Ok, so a pound of fat is equal to 3600 calories. Working at aerobic maximum capacity, you can count on burning around 10 calories/minute. Yes, your math is correct...you have to exercise for 360 minutes, to get rid of one pound of fat. And by the way, that doesn't include all the food you ate today either. But don't get discouraged...with a little tweaking of the diet and consistent physical activity, you will start to feel and see results, quickly. Here's an example:
Lets say you have 20lbs to loose, that's 72000 calories. 20 x 3600 = 72000.
Now, you can look at that as 120 hours of intense exercise while maintaining your current eating habits...or...you can make healthy food choices in regard to portion, timing and variety and begin a moderate, sustainable activity level.
A 60 day plan would stack up like this if you currently eat about 2000 calories/day:
Intense exercise alone Sustainable food/fitness plan
*two hours of non-stop, *Shave 400 calories/day out of your
high intensity aerobic exercise; diet by making healthy food
every day, seven days/week. substitutions, and controlling portion
*continue to eat exactly as you sizes.
currently do *One hour of high intensity aerobic
exercise and another half hour of
weight or cross training.
Either way, this may seem like a bigger mountain to climb than you had imagined. It is not always easy, but the rewards last a life time, and will add time to your life. Not just countable days, but quality of life as well. I don't just want to be around for my children's weddings, I want to dance the night away at them. I don't just want to visit my grandchildren, I want to run, swim, bicycle and play with them. And I want to look and feel great now! How about you? What are your goals? How are you going to get there? Do you have a plan?
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Food for Thought...Part I
Reality check: you can never, ever, use weight loss to solve problems that are not related to your weight. At your goal weight or not, you still have to live with yourself and deal with your problems. You will still have the same husband, the same job, the same kids, and the same life. Losing weight is not a cure for life. ~Phillip C. McGraw, The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom, 2003
In her book, Women, Food and God, Geneen Roth has a chapter entitled, It's Not About the Weight, but It's Not Not About the Weight. I really enjoyed reading this chapter, and highly recommend the entire book to anyone struggling with weight, food, body image and just about any other problem. Geneen lays out a brilliant case in support of the idea that weight and food issues are elaborate smoke screens that we have constructed to hide painful situations, emotions and relationships that we do not want to deal with.
When we really take a look at how we handle food situations...walking past the chocolate cake and eating 15 paper thin slivers, avoiding birthday parties so we wont eat cupcakes, never allowing ice cream into the house because we can't control ourselves...we take advantage of a tremendous opportunity for self discovery.
- Perhaps we've made a habit of lying to ourselves about many things in our lives, not just the fact that we really want to eat the chocolate cake.
- Is it possible that the real reason we don't want to go to the birthday party is because our ex will be there?
- Maybe we are unable to exert self-control in any area of our life, so forcing specific food deprivations makes us feel successful in maintaining some control.
Take a look at how you handle food situations. What has food become in your life? I struggle with these questions every day. Am I hungry for food right now, standing in front of the fridge, or am I lonely? Does my body really crave chocolate chip cookies, or a nice fresh salad? If my body could talk, what would it say? Ohhhhhh....that's a good one!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Food for thought..
Are you aware of when you are truly satisfied while eating?
It's easy to overeat when you are not paying attention to the sensation of being satisfied. Your body's cue to stop eating can happen while the fork is midway between your plate and your mouth, but if you are not listening, you will just keep right on eating.
How does your body try to tell you it's had enough?
How Heather got her got her groove back...Part II
In my despair, surrounded by mirrors, I felt a whisper in my mind. You can name the whisper whatever is comfortable for you...God, the universe, intuition, a wise ancestor,...it doesn't matter. What matters, is that I felt it...inside my being a truth took shape and flooded my consciousness. With a suddenness that took my breath away, I realized that I did not love myself.
All I had to do, was look at how I cared for my children to know that I easily made excellent choices for those that I love. I would drag myself to the grocery store in the middle of the night to make sure that they had fresh, wholesome food for their meals the next day. I would scrub the kitchen floor on my hands and knees to make sure that it was clean enough for them to eat off of. I would risk confrontation with teachers, parents and relatives ensuring that my children were safe and happy at all times. I would do laundry from sun up to sun down to make sure they had clean, attractive clothing to wear every day. I would turn down social invitations in order to put my children to be freshly bathed and intellectually stimulated by the best children's literature well before they were overtired.
