A new goal

My heart rate monitor is very useful (I have this one, though I’d love to have a BodyBugg if they weren’t so darned expensive and didn’t REQUIRE a subscription in order to get the data off the darned thing – frickin’ Nazis). During my workout, it shows how long I’ve been exercising, what my heart rate is (natch), and how many calories I’ve burned. After my workout, it provides a summary that’s useful for tracking my fitness progress – I know I’m getting more fit because my average heart rate for the same amount of exertion is getting lower, workout by workout. For example, 30 minutes on the elliptical at level 3 used to run me an average heart rate in the high 160’s – it is now running in the low 160’s or high 150’s for the same amount of time, effort, and calories burned.

So, there’s progress and then there’s progress. There’s more to fitness than scales and tape measures! My asthmatic lungs are doing me proud.

Awareness

Laura’s recent post (and our seconding of her post) reminded me of just what a difference a little awareness can make.  We talked about eating our food in a bowl or on a plate rather than out of the bag or box, and Shari mentioned the handful-size bowl.  These ideas are key not just because they keep the rest of the bag or box away from us but also because they make us more aware by actually:

(1) making a choice about what our serving size will be,
(2) actually seeing the sum total of what we will be eating at once.

As Laura said, sometimes it’s the most obvious things that we really need to have us slap in the face so that we will see them.

Daily Goals

Kim
Water: Sucking so far today – forgot my water bottle at home, was busy working all morning & just now made it to the store to buy a bottle. I’ll try to make up for it later.

Calories/Nutrition: Boy, Mondays are not my good days for being organized. I didn’t have anything decent to bring for lunch, so opted for the nearby Subway. I was good and got a plain turkey sandwich (wanted bacon so badly, but just said no). I asked the girl to go easy on the mayo, but I still scraped a good tablespoon off of it when I got back to my desk. Ew.

Worst Thing Today: When the alarm went off at 6:30, I could not for love or money force myself to get out of bed and go walking like I’d planned. What is this mental block that’s preventing this, when I LOVE exercising in the morning??

Best Thing Today: Hmm. So far nothing too exciting. Oh – I got a subscription to Self magazine; I figured that might be a little more useful than my previous ones: Lucky and Allure.

Notes: A couple of goals for the week, along with the so far failure of getting my ass out of bed to exercise include no reading or watching TV while I’m eating (I’m guilty of both – talk about mindless shoveling of food) and revise what types of calories I’m consuming, i.e. less damn salt and sugar, more damn fruit and veggies.

Weird Tan Lines?

So…

You want to exercise outside in the sun?

Want some advice?

1.   If you want to avoid odd tan lines, consider sandals SOMETIMES.   I have a thing about seeing feet, mine included, my feet never see the light of the sun.

2.   If you are going to consider doing many years of running (and a few years of marching) make sure you are prepared to have some feet that have seen better days.

Check out these ugly feet and weird tan lines pointed out to me this evening by my daughter.  This is not something from this weekend even…my skin is permanently discolored at this point (and a couple of other places that will remain hidden from view.)