Monday, August 23, 2010

Can it Still Be an Epiphany if it was Obvious and I Missed it???

Today I had an epiphany.  I haven't really been impatient with my weight loss but it is definitely coming off at a slower pace than I've ever experienced this entire year.  This last month or so its been slow.  Its still steady, which is good, but there had to be something.

As you know, I like to use SparkPeople (sparkpeople.com) to track my food - not because I like to be psycho about how much I eat, but more because it helps me make sure I'm balancing my carbs, fat, protein and calories well in the range I should be in each day. Its not crazy strict, and some days I'm on the low end of my range and then the days I run I'm pushing the top end easily.

But today I decided to look at my exercise trends over the last few weeks and I noticed something.  Sparkpeople says I should be burning 1900 calories exercising per week.  (that isn't too hard for a thick chick, believe me, and if you are thin and reading this not believing me, I burn twice as many calories as you do - hahaha).  :)  The last month or so I've only been averaging about 700-1000 calories burned...so there are a bunch of calories I'm unintentionally hoarding!  Yikes!

Then I thought back to my exercise patterns before I started running.  I did something active almost every day, taking usually just one day off a week to be lazy.  Now I run about 3 times a week and then lift weights once or twice if I think about it.  So several days a week go by without me doing anything active. That's just not enough for this mama who wants to shed the pounds.

So tomorrow is a run day, but then Wednesday, I'm going to try to take Elizabeth and Dixie for a walk when I get home from work.  A nice 2 miles can't hurt.  If it is too hot we'll exercise inside.  But I've decided...that I'm going to do something active every single day, and maybe rest when I'm tired or feel like I need to be lazy.  But a walk never hurt anybody...so no excuses.

So for me, an epiphany on this fine day.  But truly, I'm a nerd who just didn't look at the data soon enough (shocking, I know).  Now that I've analyzed my  habits I'm making a change...look out, I'll be posting another loss next week for sure!

~Clara

PS - had my annual brain MRI tonight - was funny to see them do a double take at how I'm 50 pounds down from the last time I had one!  And two weight related things I noticed - 1) I fit easier into the machine and none of my limbs fell asleep and 2) I could take my wedding ring off this time.  

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