Weigh-in Wednesday

It's time for the first of many Weigh-in Wednesdays!  Do you want to hear something awesome?  I lost 4.3 lbs last week.  

I'm going to type it again just because it feels awesome: I lost 4.3 lbs.

The week before this, I ate my weight in Christmas cookies and had a gain (which prompted me starting a blog to keep myself honest).  This week wasn't entirely great, either.  Remember how I ate a box of chocolates?  Yeah.  But overall, I did the work and made it happen!

I took a few screenshots of my weekly summary report from Bodymedia (check out more about my armband here).  Did I mention I love charts?

The numbers don't exactly add up.  My total calorie deficit for the week was 7742 which should equal roughly two pounds BUT I'm not going to argue.  This feels really, really good.  I worked HARD.  I walked a LOT.  I invited Jillian Michaels into my television to kick my butt.  

But you know what really is lighting a fire under me?  I know I can do more work next week, and the week after that, and the week after that..... 

Silver Lining

It's a strange thing to keep a blog.  I've never done one faithfully in the past, or kept a journal for that matter.  I do read a lot of blogs if that counts for anything.  See, the thing is that you people out there reading this don't really know me yet.  There's not a lot you can tell by three posts.  So today I'll share a little history as it relates to this little story.

I have two little kiddos-- Samantha is 5 and Daniel is 4.  They are amazing and you'll hear me gush more about them in the future.  At the time they were born, we lived in New York City.  We moved there in 2002 and I fell in love with that city.  I loved the smells, the bustle, the buzz... all of it.  What I came to love also was getting around on my own two feet.  No car-- just walk.  Take the subway.  Walk some more.  After a while we decided it was time to leave NYC.  Everything I had come to love, I started to hate with two little kids.  Everything was just too hard with little ones.

So we decided to move to Buffalo, where my husband grew up.  Maybe I just fall for cities easily, but I love Buffalo too.  I never expected to love it... after all, it's Buffalo.  So we bought an old house (that requires our constant attention-- never ending projects) in a sketchy up and coming neighborhood that we can walk to a lot.  Around the corner there is an amazing coffee shop, a gallery, an Italian grocer, a lovely florist... you get the picture.  My office is two miles away from my home and we have one car, which may seem crazy, but we make it work pretty easily.  That is, except, when that one car is out of commission.  We are waiting on a part to come in and are without wheels this week. So finally I'm getting to the silver lining!  I have to walk to and from work.  In the cold Buffalo winter.  You would not believe how many calories that burns! Let's take a look.

See those circled spikes?  That's my walk!  In the morning I caught a bus part of the way, but I hoofed the whole cold two miles home (that dip is from my stop at the coop to pick up some food for dinner).  And it was a really great walk.  One that made me thankful that walking is an option.  One that made me thankful that I'm strong enough to do it.  One that make me thankful for the lovely neighborhood I walk through.

So yes, our one family car is not working this week.  But because of that I got more exercise, spent more time catching up with friends on the phone while walking, and got to enjoy my neighborhood.  So that's a pretty nice silver lining.

In my toolbox: GoWear Fit

Confession:  I love gadgets.  I love numbers and statistics and bar charts. Oooooh, bar charts.  So when I started looking up info about the GoWear Fit, I knew we'd be very, very happy together.  If you watch the Biggest Loser, you've seen these ugly armbands a lot.  I'm surprised they don't pimp it as much as they do Subway or Brita-- but that's neither here nor there.

So I started shopping around and then became obsessed.  I MUST have one!  But, you see--- I'm cheap.  Like, really cheap.  But I found one on ebay for $50.  Sold.  I've been wearing it for a few weeks now and I've got to say, it's amazing.  It tracks all the calories you burn throughout the day and night.  It even track how much you sleep.  I've always known that losing weight is as simple as calories in and calories out.  The problem is that I never knew exactly how many calories were going out!  Here is what I've learned so far:

1) I get less sleep than I thought.  I never really gave is much thought, but I really do a lot better on 8 hours of sleep than 6.  Like, a lot better.  

2) I burn fewer calories per hour sitting at my desk than I do sleeping.  That blew me away and I still don't know what to do with that info.

3) Just because I go to the gym, doesn't mean I've burned enough calories to lose weight.  It's shocking, but if I just go about my normal routine and go to the gym for an hour,  I'll burn about 2500 calories a day.  Eating 1800, that'll make me lose at a rate of about a 1lb a week.  Now I understand how I didn't really lose weight when I was going to the gym faithfully in the past-- I wasn't doing anything else during the day to make it work!  And the nightly bowl eating out of the container of ice cream was killing any calorie deficit I had.

I'm still figuring it all out, but it's a super handy tool.  One reviewer compared it to a big, expensive string around your finger reminding you that you are trying to lose weight.  That's about it.  Maybe I'll post a screenshot of my daily summary with the daily food?  I'll let ya know ;)