What Are Your Fitness Inspirations?

There should be no secret that despite trying to maintain a fitness blog, I've got my own pounds to lose. A few years ago I lost 100 pounds, but somehow managed to gain most of it back. Now I'm trying again to lose it, and keep it off forever. There are a few things that factor into how easy (or hard) this can be for me. In an effort to continue my fitness blog, I'm going to endeavor to start a new series of articles focusing on different things that influence me both positively and negatively. With luck, this will help motivate and keep me focused. Some of the topics I'll be including are:

Working Out: Bally's/Blast Fitness, At Home, Out & About
TV: The Biggest Loser, Extreme Makeover - Weight Loss Edition
Dieting: Weight Watchers
Support: Family / Friends
Food: Super Market Shopping, Dining Out, Fast Food
Media: Social Networking
Games: Wii Fit, Zumba Fitness, Rock Band, Biggest Loser Challenge
Misc: Music, Summer Time, Winter Time


In all these topics, I want to highlight both the positive and the negatives. This isn't a final list, and I'm certain to find more topics as I go along. So the question I ask all my readers, what positively or negatively affects you? Also, would anyone be willing to voice their opinion on any of these topics for my articles?

Working Daze - Weight Watchers Cartoons 2

Working Daze - Weight Watchers Cartoons

What I learned at Weight Watchers - Week 1

It's a no-brainer we all need some type of support when we want to take control of our health. But how do you react when you face anti-support? Typically, this comes in the form of "Food Pushers". How can you deal with these situations? Ignoring a Food Pusher doesn't usually work. You literally have to deal with them. No, I'm not suggesting you punch them in the face, but there are a few things you can do.

Some Food Pushers are like ninjas. They celebrate a birthday or promotion by bringing in cupcakes for the entire office, leaving a little gift in their workmates cubicles. Unlike a real ninja, "Food Ninjas" are easy to deal with. Either you can give the treat away to someone who'll appreciate it, or simply throw it away. "GASP! You can't throw food away Jeffrey!" Why not? How much nutritional value is in a cupcake? Not much if any, you will not deprive anyone of nutrition. And the Food Ninja should be none-the-wiser.

Yet, that isn't always the case. A frontal approach is also used. When a "Food Striker" approaches, it's best to let them know you don't want the food. True, they may not understand your motive, so it'll be important to tell them something they will understand. Say you are allergic to whatever is in the food, tell them your Doctor instructed you to lose weight, or be brutally honest. Not every tactic will work with every Food Striker, so make sure you know who you're dealing with and what will work on them. Keep in mind, whatever they are sharing with you is special to them, so don't say you 'don't want their garbage'. Even if garbage it might be.

Lastly, some people will just never 'get it'. Try as hard as you might, they won't understand or be hurt when you decline. What can you do then? It's possible these "Foodies" enjoy food so much, they can't believe others don't want exactly what they want. You may have to employ a tactic used for Food Ninjas and Food Strikers. The other option is to take a page from Nancy Reagan when she stressed to "Just Say No".

“Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.” - Dr. Suess

Fitness Product Review - 1

For my first product review I decided to try Weight Watchers 'Smart Ones Home Style Beef Pot Roast' In general I enjoy most of the Smart Ones products but in this case I really didn't. For the price one pays for a Weight Watcher meal (and because of the price I don't very often) I expect quality food. The 'beef' in the Pot Roast tastes like horse meat (not that I know what that really tastes like), but the point should be taken. It was tough, and grisly. I know this isn't a special exception because I've tried it once before and thought I'd give it another chance. With other comparable meals available, and usually tastier, I felt let down in this instance.

As a personal preference, I think the gravy is good, but the amount of onions inside is ridiculous. Truly, I'm not an onion person, so if you like onions you may enjoy the meal.

Rating ♥ ♥ - - -

Next week: Fiber One

Do you have a product you'd like me to review? Send me a note, leave a comment or call my blog phone.

A-Z Fitness - Tracking

It might not seem like it, but tracking is on of the most important things you can do. Why is this? Tracking does just as it suggests, helps keep track of what you are eating. Most people when they are watching what they eat, try to maintain a certain amount of calories for the day. Generally, that's a good idea to do no matter where you are in your fitness quest, losing weight or maintaining. Have you tried tracking? You'd be surprised how quickly the calories can add up. 1 Tbsp of Ketchup can have 20 calories; 1 Tbsp. of light mayonnaise can have 35 calories; 1 Tbsp of regular mayonnaise can have 90 calories and 8 oz. of orange juice can have 110 calories. If you are not tracking, you may not even be aware of what you are putting into your body. Track can help make you more aware.

Tips: You can find small, convenient journal books in most book stores. There are also many online programs to help with tracking. Some you have to pay for, but I've found several free ones. If you attend Weight Watchers or some other type of program, they generally have free weekly trackers available for use. If you own a Droid phone or one of those apple devices, you can find apps to use as well, again some you pay a one time fee for, others are free. Find out what works best for you.

