Auld Lang Syne

 

Confession: I LOVE gadgets when it comes to weight loss and monitoring my activity.  I wear a FitBit daily, had a Nike Fuel Band for while, use the Nike+ running App RELIGIOUSLY (on my phone for outside, on my nano for treadmill running), am an avid My Fitness Pal user and as of this holiday I added a heart rate monitor into the mix.  Let me be honest, I actually bought Dustin the heart rate monitor (HRM from here on out), but he has really encouraged me to use it and I am taking him up on that. See… best husband ever.

Yesterday was the first day using the HRM on a run and HOLY CRAP was that eye opening.  Really, the 7 miles logged yesterday were 90% walking – my bestie was with me, we were doing a lot of talking and I don’t think she was feeling very well.  So, we walked – but I thought we were walking at quite a clip (it was damn cold after all!)  When we got back to home I was SHOCKED to see the difference in the calories burned between the HRM and my FitBit and my Nike+ App.  According to FitBit, I burned 804 calories during the walk. According to Nike+ 899 calories.  The HRM was telling a completely different story!  According to it, I had burned 444 calories over the course of a 100 minute 7 mile walk.  My first reaction was this: NO WONDER my weight loss has been so stalled!  I have been eating like the work I’m doing is burning more than double the calories I’m actually burning!  INSANITY!  What I also found so interesting was I burned 421 calories the day before in 45 minutes doing a weight circuit with 500 meters of rowing in between each new set (totaling 1500 meters for the workout.)  The numbers game of all this has been swimming around in my head all day and now, all night.  I have some really hard set goals I want to meet, and with how difficult the weight loss has become over the past few months I’m not going to be meeting them by the dates I had originally set for myself.  This is a painful thing for me.  I have been working incredibly hard, but now I realize I have not been working smart. So, I’ve re-calibrated my goals, set some new timelines for things and am going to try my best to let go of some of my obsessiveness about the journey.  This will be probably the hardest thing I’ve done so far, but the thing I need to do the most.

Starting tomorrow I’m beginning the Whole30 program with my best friend. This is something to get me jump started on eating better, taking better care of this body that I am putting through the ringer on a daily basis, and helping my family eat better too.  I’m a bit nervous, but I’m excited to give my body the chance to reset.  I’m hoping to get past my sugar addition and help my kids get over that too.  The program asks that you don’t monitor your food or weight for the 30 days.  This is going to be SUCH a challenge for me.  I am someone who weighs daily and I monitor EVERY SINGLE THING I put in my mouth via MyFitnessPal.  I feel like I REALLY have to let myself be given completely to the program though, so I won’t be monitoring food or weight for the duration of the 45 days.  I will weigh in tomorrow morning, and then I will weigh in again on Valentine’s Day.  I am going to put my scales in the closet, blind weigh at my weekly group meetings, and try a more instinctive eating approach.  I am dedicated to sharing this experience here as well.  In the coming weeks I will share my goals for 2013 with you and the progress I’m making.  Tonight I raise my glass to 2013 and all the change and happiness it brings with it.  Cheers!