okay.....time to get serious

I've been reading about good plans for weight loss through lifestyle changes. They seem to be a good place to start. Reading is one thing, working it is another. I'm having a hard time getting to the gym. And walking around outside has not been very appealing (except for the few lovely days, when I was at work!) I do get more time walking now that I am working 12 hours a day. I hardly sit down. It does make me tired. Last time I checked, I was down 5 pounds, but I am worried it was a fluke and don't want to weigh again until I 'feel' thinner!

And I need to work out at the gym for real. I'm planning on Tuesday. I'd love to go to the yoga class at 7 am, but since I don't get home from work until midnight, I'm thinking that if I can make the 11 o'clock class, that would be wiser! :-) I could take the class, ride a bike for 20 minutes and then sit in the steam room. That seems pretty easy, right? The goal will be to GET inside the gym. The rest takes care of itself pretty much.

So, birthday is coming up. This makes the whole 50 b4 50 seem a little closer. I really have to have endurance to reach this goal! Good think I have to walk around so much at work, and it keeps me from eating very much while I'm there, too. Maybe I can meet this goal? I'm going to keep trying.

smaRt

Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.

Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

__

The goal of improving time in the mini-triathlon is realistic!

First mini-triathlon

#1 Mini-triathlon!!

Yippee! I completed my first one. I didn't try to push myself, I just wanted to complete it. And I did. I started with 30 minutes on a treadmill type of machine (low impact). It was HARD work. I used 200 calories and went 1.5 miles in 30 minutes. My heart rate was between 120-145 the whole time. I'd like to get it lower, as I wasn't working THAT hard, but oh well.

Then I went on to the bikes. I did 20 minutes at level 3, which was pretty easy. I did 2.0 mile and I think maybe 100 calories?

Then I went to the pool and swam for 10 minutes. That was physically not bad, but I was starting to get hungry by then. I did drink two containers of H2O, so that's good. I swam 9 laps and walked/floated the 10th one, to finish just exactly in 10 minutes.

Then I hit the whirlpool for about 3-4 minutes and the steam room for 5 minutes, and the shower, and drying my hair, and home to EAT a bowl of oatmeal with raspberries and blueberries in it. And 1/2 a brownie from Noah's birthday lunch out with Grandma. Ouch! Could have skipped that part of it, but it was SOOO good!!!

Oh, and I went to a gentle yoga class before starting the mini-triathlon. Needless to say, my heart rate is still a bit too high, but my spirits are high, too. Now I am checking email and watching SG1, season 8, disk 2.

I saw a complete set of SG1 at Costco last night for $179.00, boy was I tempted!!!! That would be too much fun for one gal. :-)

Now I need to figure out how many calories I burn just by being awake, and what my total calorie intake should be to lose 1-2 pounds a week, with the massive workout schedule (aka mini-triathlon) twice a week. I don't know if I could do that 3x a week, but I'd be willing to. It wasn't as hard as I thought, so pushing myself to get better mileage is a good goal, eventually.

5 lbs by Feb 22

Okay, so my smArt goal is to reach 180 by Feb 22nd, my 49th birthday. I hate that it's such a high number...so maybe 179 by 2/22. I like that one better. I am silly! But if it works, it works!

This is smArt in that it is Attainable. I can do this, so I will set that as a specific goal. If I reach it, it will be goal number two. The first will be losing 5 pounds, the second 179 by my birthday. Hmmm, does carrot cake count as a healthy choice?

keeping track

The other thing I've been thinking about is how to record progress. I can weigh myself, and I will, but I think once a week is enough time to obsess about the number stuff. I like the morning, before shower, after voiding. No clothing, tile floor. And even though my scale does those 1/2 pound things (186.5!!) I don't like tracking 1/2 pounds. So the question is, do I round up or down????

Saturday mornings sound good to me, especially because this is Friday night, so I can start tomorrow with the whole recording thing.

The I need to record the amount of exercise I do. And if I don't start losing, the amount of calories I eat. PAIN IN THE BUTTON. But I guess I'm willing to do whatever it takes to help me make the positive weight loss/be healthy changes that I need to make.

And I will try to EAT breakfast everyday (and not just a soy latte!)

Honesty seems to be a part of this whole trip. Honest to myself and in some remote way, to another person...who I hope will interject words now and then to encourage or kick butt as needed.

I'd like to reduce my risk of bad outcomes in my long term health as well as in my success at trying to improve it. I know that at times I like to eat for emotional reasons that have nothing to do with hunger, and I need to make those times go away. Or channel them into something more productive.

