The last stats, for now

I didn't make it onto the elliptical after all today. My heel is still quite tender, but after one day of rest there was such a marked improvement that I thought it best to take advantage of the upcoming travel weekend and just give it several consecutive days of rest. (My doctor husband agreed.) Instead of cardio, I did both an upper- and a lower-body strength-training session. Still no core work, though.

Kitten, your thoughts about nutrition are really making me think that the last two days of extremely reduced calories had a lot to do with my falling into bed at 8 o'clock last night. I ate much better today. Total calories were around 1500, lower than the Fat2Fit recommendation, but much higher than Wednesday (1063) and Thursday (1243). I got a lot done today and feel energized enough to watch Game 7 of the World Series.

I got all four 16-ounce cups of water in, and resisted snacking – including the homemade caramel corn I'm taking to my daughter-in-law and granddaughter tomorrow. (If you look at the recipe, you'll see it's for popcorn balls. I made one batch to send to the older grandchildren, but I think the little one will enjoy it more if it's in smaller pieces. I spread it out on waxed paper to cool and broke it up. It's just like Cracker Jacks!) I also journaled everything.

This is the last stat report. I promised I would do them for a month, but I hope we can all agree that enough is enough. I won't have time to post tomorrow and I don't want to feel like I "have" to later in the weekend when I'm having fun with the little princess bride.

Thanks again for your encouragement and comments. It's been very helpful to me to make myself accountable to you. I'd love to return the favor, should any of you decide to try something like this.

Stats, Week 4, Day 4

After I posted this morning I got really discouraged. My actions today certainly didn't meet the level of my intentions. Kitten, your comment gave me a lot to think about, and I really appreciate your in-depth analysis of the nutritional needs of someone who is going through an injury rehab. I especially appreciate yours and Denise's encouragement about doing some kind of core work.

So. Here's how the day started out, all golden and glowy and amazing:

This mountain is west of our house. It was afire from the sunrise for about 10 minutes this morning.

And it was all downhill from there.

I drank only two 16-oz. cups of water.
I did not get on the elliptical.
Today was lower-body strength training, and of course I didn't do any of it.
I ate three meals, supplemented with a Tootsie Pop around 4:30. After I got up from a nap.
I journaled everything I ate. Including the Tootsie Pop.

All in all, I felt (and still feel) very discouraged. I hope this is one of those quickly passing moods, instead of the kind that settle in for, oh, as long as it takes plantar fasciitis to heal.

Sigh.

Stats, and a change in plans

Water: Almost finished, one more 16-oz. cup to go
Weights: Done
Walk: 1.5 miles in 30 minutes
Meals: Two (lunch and dinner), both journaled

So, not great today, but I don't think I've halted any perceived progress (my husband swears I look thinner, but he's delusional). Unless exercise is more important than eating less. Then, maybe.

And now for the change in plans. The walking will have to be put on hold for a while, as I work on what is, so far, a mild case of plantar fasciitis in my right foot that isn't going away. Daily four-mile walks, especially when you're overweight, don't help PF. I've noticed the pain for about two weeks now, and had hoped for some kind of magic to make it all better.

I've had it before and it will eventually go away, but it takes a while. It also takes rest, ice and stretching. I've been doing stretches before I get out of bed in the morning, which is the only way I can get out of bed in the morning. But I kept thinking that's all I would have to do.

Today's brutally painful – and relatively short – walk convinced me that I'm going to have to move to something with a lower impact on my heel.

Thanks goodness I have an elliptical. I'm going to make a commitment to use the elliptical for 30 minutes tomorrow and Friday. I'm traveling Saturday through Tuesday. Next Wednesday through Friday I'll do 30 minutes a day. By next weekend I should be able to bump it up to 45 minutes per session and the following weekend I'll try going for an hour.

I'm not sure how this will work, therefore these aren't carved-in-stone commitments.

I can continue the upper-body strength training and the wall push-ups, but the lower-body routine is hard on my heel, so it, too, will be on hold until this pain goes away.

The best part of this change in plans is that I'll be able to listen to more audiobooks! My iPod runneth over, so I'm actually kind of almost looking forward to it. Heh.

Stats

Water: Done
Strength-training: Done
Three meals, no snacks: Done
Journaling: Done
Walking: 4.05 miles in 75 minutes. So, done.

All in all, a very good day.

