So far, so good

It’s amazing how much better I feel after just a few days of making better choices.

Rick and I hit the gym on Sunday morning – 35 minutes on the treadmill at a decent pace (3.5mph – just walking, no running for me yet) and about 20 minutes of weights.  I was hurting within an hour of getting home – man, I’m out of practice!  Rick and I both passed out on the sofa Sunday afternoon for almost an hour. 

Sunday night, I turned on the Wii and decided on a lil’ Just Dance. I went with the “sweat it out” option and picked some high-intensity songs.  Just three songs and I was sweating my hiney off!

Sunday, I also started counting calories.

Monday, I took a nice walk on my lunch break.  Our office is part of a beautiful development with walking paths, bridges, ponds…we even have a little bit of wildlife to check out – herons, turtles, ducks.  I’d glanced out the window before, but never actually walked along the paths.  What a gorgeous area.  I haven’t gotten around to bringing my sneakers to work yet, but I can manage a 10-15 minute walk in my work shoes easily enough. 

I’m using the Lose It app for Android to track calories and exercise.  You can enter your goal weight and then pick a plan (I chose 2lbs loss/wk) and it tells you a) when you should meet your goal and b) how many calories you have to stay within in order to do so.

According to the app, if I stay under 1,672 calories/day, I should be 155lbs by March 25, 2013.  Considering I figured a year with the band would be reasonable, it’s pretty encouraging to see that it might happen sooner than I think as long as I make good choices (along with the band!).  Of course I’m trying to avoid saturated fats and processed foods, in general.

Sunday, I ate 1,932 calories, but I burned approx 375 calories, so that still put my net intake under the mark.

Monday – 1,757 calories in and about 90 burned. Not too bad.

Today – I’ve already plugged in what I plan to have for dinner along with what I’ve eaten all day (I try to put things in there in advance so I can see how much wiggle room is left).  Including dinner, I’m at about 1,430 calories.  I went for a walk this AM and plan to do so again in a few minutes – just little 10 min walks on my breaks. I’m also planning to “sweat it out” again with the Wii Just Dance for at least 30 minutes tonight, so hopefully I’ll have burned a couple hundred calories.  My goal is to eat less than the 1,672 regardless of exercise, but I’m not fooling myself into thinking I’ll get there overnight!

(I dread to plug in what a “normal” day was for me, calorie-wise, just a couple of weeks ago. I’d guess at least 2,500 calories.  At least.)

I feel great.  A little sore, yeah, but otherwise… happier.  And sore muscles have always made me feel just a little less fat. I still look the same, but at least I can feel that there are still muscles in there somewhere! They’re crying for me to use them!

I’m off for a quick walk. 🙂  You should go do the same!