Weighing Down

Well, it's now been six weeks.  Give or take, I mean.  I think it's been more like six and a half, but that's OK.

I'm actually pretty excited today!  My official weigh-in has me down 34.4 lbs!  w00t!

However, I'm aching today.  Seriously.  Aching all over.  I ache in places I didn't realize I had muscles.

I've mentioned before that I do water aerobics.  Well, last week, I did it four different times, as well as Jillian Michael's Six Week Six Pack DVD, the dancing thing AND I did some--but not much--walking.  More on why I didn't do much in my column I'm thinking about for tomorrow or Thursday.

I seriously over-did it last week, I think.  On the scale, it was pretty awesome.  I mean, I dropped a little over five pounds last week.  Who wouldn't enjoy that?  Well, my body certainly didn't.  

But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop.

I'm hoping that I'll get used to the stricter, more active regimen that I'm trying to force myself into.  It's been pretty helpful that I've gone to the lengths that I have to work out.  And with our amazing water aerobics instructor, she's really giving it to us and forcing us to work our butts off.

And it's obviously working.

I've even been told by a LOT of people that they can tell a big difference in me.  My face has slimmed down considerably, and my body has dropped two sizes in pants AND shirts.  Heck--and this is TMI I know--I've even dropped a size in my underwear.  Going to have to go buy some new ones soon.

Speaking of buying new clothes, I finally broke down and bought some new pants.  I only had one pair of 42x30s, and one cannot live on only one pair of pants.  My 44x30s and 46x30s now look like clown pants.  The 42x30s are slightly tight, but they're getting looser.  I'd love to be on 42x30s by April.  I'm hoping to be in either 38x30s or 36x30s by December.

I've dropped enough weight up top to go from a 5XL to a 3XL.  This is important to me, because of our upcoming trip to Walt Disney World.  It's difficult at best to find clothes that are larger than a 2XL available in the shops at WDW, so my goal by the time I get there is to be in an XL shirt.  That way, I know I'll be able to just walk into any clothing store in the World and buy whatever shirt or shorts or pants or jacket or whatever I want, and be absolutely sure I'll fit into it.

But I digress.

I was talking about water aerobics and how our instructor is really killing us.

Take last night for example.  Last night was "Latin" night, so we had to listen to Latin music.  Which isn't a problem for me, except we have to keep up with the beat of the music.

And Latin music is FAST.  

And not only that, she worked in a new exercise that--holy crap--is HARD.  Basically, it's just jumping.  But it's a little more than that.  For twenty (20) seconds, we had to LEAP up and out of the water as fast and as high as we could, immediately leaping up and out as soon as we came back down.  Then, we would get a ten (10) second rest to "catch our breath" (HA!), and then it would start all over again.  

Eight.

Times.

I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.

This exercise is SO much harder than the Patty Cake (well, that's what *I* call it) one she came up with last week.  In that one, you have to pair up with someone about your height.  Then, you both leap up and out of the water, and, at the pinnacle, clap your hands together with theirs.  Twice.  And you had to have clapped twice before you came back down.

And we did it for a minute and a half.

Twice.

With barely ten seconds breather in between.

I know it sounds like I'm complaining.  And, from a certain point of view, I know I am.  BUT!!!!  It's actually working well.  Really well.  I can't expect this fat to melt off my body without me doing something easy.  

In other news, along with exercise, it's also important to eat right.  My family has really been enjoying different types of hummus lately.  Especially since it's so low in calories.  Yes, it is a little high in fat, but that's OK.  It's good fat.  Yesterday, I gave you the recipe for Sun Dried Tomato hummus.  Talk about YUMMY.  Today, I'm going to give you a different recipe.  It's called Black Bean Hummus.  And it's even better than the one from yesterday, if you can believe it.  I found this one on SparkPeople.  I changed it up just a tiny bit to make it where my family enjoys it more.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups canned black beans, rinsed and drained

1 small sweet onion, diced

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

2 tbsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground red pepper

1 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp cilantro (optional--you don't have to use it if you don't like it)

1/4 c (MAX!!!) vegetable broth.

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In a small skillet over medium-high heat, pour in the EVOO, onion, green bell pepper, and garlic.  Saute until caramelized, about three minutes.
2. While those are caramelizing, rinse and drain your black beans, and place them into a food processor.  
3. Drop in the onion, bell pepper, and garlic.
4. Add in the spices and tear off the 2 tbsp cilantro from your fresh bunch.
5. Clip on the lid (or whatever you have to do with yours), and pulse until it's all combined.
6. IF it's too thick for you, add in some of the vegetable broth, about a tablespoon at a time.  I haven't had to do this, because my family really likes it thick.  Anyway, add any salt and pepper you need to it to make it suit your family's tastes.

I typically serve this with some new multi-grain flatbread that I found that has 100 calories per slice.  I cut it up into wedges, then spray it with my EVOO mister, and broil it for a couple minutes to get it toasted.  Anyway, it's called Flatout.  It's a tiny bit more expensive than regular flat bread, but for only 100 calories a slice and I can use three slices to feed my family of six, well...  That's not too bad.  I use this for all my hummus recipes.

Oh!  The hummus makes eight 1/2 cup servings.  Each serving has roughly 123 calories, 1.6 g of fat, and 7.3 g of protien, so it's LOADED with protein and will go a long way.  