Stats, Week 4, Day 1

• Four miles in 79 minutes. 4.05, actually. Beautiful day for a walk!
• Three meals, no one snack. I don't know what came over me, but about 3:30 I was wandering around the kitchen, opening the pantry and refrigerator looking for something. I ended up eating a plain whole-wheat soft flour tortilla. The no-snack rule didn't even enter my mind. Grrr.
• Upper-body strength training. Ouch! 15 reps of five moves, plus the wall push-ups. Thought it best to stick with 15 instead of increasing again this week. I think my next increase will be to go to two sets of 10.
• Four 16-ounce cups of water.
• Journaled everything at FatSecret. Including the tortilla.

I had a great salad for lunch today. I mixed a head of torn romaine with some onions, bread-and-butter pickles, a tomato and 2 oz. of farmer's cheese, and dressed it with olive oil and rosemary/garlic vinegar. The sweetness of the pickles made it a most delicious salad!

Oh, and I completely forgot it was Food Day until I saw lots of tweets about it while I was walking.

Still on plan ... (stats)

Much more difficult to control what and when I get things done, but I've managed to stick pretty close to my goals, even doing plié squats with my granddaughter (who is a dancer) until I lost count. She made me do them in both second and fifth position. Fifth position might actually be more beneficial for the hip pain I've been having. At the same time, it's awkward and I need to balance myself by holding onto a counter or wall.

Getting old sucks!


Drank water all day yesterday.
Did lower-body squats, lunges and also did wall push-ups (15 each).
Journaled my food, no snacks.
Walked four miles with my grandson in the early morning, it took us 77 minutes. Not bad!

We're off to walk again, hope y'all have a great day!

Stats. And THANKS!

Well, today was not perfect, but it came awfully darned close.

First, though, thanks for the many comments. Y'all are awesome! I'm pretty sure six pounds in one (or even two) weeks is a fluke, but it looked great this morning and I'm very motivated to continue working on these new habits.

So here's how it went down on travel day.

Walking
I ended up walking for about an hour total, 25 minutes at one rest stop, 20 at another and 15 much later in the day, after I arrived. At my normal 3 mph pace, that's only three miles. But I'll give myself credit for making the effort, because normally I would totally blow off walking on a day when I have to drive for seven hours.

Weights
I increased the upper-body reps to 15 this week. Same moves – tricep kickbacks, front raises, front laterals, curls. I lost count doing the wall push-ups, but I'm sure I did more than 15.

Water
I drank a ton of water today. Way more than I thought I would. Way more than I do at home, actually.

Snacks
None! I did, however, have a most delicious fast-food lunch of chicken strips and french fries, something I would never eat at home.

When I finished tallying up the day's food, I was less than 100 calories over my targeted goal.

Not too bad, all in all. Again, thanks for hanging in there with me and encouraging me and boosting my spirits. I have the best blog readers in the world.

Stats, Week 2, Day 7

Yay! This is the last day you have to suffer through every bite that passed my lips. Good thing, too, because I'm going to be out of town beginning tomorrow and will have less time to log it twice. Logging it once at FatSecret is enough!

Today was a rough one. Our little town has a railroad festival two weekends in October every year. This was the first weekend of the event, and I volunteered my time at the Democratic women's booth selling bumper stickers. My husband's childhood friend grew up to be a jazz drummer and he came home to entertain at the festival. (He also was inducted into West Virginia's Music Hall of Fame this weekend, one of those hometown boys makes good things that makes the whole town proud.)

I walked from 7:20 to 8:30, and if you're one of my Facebook friends you got to see the sunrise with me. It really was lovely. By 10 a.m. we were downtown and the rest of the day was not my own. You'd think with festival food that I'd be reporting all kinds of horrible stuff, but you would be wrong. I walked up and down checking out all the vendors, but didn't see a thing I wanted. Or, rather, I didn't see a thing I wanted to stand in line for.

So I skipped lunch and had the last piece of leftover lasagna for dinner, just now. I certainly overdid the carbs today, and definitely underdid the fruits and vegetables, but at last I'm no longer hungry. I've been hungry for a couple of hours. And I didn't die!


I also skipped the lower-body strength-training today. For no good reason, and I could still work it in later, maybe, but I'm awfully tired and probably won't. Maybe I'll do some pliés while I brush my teeth before bed.

Breakfast was the yogurt, banana, granola combo.
Dinner was leftover lasagna, a slice of buttered whole-wheat bread and a banana.

Two meals and no snacks was not how I'd planned today. I did get all the water in, though!

I'm going to weigh myself in the morning and will post the result here before I leave. I wish I could have waited one more week to make this trip. The '21 days to make a habit' is probably going to be cut short; I don't know how I'm going to manage to keep all those balls in the air when I'm not at home. But I'm needed now, and some things are more important than others.