Remember: If you are going to track, don't kid yourself. Make sure to track everything you eat. This includes condiments, juice, coffee sweetener and all BLT's (Bites, Licks & Tastes). If you don't keep track of those, the tracking will be ineffective because they can add up fast.

Goal: Make it your goal to write down everything you eat. Try to do it for a full week. Not only will you be more aware of what you are eating, you can do a review at the end of the week and see what exactly you have been eating. It might help you figure out where you are going wrong, if losing weight is a problem for you. If you find it too difficult to continue for a full week, give it a try for at least a day.

Last Weeks Goal: Last week you were to find and give new support. What did you come up with? Were you given support at all, and more importantly did you try to support someone else's fitness?

What fitness words starting with the letter "T" inspire you?

A-Z Fitness - Really Realistic

Sometimes in our journey to fitness, we become over excited and tend to make big plans. It's good to think big, but are you being realistic in your goals and ambitions or are you dreaming? Wanting to lose 20 pounds is great, but are you expecting to lose that in a week or two? Shows like the Biggest Loser might make you think it's achievable, but it's not realistic. Let's keep in mind, the contestants on the Biggest Loser are on a fitness ranch, with personal trainers, working out several hours each day. Is that something you will realistically do? Probably not. Also, be realistic in what you eat. Suddenly deciding to cut off every food you like isn't very realistic either. Before long, you'll be craving the foods you've cut off and likely over indulge. As I've said before, it takes baby steps. Make your goals attainable and realistic and you will have better success.

Tips: If you are realistic about your goals and want to do all you can besides joining the Biggest Loser there are other options for you. Join a gym, hire a personal trainer, join Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers is nice because of the support, motivational encouragement from the team leaders and the help in tracking. If these are viable options for you, go for it. Looking for ways to be realistic in your goals without spending money is also doable. Get an ipod and go for a walk in the mornings, or take up running. Perhaps you have a friend who'll run with you. There are various games now available to help keep you active. Having fitness goals can be realistic without having to spend lots of money on a monthly basis. There are also various web-sites designed to help you track your daily calories, some are free.

Remember: Sometimes it's easier when you are not think about your ultimate goal. If you want to be realistic, think small. Being realistic and tackling smaller goals will help keep you focused and give you the confidence to succeed. Being unrealistic or merely planning and wishing to get in shape will only aggravate and disappoint you.

Goal: It's time to review your immediate goals. What are your immediate goals and are they realistic? Remember to think short term, make a realistic goal for the next week. Losing one pound a week can be realistic, losing 5-10 not so much. Try making a realistic weight-loss goal, a realistic exercise goal or a realistic dietary goal. Feel free to share it here.

Last Weeks Goal: What small steps did you make this week to change the quality of your food? I made a point to put out fruit this weekend, and I bought myself several packages of gum to lay around the house. Having a quality food within easy reach can sometimes make or break your decision to eat an unhealthy food.

What fitness words starting with the letter "R" inspire you?

A-Z Fitness - Organization

So far in this series I've talked about many things including blogging, goals, lists and nutrition labels. In these weeks I've given you written goals. Now is the time to concentrate on how you keep everything together. Hopefully, you don't have several lists in one place and a pile of notes and memos in another. If so, you'll need to organize everything. But why is this important to your health and fitness? Because if you are taking the time to make notes, you need to have everything organized so you can review it when you need to. Continual review is essential and organization is key to making sure you can find the notes you want to keep track of. Organization not only makes things tidier, it also means your review will be more enjoyable. Pulling your hair out because you can't find the one article you saved means you'll be less likely to review in the future.

Tips: One of the best ways to organize your notes is to keep a binder. A loose-leaf notebook is okay if you are simply taking notes, but sometimes its interesting to keep other items along with your notes. Attend a gym? Keep essential material with your fitness notes. Do you attend classes like Weight Watchers? They provide lots of useful information, keep all motivational material in your binder. Do you use a fitness coach or personal trainer? Include all your schedule times in the binder.

Remember: Keeping all your notes, thoughts, lists and motivational material in one place will make it easier to review. What better reason to keep everything together than to do a review from time to time. Include pictures or success stories along with everything else, in an organized fashion, and your biggest inspiration will be you.

Goal: Organize all your fitness material in one place. Even if you don't go as far as creating a binder, simply keeping things in a folder is still better organization than in several piles here and there. Do you already have things organized? Your goal then is to do a review. Is there anything you can include? Is there information you could weed out? Now is the time to do so.

Last Weeks Goal: Were you able to accomplish last weeks goal? It was a fairly simple task of reading nutrition labels and taking notes and comparing favourite foods. Did you learn anything looking at the labels? Did you decide to make any changes after what you discovered? Or are doing well in what is being put into your body? If you eat a lot of organic food, you are one step ahead of the game as processed foods have so much more junk added to them. But working on this task, you'll have noticed it for yourself.