I have always hated that losing weight required so much effort, but that need not stop me know. I will make the necessary changes in my life to accomplish my goal. 50b450450!!!! Rah!

truth

I saw a photo of me from Thursday, and I am amazed at how fat I actually am. It's hard to imagine that I still think of my self as thinner than I am, but I do. How can that fatty be me? I was like, "Oh how nice" when I saw it, but inside I was "God, kill me now!"

I never intended to become a fatty. I guess these things happen when we don't exercise, eat a lot, sit our out butts, and eat some more! It doesn't take too much overeating to gain weight. Damn!

So, my plan is to take measurements of my stomach and other offensive parts of me 'for the record'. IF I do lose weight, I don't want to underestimate the amount of weight I've lost. I know I can look at a scale, but I think the inches are important, too. I did read an article that said stomach measurements greater than 36" on a woman has a huge increase in risk of heart disease. Bummer.

On the more positive side, I'm thinking that I will break down the whole weight loss thing into smaller bites (pun intended). LOL By that I mean, I want to take the 50 lbs and break them into 10 five pound mini-goals. My first mini goal would be 180 lbs. Right now, that seems like a mountain top, unassailable goal! But really, that would be 2-3 weeks of work or maybe 17-18 days of being very conscious of my eating patterns and choices and increase in burning of calories.

I am trying to establish what is enough exercise for me to do in a 'work out' or a day. I have several options. I like walking, so that is an easy one for me. I'm not sure HOW LONG I need to walk to make it burn enough calories, get the heart rate up, etc. I need to research this one. I'm open to suggestions/ideas/input. One idea that I heard at Lifetime this week when I was in to goof off was a mini triathlon. The suggestion goes like this...

SWIM - 10 minutes and count the laps
BIKE - 20 minutes and record the mileage
TREADMILL - 30 minutes and record the distance

TOTAL time is 60 minutes of work (? calories?)
TOTAL distance is the goal to increase over time. This would mean that if I did 4 laps, the next time I'd try for 5. If I rode 3 miles, the next time I'd try for 4. If I walk/jogged/ran for 2 miles, the next time I'd try for 3. I like the concept and I think it is more up my alley than anything else for the moment. I do realize that I'd need to be in the club for over an hour...probably more like 90 minutes, but it would be a good workout and the challenge would be solely against myself.

And I could set new records all the time! Hey, that is setting up for success. :0)

When the weather is not too cold, I like walking. Poor weather is not my favorite to walk in. Walking with a friend is the best, though. ;-)

Interesting study

Women less able to suppress hunger than men

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Faced with their favorite foods, women are less able than men to suppress their hunger, a discovery that may help explain the higher obesity rate for females, a new study suggests. Researchers trying to understand the brain's mechanisms for controlling food intake were surprised at the difference between the sexes in brain response.

Gene-Jack Wang of Brookhaven National Laboratory and colleagues were trying to figure out why some people overeat and gain weight while others don't.

They performed brain scans on 13 women and 10 men, who had fasted overnight, to determine how their brains responded to the sight of their favorite foods. They report their findings in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"There is something going on in the female," Wang said in a telephone interview, "the signal is so much different."

In the study, participants were quizzed about their favorite foods, which ranged from pizza to cinnamon buns and burgers to chocolate cake, and then were asked to fast overnight.

The next day they underwent brain scans while being presented with their favorite foods. In addition, they used a technique called cognitive inhibition, which they had been taught, to suppress thoughts of hunger and eating.

While both men and women said the inhibition technique decreased their hunger, the brain scans showed that men's brain activity actually decreased, while the part of women's brains that responds to food remained active.

"Even though the women said they were less hungry when trying to inhibit their response to the food, their brains were still firing away in the regions that control the drive to eat," Wang said.

Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Addiction and a co-author of the paper, said the gender difference was a surprise and may be because of different nutritional needs for men and women, although she stressed that idea is speculative.

Because the traditional role of the female is to provide nutrition to children, the female brain may be hard-wired to eat when foods are available, she said. The next step is to see if female hormones are reacting directly with those specific parts of the brain.

"In our society we are being constantly being bombarded by food stimulus," she said in a telephone interview, so understanding the brain's response can help in developing ways to resist that stimulus.

Eric Stice, an expert on eating disorders at the Oregon Research Institute, called the findings provocative.

"I think it is very possible that the differences in hunger suppression may contribute to gender differences in eating disorders and that they are likely linked to gender differences in estrogen and related hormones," said Stice, who was not part of Wang's research team.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 35.3 percent of American women and 33.3 percent of men were considered obese in 2006.

Rosalyn Weller, a professor of psychology at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said she was surprised by the results and "thought the dissociation between subjective reports of hunger and brain activation in women but not men was very interesting."

