Ambitious Goals

Yesterday I sat down and figured out this grandiose exercise and weight loss plan. It boils down to math...you have to take in less calories than you burn off. To be exact, to lose one pound of fat, you need to burn 3500 calories more than you usually do. One can do this either by changing what you take in or eat or you can change what you burn or exercise.

There is a handy dandy website http://www.bmi-calculator.net/ that has all sorts of tools about calculating what you need to do based on your own numbers. Its really a fascinating tool to literally put things into a clear perspective. I figured out that my basal metabolic rate is 2116.15. That is the number of calories I burn just by living. Then, I took that number and figured out what my daily calorie needs are-on the website they give you a formula to use based on your activity level. My current daily calorie needs are 2539.38 calories to MAINTAIN my current weight. So, logically I can use that information to plan out my week.

If my goal is to lose 2 pounds in a week, that means I have to kill 7500 calories in a week.

So, my ambitious plan i figured out last night was this:

Lose one pound from exercise. So, I take 3500 calories (whats needed to kill once pound of fat) and divide it by 6 (how many days a week I can work out, I need a day off :) ) and I get: 585 calories a session. If I kick ass on the treadmill for 45 minutes and then do some weights, its not hard to get to 585 calories. I can also add in pilates and crunches at home, I got a yoga ball and mat to do just that and I have done pilates before. They are hard ass work but really feel good...they tone and stretch your muscles without the high impact deal of running, etc.

Ambitious, yes. Can I do it? Yes. It has to be a choice. How have I done so far this week? Well....today I spent half an hour at the gym. Yesterday I didn't make it...

Second part is the food intake. Since my daily calorie needs are 2540, I figure the easiest way to do this is to cut it down to an even 2000 calories. This is actually pretty easy because all the nutrition info on food labels is based on a 2000 calorie diet. So, if I cut down to 2000 calories, I'm at my second pound: 3780 calories=540 calories x 7 days.

The sucky part of the nutrition thing is the keeping track. Weight Watchers has great tools online for doing this, but it costs money and you have to log in and enter the data. Its relatively cheap-I think like $14 a month if I recall. The tracking software is really good. You can record what you eat each day and what you do for exercise, there are also great advice boards and recipes, etc. The thing is, I don't want to spend the money on this or have to track it for the rest of my ever livin life. I want to learn to control myself and make the choices I need to make to keep myself healthy.

I've done weight watchers before, and it works! I lost weight and kept track of what I ate but the hard thing is, you kinda become controlled by THE POINTS. They start to rule your life and you start to rely on THE POINTS rather than your own self control and choices so it is still about the food not about you. I want to be free of the demons not just control them with points.

For now, I am going to focus on getting the exercise pattern down and reduce what I eat on my own. I've been working on this for a very long time because from the time I was very young I have turned to food for comfort. Slowly but surely I am getting better and I am making better choices. For example, today at lunch with my sisters at Green Mill, rather than getting greasy, fatty, bad for me food that I didn't need, I got a bowl of soup. Did I eat too much bread and butter with the soup? Probably. Baby steps.

Today this is what I consumed:
No breakfast, I didn't get up til noon. One of the perks of unemployment.

Lunch
Chicken Wild Rice Soup
Bread with garlic butter
2 glasses o water

Iced Coffee and cream

Dinner
1 piece of BBQ chicken (tried to peel off the skin as much as I could)
Black beans and rice
1 biscuit
broccoli and carrots

So, I did good today. I might have some toast or something before I go to bed because I'm kinda hungry and it will help me sleep. I might not tho...perhaps some water or tea would do the trick. CHOICES CHOICES CHOICES!