Katie: Week 28 ....take two!

Good news!...

Current weight: 139 pounds
Last week's weight: 140 pounds
Total weight loss: 31 pounds (Yay!)
 

Yay hooray!  It feels so good to lose weight again!  But what feels even better is really being back on track.  I had been doing so well back when I first started and I was keeping a food journal, not eating treats, and entering everything in to MyPyramid.  But that got old after a while and I just needed a break.

Well, that break led to a discouraging little plateau.  And I've sort of been trying to break free of it, but my heart just wasn't in it.  I just wanted to do whatever I felt like and eat whatever looked good and still lose weight.  Uhh... but when you want to eat a lot of treats then it's not gonna happen.

So when my mom posted this past Saturday about a site she found called MyFitnessPal.com I decided to take a peek and see what it had to offer.  I'll admit, I was skeptical.  And if she hadn't put the disclaimer up right where she did in her post saying that if we were tuning out because we didn't have an ipod to stick with her and keep on reading, then I would have probably stopped reading right then and there.  But I did keep reading and saw that it's not only a free app for those of you with ipods, it's also a free website you can access from your computer.  Which is what I do.


Now, let's just get two things straight. 
1.) Yes, I still think it would be cooler and more readily accessable on an ipod.
2.) It is definitely more focused on calorie counting than it is on balance among food groups.

That being said, I think MyFitnessPal is great.  I signed up for an account on Saturday and started entering things in.  Oooh.  Suddenly I felt very aware of what I was putting into my body and what kind of exercising I was doing to get calories out of it (my body).  I suddenly wanted to eat healthier foods so I'd stay in the green and exercise more to make up for some of the holiday meals we were enjoying.  And so... I did!  And that is definitely saying something.  Because I haven't been motivated like that for a long time. 

I certainly don't panic when I end up a little over on calories or a little under on exercise since sometimes things just don't work out on any given day, but on Monday when I saw that I was so close to being where I was "supposed" to be with calories, but just a little over, I decided to go for a run.  My neighbor and I had a nice little run together and--voila!--I was back in the green again! 

I think that, for me, the three most effective things about entering in your food intake and exercise on any kind of tracking site are:
1.) Learning and being more aware of how healthy/unhealthy foods really are
2.) Being motivated to NOT eat a bunch of little snackies during the day that I want, but don't really need.
3.) Being motivated to exercise more.

Sometimes I'm able to do these things without the outside motivation of seeing it all listed out before me, but I consistently do better with these three things when I'm entering all of my info into something. 

Oh, and my all time favorite thing about MyFitnessPal?  It has tons and tons of name brand foods already entered in.  Ahh, so helpful!  For any of you who had struggled through using MyPyramid and having to say to yourself, "Well, I did eat one slice of wheat bread, but the wheat bread I ate was a lot healthier than just regular old wheat bread.  So this isn't really a good representation of what I ate,"  you will love MyFitnessPal.  Because now I can actually search for the specific brand and flavor of bread (or whatever) I eat and it almost always comes up with the exact thing I'm looking for and the nutritional information for that specific food.  And for the few times when it doesn't have the exact thing I'm looking for, it still has something plenty close enough.  Aaaaand, if you eat the same meal a lot, you can save the foods you eat as a "meal" and then you'll only have to click on that meal the next time and be done!  Much more simple and worthwhile, in my opinion.  Oh, and remember how I've been wanting to be better about drinking water?  It has a little suggestion for how much water to drink each day and a place to keep track of that too.  Yay!


Oh, and like my mom already mentioned, it's FREE.  Yay! 


The last thing I'd like to say about MyFitnessPal for today is that I have really been encouraged by the goals I've set for myself.  When you first sign up for an account it has you enter in all your information (name, age, weight, etc.).  Then it asks you about your goals--how much you plan to exercise each day and for how many days each week, how much weight you want to lose each week, and what your end goal is.  I decided that I want to lose about 1 pound a week, exercise at least 30 minutes each day for 6 days a week, and, in the end, weigh 125 pounds.  Then it calculates everything out for you and tells you how many calories you'll burn each day and how many calories you should be eating each day in order to burn more than you eat so you'll lose weight.


Up until this point I had sort of had it as a far off goal in my mind that maybe if I worked really hard I'd reach 125 pounds by Christmas.  But when I entered in all of these goals it came up with me being able to reach my goal (in theory, of course) by the beginning of October!  What a real and not-so-very-far-off goal!  I feel excited and full of hope. 

Also, this is totally random, but since it was the 4th of July this past weekend I thought I'd share a couple of healthy treats we had to celebrate.

First up is this lovely (and healthy!) little American flag.  Okay, okay, so it doesn't have the right amount of stripes, but it sure tastes yummy!  We made two versions of this this year.  Both looked exactly the same, but in one (the one pictured above) we used Jello brand fat-free sugar-free pudding (I recommend using the white chocolate flavor.  I used cheesecake flavor here and it was a bit too sweet.) for the "white" base of the flag, and for the other one we used fat-free Cool Whip for the base.  They're both good, just go with what you like.  :)


Also, while we were watching the local parade, we had a yummy red, white, and blue breakfast with our friends.

Crepes!  Okay, so not all of us ate them this way.  A certain someone in our group really splurged and had Nutella with his (not Bryan since we're still not allowed to eat desserts, so no worries), but most of us ate them this way.  1 crepe + sliced fresh strawberries + fresh blueberries + fat free Cool Whip = so, so yummy.  And much more healthy than I expected, actually.  When I entered in this meal (4 crepes like this) into MyFitnessPal it ended up being less than 400 calories.  Not bad for a special holiday meal.


Well, sorry this has been such a long post.  I just really feel so happy and proud of myself and my willpower and motivation lately and I wanted to share that with you all.  Thanks, Mom, for posting that link last Saturday!  And thanks to Emily for encouraging us all to do something that intimidates us on Monday!  I definitely thought of that as I considered going for a run that evening and decided I needed to just do it.  And I'm so glad I did!  And so I thought I'd leave you all with a similar bit of motivation.

Do something to encourage yourself this week!

Our goals are not as far off and impossible as we sometimes think.  :)