Needing to lose weight is sometimes not just for vanity sake; because it also improves your health to be at a healthy weight, whatever that is for you. I am not talking about some idealized weight, but what is healthy for you as a person. I am overweight, and it impacts my ability to control my diabetes, blood pressure and other health issues that come to dominate the conversation with my doctor.
Used to be those conversations were about birth control, smoking, drinking, and inquiries about any casual drug use. Oh, those were the days…but I am off subject.
So in my quest to find things to help me manage my weight, I found a online food diary, where you list everything you did all day and all the food you eat, and you get an idea of how many calories, fat, carbs, and protein you have eaten, and how many of those calories you burned. If the burned is greater than the intake, yippee, you are using more than you ate.
Sadly, on the weekend I am busy and burn off a lot of calories, while now during the week, I eat too much and don’t do enough to burn them off. No big secret what happens then, as all those extra calories turn into fat, which settles into layers of blubber, leading to “beached whale syndrome”. That’s what I call it anyway, because when I am real heavy, I think I look like a big blob of blubber. (Geez, talk about poor self image)
I am probably being harsh on myself because I have a picture taken of me when I was in Germany on my mirror, a time when being thinner and healthy was so easy for me. I mean I would drink beers, eat pizza, generally not do anything healthy and stayed a decent size for me, a 12.
Now I look at food and gain weight. Hence the obsession with trying to figure out the problem, and as much as I don’t want to acknowledge it, the truth is I am eating more than I am burning, not by a lot, but enough that I stay in this budgie mode.
A few years ago I was pretty close to being back to the skinny side of me, I was happy with myself, and actually cried when I tried on some jeans previously way to tight and they fit. Not a real comfy fit, but I could sit down in them at least. Then I got the thyroid problem, which accounted for why I was able to lose the weight, since I had a overactive thyroid speeding up my metabolism. Following the radiated iodine I took, the function of that gland went down to normal, and I piled on the pounds.
So I have been slowly making progress, but need to stay focused and try to start doing more and eating less.
I wrote this while eating a big bowl of macaroni and cheese...OMG, I can't stop... :)
Exercise is an important factor to help control all of them. There are many ways to exercise beside paying to go to a gym. If you work in a multi-storey building, climb the stairs for as many floors as you can instead of the lift. When you get tired, then take the lift from that floor. So many people will circle a car park to get a spot close to the doors. I don't worry about being out at the end of the car park because I don't mind walking and I need to walk as much as I can. Shopping at the mall? Again, move between floors using the stairs. Malls are often a good place to go walking; a lot of the senior citizens here will gather for breakfast and socialise and then form walking groups to walk the mall.
ReplyDeleteRemember you need a good balance of food that will supply around 2000 calories a day for proper health.
Gardening is a great hobby that will also help you to stay slim. Remember that you may gain mass when you exercise in the form of muscles as the fat disappears which translated to an increase in force (weight) since muscle is denser than fat. Another good thing about exercising, and gardening, is that it helps to keep the bones strong. I gathered a lot of stones this year building new flower beds. I had a woman once to ask me about my arms; how I managed to get such strong arms. She continued telling me that she had been working out at the gym trying to gain strength and was not getting anywhere. I told her to come and work with me in my gardens and she would have strong arms. It also helps to keep the bat wings away :-). Sister #1 has strong arms as well and she gardens like I do. Lifting 23kg (50lb) bags of soil all day as well as stones and digging and such, and you will build muscles. You will also build good veins which helps with cardio.
ReplyDeleteWell, all I can say is don't give up! It's the same for me--I try to be reasonable, seems like I never eat as much as I want, do the stairs thing, park 10 minutes walk from my weekly yoga lesson, etc. and the weight creeps up. Slowly, but keeps on rising. I may have to take measures. What, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteone of my pet peeves...I usually park as far from the store as i can to walk. I ride my bicycle when i can, usually in the morning..I do gardening when the weather is permits. The online thing i am using to track stuff also calculates calories used for various activities, like walking, gardening, d riving, standing, sitting, balh blah blah...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment!