has inspired me to get moving and watch my food intake. Is it because, in a world where everything can be tracked, tracking the human body tells us more about ourselves? I haven’t logged food to this extent before and I am finding it to suit my Aspie, slightly OCD nature.

Saying It Out Loud

The major reason I am posting this here is to hold myself accountable. There is always the danger I could become complacent and fall off the eat less, move more wagon. I’ll update here once a month.

Over To You

Did you make any goals for 2016? Do you fitbit or myfitnesspal? :)

2016 Goal, exercise, health, Making Choices, moving forward