I'm packing my eight-pound dumbbells. (Gingerzingi, thank you for suggesting I get a barbell and plates. I have some, they are definitely waiting in the wings for when I'm badass enough to move up.) I should be able to continue the water, which I really do like, and no one is more surprised than I at that. Not sure how I'll fit a four-miler in every day, but I'll do what I can. Of course, not snacking can be done anywhere, anytime, but I have to tell you that in my previous lives road trips have been one. long. snack. So we'll see what happens.

I may or may not blog while I'm gone. Depends on how tired I am and how much free time I have. If my husband or my dog knew how to work the computer, I'd let one of them take over. They'll probably have enough to do just holding down the fort.

As always, thanks for sticking with me, and thanks for all your encouraging words and thoughts and suggestions. Two weeks into this I'm feeling good. My morning date with the scale is incidental.

Stats, plus a strength-training "duh"

The boring stuff first.

Walked five miles in 98 minutes
Drank a gallon of water and then some more
Upper-body strength training, plus 12 wall push-ups
No snacks. Today's food consisted of:

The usual yogurt/fruit/granola combo for breakfast.
Leftover lasagna, salad and pumpkin pie for lunch. (I didn't know which bite to eat last. Do any of you save the best flavor for last? Especially when there won't be any more of it until you make it again?)
Chicken sausage, white bean and kale soup, with one slice of whole-wheat bread for dinner. (This soup is one of our favorites, let me know if you'd like the recipe.)

And the "duh" is that I've been using the same dumbbells for upper-body work for 13 days and only today did I notice they were EIGHT-pound weights, not five-pounders, as I've been reporting.

Maybe I'm a badass after all. Heh.

Stats, Week 2, Day 5

Here we go ...

Walked 4 miles in 80 minutes, no jogging at all. Fought the wind the whole way, no matter which direction I was going.
Lower-body strength-training, plus 12 wall push-ups
64+ ounces of water
No snacks. I have a bowl of candy corn on an end table, so I had some with my lunch. Here's what I ate today:

9:00 a.m.
1/2 cup yogurt
1 medium banana
1/4 cup granola

1:30 p.m.
3.5 oz. boneless roast chicken
1/2 cup corn
1/2 cup edamame
1 oz. candy corn

6:30 p.m.
1 4-inch square lasagna with meat and zucchini
Mixed green salad with onions, orange, walnuts, olive oil/red wine vinegar dressing
1 small slice garlic bread
1/8 of a pumpkin pie

We had company for dinner. I don't usually eat so much at the evening meal. But … today's total was still less than 1700 calories. I'm averaging about 1250 calories per day this week, thanks to a light day Tuesday.

Stats, Week 2, Day 4

I rocked the walk today.

4 miles in 61 minutes. Want proof?

Also …
Water: 64 ounces (and then some)
Strength-training: 12 each of the upper-body stuff, plus 12 wall push-ups
Snacks? Nada. Nil. Zip. Zilch.

Here's what I ate today.

8:00 a.m.
2 oz granola

2 Tblsp Peach Preserves
4 oz yogurt

Noonish
1 large apple
2 oz. colby jack cheese
4 dill pickle spears (pickles count as a vegetable, right?)
10 saltines

5:30 p.m.
5 oz chicken breast
1/2 cup corn
1/2 cup edamame
1/2 large potato
2 Tblsp. salsa

Stats, Week 2, Day 3

Forward lunges, chair squats, plié squats, wall push-ups - 12 of each
64+ ounces of water
4 miles in 76 minutes.


Three meals (total 1223 calories): 

8 a.m.

• 1/2 cup yogurt, plain, full-fat
• 1 Tblsp. apple jelly
• 1/4 cup granola 

12:30 p.m.

• 4 ounces cooked spaghetti squash
• 2 ounces smoked Gouda
• 1 Asian pear

5:30 p.m. 

• 1 pork chop with basil sauce
• 1/2 cup mashed potatoes
• 1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (cauli, broc, carrots)
• 1 peanut butter brownie

I can't believe I'm married to someone who is 68 today. He loves the peanut butter-and-chocolate combination, and I'm not going to refuse it today. Ask me again tomorrow. Yesterday's calories were waaaaay low, and today's – even with the brownie – come in at right around 1200.

Stats

Wasn't sure I could pull this off today.

• Upper body weight-training, 12 reps with 5-lb. dumbbells: bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, front raises, lateral raises, side bends, plus 12 wall push-ups
• 64 ounces water
• 5.5 miles in 107 minutes
• I've journaled all my food. Didn't eat nearly enough today, but I was busy ... and will be busy tonight, as well.
• Two meals, one snack

               9:30 a.m.: Yogurt, apple jelly, granola

               3:30 p.m.: Apple, 1 Tblsp peanut butter

               5:00 p.m.: Curried lentil and black-bean soup, oyster crackers 

That is all ...

