GoRed Booty

No, not that kind of booty. I won, I won something, how about that?!

Thanks so much to the ladies at MamaLaw! Thanks to them I have some great new equipment for keeping me inspired to stay with the BetterU GoRed program. Everything is so red and new and sparkly. The water bottle is getting a lot of use already, and love shiny red-ness of it. As well as the smaller mouth-top, as the other steel water bottles we have, have these huge wide mouths which I always spill water all over myself. The Craisins are almost gone, they've been very popular around here. Who knew that dried cranberries + sugar would be so yummy? I even put them in a salad which was really tasty.

After my un-sunscreened foray to the pool at high noon over the weekend, I have quite the sunburn, so I haven't used the nifty tote bag to bring my towel and suit and goggles, since I haven't been back. Since I'm still so red (just like the tote bag). Ouch. Boy do I ever feel Dumb with a capital D.

What else is in there? Oh yes, the yoga mat. I hope I can use this with the WiiFit that I'm getting soon. It is really pretty and new and oh yes red. The yoga mat, not the WiiFit. Which, now that I think about it, maybe they should have an official GoRed WiiFit tie-in version. I'd love to have a video game console in my house in a cool color!

After all this fabulous new stuff, how did I do last week on the BetterU program?

Pretty great, I am happy to report that I'm down another 2 pounds. That makes 6 altogether. Not a lot percentage wise of course, but still in the right direction. I have to keep telling myself this! I'm definitely making better and better-informed food choices. Not 100% of the time, but there is a real improvement. I don't know if I can keep up with the level of activity I was at last week as I'm feeling pretty wrung out and fatigued now. Such a delicate dance of wanting to do more and being limited by what I can handle. sigh.

What did I do last week? Swimming, walking, hiking, an afternoon walking and playing on the beach, and a marathon shopping trip with my son to find pants that he'll actually wear. All that activity added up, and maybe I can keep up with doing it, or maybe not, but I'm sure going to try.

Swimming Through Summer

A blurry green smoothie picture. This one was waaaay to thick, I had to use a spoon to eat it. All the greens were kale too, so it was very flavorful. Tasted good, but the texture was a bit too thick. I have been managing one or two smoothies a week. Sometimes it is easier to make them than something else. Other times, I'm really needing some protein at lunch time (usually if I've waited too long to eat) so I make something less green and smooth.

This past week I'm again at the same weight, no change, still down a total of 4 pounds since the beginning of Better-U. Kind of frustrating and disappointing as I did quite a bit of activity and didn't think I ate all that much more than usual. Several of the days my computer was tied up with my son completing his Algebra summer school homework, so I didn't track my food intake, so perhaps I did get off track on the eating. Also my husband took a vacation week, so we ate out a bit more than usual. Plus it is that time of the month which always equals a few extra pounds for me, even at this late stage in the age game...
But enough with all the rationalizing! What exactly do I need to do kick this thing into the dowhill gear again?

I probably need more exercise, and one great thing I did last week was go swimming at the local high school pool. We joined for the year, so I can now go any day of the week and swim laps or just walk around in the water. I really appreciate my husband making me go when I was whining about being tired. It was great, and I felt very energized once I got out of the pool. We swam for about a half hour and I lost track of how many laps that was, but it was definitely aerobic. I expected to be sore the next day, but I wasn't, a very nice surprise! So sign me up for more swimming please. The challenge will be making myself go when the husband is at work, and not here to make me get in the car and drive there. Maybe I can rope my boys into this to help me get there, they do so love ordering me around!

One of the hardest things about going to the community pool is feeling so self conscious about myself in a bathing suit. But I took a look around at all the bodies that were there the evening we went, and yes I was one of the bigger people, but not the biggest by a long shot, and most of the mom types I compare myself to were not looking at me (at least not that I noticed), none of the teenagers or kids made any comments, and I felt happy just to be actually swimming and spending time with my husband. I love that feeling of being so buoyant and floating easily in the water. I noticed that: My lumps don't hurt when I'm floating in the water...

I had several opportunities to eat candy, or buy candy and I found I had enough willpower and was strong enough to not partake. This is several weeks now of success with this effort, and I'll admit that I'm very pleased with myself. A big part of my excess eating this past year has been candy candy candy. So that is a very good thing that I'm getting it under control. I have found that my sweet tooth is still here though, so lots of fruit and dried fruit is being eaten. Another huge thing this week was having sorbet instead of ice cream. My trick of having the boys pick the ice cream flavor (and begging them to choose something I don't care for, cookies n' cream, bleah!) totally worked. I didn't want the ice cream, and the lemon sorbet was just right on all those hot nights last week.
I have to remember to buy and freeze some grapes, I love eating those, the sugar crystalizes just so with the frozen ice, yum!

So this week ahead: continue making those better food choices, keep refusing candy's sweet siren call, avoid ice cream, make more green smoothies, and do some swimming.

One More Week Down (6)

Awwww, I was just checking in with my food spread and the GoRed Better U website and my son saw what I was working on. He came over and hugged me and said "I'm really glad you're doing this mom. So you can come do more stuff with us and go more places." Mother proceeds to melt with happiness. My answer was "Yes, and to live longer too!" He looked a bit surprised, but said "Yes, that's even more important!" I'm so lucky to have him on my support team.



Arrggh, so no change in my weight this week. Why?
I stopped tracking my eating, I think I got bored, or just didn't want the accountability. I also got frustrated with my pedometer because I had several instances of hours of activity registering as hardly any steps. They really only work for people who walk, not for gardening or other activities. And walking out of my driveway is a steep hike, not just a walk. It is just a number, which isn't terribly accurate about total activity, BUT having that daily push to get to 1o,000 steps really works as a motivator for me, so I need to wear that thing, like it or not.

I had a few days where my back was really hurting me in that way that indicates it is about to get much much worse, so I took it easy (ie laid around and didn't do the WiiFit or much walking) because I was single parenting this week and thus needed to be able to drive my kids around. I also was feeling emotionally very low as this was the last week that my husband was away on a business trip. Comfort eating was the order of the day several times. I also didn't have a single green smoothie, no wonder I'm so off! Duh.



Good things were that I again did not buy myself any candy, and only ate the dark chocolate covered almonds when I worked in my studio, I chewed a lot of sugarless gum. I ate a lot of really fresh carrots and vegies from our CSA farm basket. The best thing of the week was taking a long walk in the woods with my darling husband and dog on the day that he returned. Wish I'd been wearing my tennis shoes and not my sandals, now I have a great blister on the top of my foot, yeouch!



The picture above shows my new pedometer, which broke, dang it! The little hinged clip lost the pin holding it on, so I found some wire small enough, and wired it back together with some beads. What do you want for $9.99 right?



So Monday finds me back tracking what I'm eating, and wearing my pedometer again. Here's to Week 7! This week is all about the cholesterol, which is one of my big concerns, as mine is really quite high. I'm looking forward to an all olive oil week! With bonus walking which will be tracked by pedometer.

Better U Week 5

Stats for the week, down just a pound, so that's four altogther, still going in the right direction. So far so good. I did a lot of working in the garden and walking and using a borrowed WiiFit. I rather enjoyed using the Wiifit, it was strangely inspiring, and I felt very cheered on as I used it. I also did some situps thanks to this gizmo, so that was a good thing. Definitely need to get my own WiiFit as the borrowed one gets returned this week.

I'm not very happy with my pedometer, as several hours of sweating out in the garden at an aerobic level of work did not count for very many steps, hmmm. So this goal of 10,000 steps per day is a bit simplistic if one's exercise is not coming mostly from walking or running. I had a few days where I got over 10,000 anyways which was a cause for celebration. I'm a really sedentary person at my most basic level, so this is a big deal for me to get moving this much.

This basket of food is from our local CSA farm weekly basket. And all of it got eaten, whether in salads or green smoothies all those greens are gone. And those berries, what a yummy heavenly treat. The garlic and shallots have been utilized but not completely used up. I know garlic is supposed to be good for cholesterol, but I just can't pop a raw clove into my mouth and eat it. (So I take a supplement instead).

In addition to the great food above, I also made some bad eating choices which I think is what is holding back any weight loss. But I'm thinking about it more, I'm not eating as unconsciously as I did before, so that has been a big change. I'm not always making the better choice, but I am making that better choice MORE than I did before I started this whole BetterU thing. For instance, I did not buy any candy this week. That's two weeks in a row now.

Goals for this week are lots of exercise in small doses so I don't overdo, keep making better eating choices, and the reward will be a haircut. Boy do I ever need one!