Fitness Tracking

I know that there are a LOT of apps and systems out there to help someone lose weight.  I mean, we are inundated every day by a spokesperson discussing/singing the virtues of this weight-loss system and how theirs is superior to everyone else's.

Yeah, I'm not into that so much.  Sure, the systems out there work.  They also cost an arm and a leg.  If I had a celebrity's money, I'd probably go with one of those myself.

But I don't.

And, honestly, I am really struggling with calling what I'm on a "diet" anymore.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm not on a diet, per se.  I'm on a treadmill to get fit.

Sure, I do have aspirations of weighing what I did when I was in college (175lbs), but that's not going to be the case this time.  Why?  Because back then, I was skin and bones before I started really gaining weight to wean me off of my unhealthy lifestyle choices.

Which, now that I say it like that, is extraordinarily funny.  I went from being an unhealthy 175lbs to an unhealthy what I am now.

Yea me.

No, my goal is to become fit, no matter what my weight is.  I know that I'll never get to the point that my body will look like David Beckham's body that they splashed across my television screen Sunday night in all his be-tattooed and underwear glory, thereby making every man in the room seriously uncomfortable as all the wives were trying to contain their drool.

I don't have time to do what he does.  I have a wife and a family--just like he does--but I don't have the ability to play soccer all day long, or lift weights six to eight hours a day, or anything along those lines.

And, truth be told, I don't really want that many tattoos, either.  I mean, HOLY INK, BATMAN!

But I *do* want to be fit.  

So, I went out and talked to several people about what they use to help them get fit, looked at the various options they presented, and picked the one that is right for ME.  Note:  this is NOT the one that The Editor selected for her.  Just letting you know this up front.

I chose a free app/website called SparkPeople.  

It's an app that does different things depending on which phone you're running it on, as well as a website.

And you don't have to use both the app and the website.  You can use one or the other if you choose.  I chose to do both, because it makes my life easier.

You see, I work in a building that has so much concrete and metal in it that it interferes with cell phone signals.  So, the app doesn't really do a lot of good for me while I'm here.  So, I use the website at work, and the app at home.  And they sync when the opportunity arises and I have a cell phone signal.

When you create your ID, it will ask you basic information:  your height, your weight, your age, your sex, etc.  All the things that are normally done for this kind of tracking system.  It then goes through this convoluted algorithm and spits out the calories you should eat every day to maintain your weight as is.  It's not going to tell you what you SHOULD eat to lose weight, as that's between you and your doctor.  

And while it's tracking your calories, it also tracks your fat intake, carbs, etc. and tells you how many you have left for the day.  Based on what you need to maintain where you are right now.  PLUS, it calculates how many calories you burn just by sitting there, sedentary, all day (like how many calories your heart burns by beating, how many you burn by breathing, etc.).  This gives you a terrific baseline for balancing your exercise regimen as well as how much you eat.

With so many people using it, I find that I can usually just click on "Food Tracker" and type in the name of a food I've just eaten.  It will spit out several possibilities (ie, if you've just eaten a McDonald's 5-piece chicken nugget meal and type in "chicken nuggets," it will give you options like "McDonald's" and "Wendy's" and the list goes on) that I get to choose the most appropriate one, tell it how many servings I've just eaten, and it calculates everything for me so I can see my results right there in black and white.  Easy!

If I can't find what I've just eaten, there's an option there for me to input all the dietary information.  For example, if Special K were to release a brand-new flavor of their drink mix and it's not in the list, I can quickly and easily input the information in another screen.  Then it's added to my list of Favorites, and I can, next time, quickly choose it from my list and add it to my food intake.  This is also handy for if I make a recipe out of a cookbook (assuming the recipe gives me all the dietary information), I can input that and it's at my fingertips the next time I make that recipe.

Which brings me to your list of favorites.  The phone app and the website can talk to each other.  Whatever special item you've put in goes into your list of favorites, and you can get to it on both the website and your phone.  On the website, as well, you can choose what OTHER people have input and add it to your list of favorites!  That way, you're not having to search for a new item all the time.

If you have the app on an android phone, there's a scanner option that you can scan the barcode off a food item in the grocery and immediately store it and all its dietary info in your favorites.  I wish they had this option for iPhones.  Maybe in the next update.  I dunno.  But I can dream.

This app will also help with your fitness, too.  You simply type in the search function the type of fitness you've just completed, tell it how long you were doing said exercise, and it calculates how many calories you've just burned off.  In some cases (like running/walking/jogging) you need to tell it how FAR you were travelling, and it will calculate your mph as well as the burned calories.  

You can even track how much water you're drinking each day.

If you give it your goals (daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly if you prefer), it can give you a report to tell you how you're doing.

And speaking of reports, there are a LOT of reports available to you.  From your calories differential (how many calories you've burned, how many you've ingested, etc.), you can quickly and easily figure out how many ounces/pounds you've burned off that day.  In my experience, it's almost exactly dead-on.

The website has so much more to give as well.  There are more reports you can run, there are recipes that people have submitted, there are terrific articles about wellness/fitness...  The list goes on and on.  

I highly recommend SparkPeople.

It's helped me change my life.