Stats, Week 2, Day 1

Forward lunges, chair squats, plié squats, wall push-ups - 12 of each
          I'm bumping these up by two this week, and will also be bumping up 
          the upper body reps.
64+ ounces of water
4 miles in 71 minutes.


Three meals (total 1223 calories): 

8 a.m.

• 1/2 cup yogurt, plain, full-fat
• 1 Tblsp. apple jelly
• 1/4 cup granola 

12:30 p.m.

• 2 oz. whole wheat bread
• 1 Tblsp. almond butter
• 1 Tblsp. apple jelly
• 2 dill pickle spears
• 1 apple

5:30 p.m. 

• 1 cup spaghetti
• 1 cup marinara sauce with meat
• 1 cup green beans
• 1/2 cup light vanilla ice cream

I'm going to list everything I eat this week, so this Stats report is going to get really boring. For you and for me, because I'm logging everything over at FatSecret, as well. But I'm only going to bore us to tears for one week. If you see anything that looks cra-zee, please jump right in and say so!

As I look at this list of food, the ice cream, apple, almonds (for the almond butter and granola), raisins+oats (for the granola) and pasta were purchased. Everything else was either grown in my garden or made by me right here in my kitchen in the Middle of Nowhere. That's way cool.

Stats

One week down. I'll do a more thorough wrap-up in the morning.

• Upper body weight-training with 5-lb. dumbbells, plus 10 tricep dips and 10 wall push-ups
• 64 ounces water
• Three meals, no snacks
• Four miles in 73 minutes

I had such a fun walk this morning. My granddaughter was messaging me on Facebook while I was walking, and the time seemed to fly by!

Stats

• Forward lunges, chair squats, plié squats, wall push-ups - 10 of each
• 64+ ounces of water
• Three meals, no snacks
• 5 miles in 93 minutes.

The first 2.5 miles I walked carrying an empty shopping bag. I bought two dozen eggs at the Amish market, so was carrying about three extra pounds as I headed back home. A little more than a mile from home I stopped to chat with a neighbor who was cleaning up his garden. I added another seven pounds of tomatoes to my bag, making that last mile just a teensy bit harder!

Football and knitting (almost done with the first half of Jujuba) the rest of the day. And no snacks!

Stats

10 of each, with 5-lb dumbbells:

• Bicep curls
• Front raises
• Side bends
• Overheads

5 tricep kickbacks, 5 tricep dips
10 wall push-ups

5 miles in 95 minutes.

Three meals, no snacks (breakfast at 8 works much better than brunch at 11)

64+ ounces water

PLUS: I loaded and unloaded a 17 cu. ft. trailer with horse manure. Twice. The south end of the garden should be in pretty good shape next spring.

Denise, thanks for your comment earlier today. I read it out loud to my husband when we were walking. You made my day! And Kitten, you're the best. Thanks for all the attagirls you've given me all week. Don't feel obligated to keep it up, but do know that I appreciate it!

Stats

Forward lunges, chair squats, plié squats (my fav), wall push-ups - 10 of each
64+ ounces of water
Two meals - late breakfast, early dinner (not a good idea, I do much better with three meals)
4 miles in 84 minutes. Waaaaaay slow today.


I wrestled with the garden tiller today, which is a workout in itself, and planted two kinds of garlic, one to braid and a hardneck variety (German Extra Hardy) which does very well in my neck of the woods, but you have to store it in bags. After that I trimmed some bushes and then I went for my walk. It was about 2 p.m. and pretty warm when I left, and I was so tired from all the gardening. I just decided to plod along and get it done and not think about how hot and tired and grumpy I was.


This accountability thing is working. I don't mind reporting that I was really slow, but I didn't want to report that I wimped out completely.

Stats

10 of each, with 5-lb dumbbells:

• Bicep curls
• Front raises
• Side bends
• Overheads

10 tricep dips (killer, and I'm not telling you how much the dumbbell weighs, heh)
10 wall push-ups

4 miles in 71 minutes. Did the 4th mile in 16:59 ... all walking. Very warm today.

Two meals, one snack (brunch at 11 - breakfast kinda got away from me today, snack at 3, dinner at 6)

64+ ounces water

Stats

3 meals, no snacks
64+ ounces of water (already! at 2 p.m.!)
Forward lunges, plié squats, chair pose squat, wall push-ups (10 of each)
4 miles in 71 minutes. Boo-yah!

I'm using parts of two workouts from Women's Health for lower-body moves. They're not difficult (and, perhaps, not very effective), but while I'm easing my way into a regular routine, it's a good place to start. I'm not even doing every suggested move, obviously.

Baby steps.