What fitness words starting with the letter "O" inspire you?

12 Week Goal

Now that the Biggest Loser is beginning again, I've decided to get back to keeping my blog updated. There are a couple of things I'm going to be working on in the next 12 weeks to look forward to.

First I'm planning on playing along with Biggest Loser at home. This weekend I purchased a copy of the Biggest Loser Wii game and there is an option for a 12 week program so I will be using that as a template to follow. In conjunction, I'll restart my visits to Weight Watchers. It's been a bad summer for me and I put on a lot of weight. So much so, I'm actually ashamed of myself. For the most part I've been hiding from weight watcher meetings as well as friends and family.

The other project I'll be working on is a 26 part A-Z fitness series aimed at working on something new every week, and doing a bit of research on how to improve in that particular area. My primary goal is to print a new article each week, so I'll still be working on it by the time my 12 week Wii program concludes.

In both projects, reader support, encouragement and comments will be greatly appreciated. True, I've had a hard time with weight loss lately, but when I get working on a project, I tend to stick with it till the end. Not that watching weight, (or more to the point) fitness has an end.

Tracking Disaster

As can be seen from my last post, I'm a horrible tracker. Even with the best of intentions, my plans fall by the wayside. Why do I let this happen? Why can't I motivate myself? It always comes down to finding a reason to be motivated. Sometimes, even when you want something, you don't give yourself enough incentive. So what is my motivation? Losing weight does not seem to be enough, I need to discover exactly what I want to lose weight for.

I'm not saying I'm giving up till then. I have taken a few steps to do some changing. One thing, changing the night I go to Weight Watcher meetings. Last night I decided to try Monday nights at 5:30 and see if that works better than 6:30 on Tuesday nights.

And for the record, I started to track this morning and so far have everything logged.

Tomorrow is Today

Yes, I am still battling with procrastination vs motivation. As my motivation has ebbed away, it's filled more and more with procrastination and bad food choices. Sometimes the best way to tackle a problem is to look at it face on, acknowledge what the difficult bit is and work on it from there.

So what is my biggest obstacle? Where has all my motivation gone? I think it started after my sister stopped going to Weight Watcher meetings with me. From there it's been a slow and steady progression. Latest news is the team leader at the same Weight Watcher meeting has now moved on to other locations.

So I've toyed with the idea of moving on from Weight Watchers myself. I really only want to do that if I can make sure I have something else to fill the void. I wonder what sort of classes might be available at Bally's on that day? I'm paid at WW till June though so I've got some time to decide. In the meanwhile, perhaps I'll give the new team leader a try.

I also wonder how encouraged I might be to eat healthier if I try and do an online food tracker. Giving friends and family (and strangers) the opportunity to comment on how well I might be doing, tips on what I can do better, and possible suggestions for areas to improve in. I keep telling myself I don't want to wait till tomorrow anymore, I need to start doing things today. So I'm going to start the tracker and list what I've had so far today. I'll try to update as the day goes along.

Wednesday - May 26th
Morning - Banana, 2/3 cup cereal, fruit & yogurt parfait.
Lunch - Corned Beef on flat bread with Swiss - 100 Calorie Chips - one pear.
Snack - Pack of WW Fruities.
Dinner - Cheese sandwich (on flat bread again), 1/2 cup cottage cheese, bowl of cherries, a handful of chips and for dessert a few mini caramel waffles.

Feed Me Seymore!

I really have been trying to do better in all aspects of my fitness. Lately things have not been going so well and during the course of the Winter added more weight than I care to admit. Now things have been taking a slow, but steady turn around once more for the better. Some days I'm better at it than others, and other days I just want to eat. I've found the most critical thing for me is tracking. Once I get side-tracked (get it?) it's almost impossible for me to get back on target for the day. Phrases like "I'll do better tomorrow," really annoy me because during the Winter months that was my modus operandi. So last night I'm at the mall with my kids and they both opted for the Subway route. I've been doing my best to train them in what is good and what is bad. I'm proud they decided to bypass the McDonald's and the A&W for something far more better. I wish I would have been able to stay on the same course as them. I opted for the Chinese restaurant and an orange chicken and teriyaki chicken combo. Well, today I've done much better so far. Had a bit of oatmeal for breakfast and a 2-point weight watcher snack bar for mid-morning. However, I'm so hungry right now I could eat just about anything. Currently I've got a stick of gum in my mouth and hope that will last till lunch which will consist of a snack bar, a 2-point bag of weight watcher chips and an apple. Then I have a few more smaller snacks prepared, which should hold me over till dinner. Can I do it? I think I can, I think I can. I just wish I wasn't so hungry, I need to do better at shopping for filling foods. I need to do better at making decent dinners. I need to do better at preparing decent lunches and breakfasts. Maybe then I won't feel the need to eat whatever comes my way. Maybe then I won't feel the need to eat whatever tastes good, just because I'm hungry and perhaps a little lazy.