The results suggest that training in reducing food desires or in reacting to food cues could be effective treatments to combat obesity, said Weller, who was not part of the research team.

Weller was a co-author of a recent paper in the journal NeuroImage that studied women's brains when participants were shown pictures of food. They found that obese women had a much stronger reaction than normal-weight women in brain regions related to reward.

Wang noted that behavioral studies have shown that women have a higher tendency than men to overeat when presented with tasty food or under emotional distress.

This may result from differences in sex hormones, he said, and further research is planned to see if that is the case.

Alice H. Lichtenstein, an expert in eating behavior at Tufts University, called Wang's research "very interesting ... I hope to see more like it."

But, she added, a lot of different factors figure in what and when we eat.

"As we learn more about the different factors that go into making that decision we'll be better at helping people regulate" their eating, said Lichtenstein, who was not part of the research team.

Obesity has been increasing and Wang also suggested that another part of the reason is changes in society.

While food choices were seasonal and more limited for our ancestors, choices today are wider and the food is so tempting, he said.

"You go to the buffet, you see the food, you want it," Wang went on. "Some people go to the buffet, they don't eat so much, some do. There is something different in the people."

The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and by the General Clinical Research Center of Stony Brook University.

sMart

Measurable - How should I measure my progress towards my goal? Should I give a lot of time to planning, recording and reporting what I eat? I don't want to be absorbed with what I eat (kind of a pun there somewhere). Setting dates is an interesting approach. 7 days = 1 pound. Keeping track of the amount calories I eat would be a pain. Or points (like Weight Watchers). Uck.

Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as......How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?

How Much? How Many? - I guess this can be all weigh focused OR it can be more comprehensive. How much did I obsess about my weight or food I wanted to eat or not eat? How many times did I work out or not? How many different approached did I take, etc. Also, there is a whole dimension of what I believe about food. There is certainly something soothing about eating comfort foods. Why? What is the mechanism in my head that causes me to feel good about eating something high in fat and sugar? Are the other non-caloric ways of dealing with these things? Can journaling help me figure out why I have some very bad food habits? What habits do I need to change and how should I implement them.

I am an intellectual person. I want to figure out the why and how of things. I will work at figuring out and sorting through all the material available to help me on this journey. I realize that I MUST make changes in my eating and exercise habits. I know some will be hard, but some will also prove helpful and fun. I do like to walk, especially on paths in the woods. This is one thing I want to do. I do have a certain amount of fear, too. I'm not sure I always feel safe walking in the woods. I guess I can look up the stats on it, and figure out how likely I would be attacked by a person or animal or snake and what chances I am actually taking. I'm not fearless. I'd rather have a friend walk with me, and talk to me, too, while walking. Not always an easy thing to do, but that is a quest to undertake, too. Finding walking partners.

Oh, I like that! Quests. I think each new challenge should become a quest. :-)

What is this all about?

50 B4 50 4 50

This stands for 50 lb weight loss before turning 50 years old (Feb 2010) and maintaining that weight loss for 50 weeks. That's the goal in a simple format. Now for some of the more specifics.

Specific -
*Who - Me and anyone who wished to join me
*What - Lose 50 pounds
*Where - Not sure what this means...um, planet earth?
*When - Between now and Feb 2010
*Which - Identify requirements and constraints. Not sure what this is all about. What constraints are there to be set? Nothing stupid, nothing dangerous. I guess it is all about meeting my nutritional requirements, without any crazy schemes, and not harming me in any way.
*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal. Okay, here I can write something. I want to improve my overall health. I want to wear size 8 or smaller clothing. I don't want to see cellulose on my thighs. I want to improve my yoga positions. I'd love to see my HDLs lowered and I would like to have greater strength, cardio health, and endurance. Basically better physical shape.

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, "Get in shape." But a specific goal would say, "Join a health club and workout 3 days a week.

Work out 3 days a week. Perhaps trying the mini-triathlete schedule of swimming for 10, biking for 20, and cardio/treadmill for 30. Me, running for 30 minutes! That would be really funny! I'd still like to do yoga in classes once a week and several times a week on my own at home.

Day One

Creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely

Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six "W" questions:

*Who: Who is involved?
*What: What do I want to accomplish?
*Where: Identify a location.
*When: Establish a time frame.
*Which: Identify requirements and constraints.
*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, "Get in shape." But a specific goal would say, "Join a health club and workout 3 days a week."

Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as......How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable - When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.

You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.

Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.

Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

Timely - A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there's no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? "Someday" won't work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, "by May 1st", then you've set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.

T can also stand for Tangible - A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing. When your goal is tangible you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.