But for myself...I couldn't justify spending the extra money at the grocery store to buy the low-fat Greek style yogurt I liked. I couldn't take the time to go for a quick jog with the dog, or walk with a neighbor. I couldn't find the courage to advocate for my physical, emotional or spiritual health. I would wear the same outfit I wore the day before, certain that no one would notice the ketchup stains. I couldn't take the time to meet a friend anywhere but at the park. Every choice I made in regards to myself was determined by personal ambivalence.
Any use of time, energy or money had to be for the benefit of my children or husband, for me to avoid overwhelming guilt.
Anyone treated this way would begin to feel unloved...after seven years of it, I didn't just feel unloved, I looked unloved from head to toe.
I knew right then and there in that dressing room, that the only way to change, was going to have to start with a heart change.
OH......but that's when it got really ugly!!!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Inspirational quote
Just as a seed contains all it needs to sprout,
so are you already equipped to thrive.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Variety really is the spice...
Today I rode my beautiful road bike to work. I left home in South Windsor at 7:35 am, and arrived at Nayaug Elementary School in South Glastonbury at 8:25 am. The trip down Main Street East Hartford was harrowing during the morning rush, but it was fun pretending to be a car. I actually found it oddly meditative having to focus so intensely on the cars, trucks and buses.
As they did last week when I rode to work, my co-workers were stunned that I had ridden "all that way" and couldn't imagine themselves doing "such a thing". I felt great and used the teachers bathroom to freshen up and change. Of course, I've had better hair days, but that's what clips and elastics are for. I parked my bike in Mr. Robbins room, a fellow biker, and counted down the hours until I got to ride back home.
My mainstay aerobic activity is road running. I know that there are two kinds of people in the world, runners and everyone else, but if you love to run like I do, you can find yourself running almost every day. This can lead to a couple of problems. Doing the same exercise routine often leads to injury, burn out and ultimately will slow your fitness progress. This holds true for running on the road, on the treadmill, using elliptical machines, swimming, walking, kayaking, tennis, raquet ball, biking, step class, kick boxing...any activity. Just like in the stock market,
YOU MUST DIVERSIFY!
I really did want to go for my nearly daily run this morning, but my body has been giving me signs that I needed to take a break. Sometimes this means a real day off from any kind of strenuous exercise, but more often then not it's simply time to change things up. Figuring this out can be difficult at first, that's were a professional, trained personal trainer can help...SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION...
My bike ride today gave my knees a much needed break from the constant pounding they take on my runs. But equally as important, my mind had a wonderful time watching the world pass at nearly 30 MPH as I flew down the massive hills of Glastonbury. I enjoyed figuring out how to maneuver through tricky intersections. But the very best part, was how my heart nearly jumped out of my chest, as I came around the corner, half way home, to see my husband waiting to join me on his bike.
I changed things up today, and gave my body a break, challenged my mind and enjoyed a spark of unexpected romance in my marriage. PRICELESS!
How Heather got her groove back...Part I
After having three babies in five years, I knew that I had gained a few pounds and lost some muscle tone. I was not prepared, however, for the reality of my changed body.
In the winter of 2004, I stepped into a 360' mirrored dressing room to try on new undergarments, and experienced my first panic attack. Honestly, I thought a stranger had accidentally stepped into the wrong dressing room. As the realization dawned that the stranger was me, tears began to flow down my cheeks and my shoulders shuddered. How had I let this happen? I closed my eyes, unable to look at myself any longer, filled with anger, sadness and shame.
Sure I knew I was putting on weight. I knew that my pre-pregnancies clothing did not fit, but I had just piled the new larger sizes on top of the smaller sizes. I wore loose fitting, matronly styles that hid my body, and never caused discomfort. My home was devoid of full length mirrors and I insisted on being the one to take pictures, rarely appearing in photographs. I had effectively separated my body from my consciousness. But this numb comfort had come at a price...I also hadn't noticed the grey fog of depression that had settled around me in the process.
*Too be continued.... Right now, I have to get ready to ride my bike to work!
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