Showing posts with label cost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cost. Show all posts

Thursday, December 22, 2011

This Blog

 The reason I keep this blog is to keep myself accountable for everything I do with this diet and exercise. Keeping a real time log of each weekly weigh in, articles I find interesting and what I am doing to lose this weight gives me the ability to review what worked and what hasn't.

Making this public and updating facebook and twitter with each update allows friends to monitor what I am doing and celebrate my successes with me. My hope is that my story will be an inspiration for those who are also struggling to lose weight. On my 26th birthday, I was in the worst shape of my life. At this point, ten weeks later, I am coming close to being the lowest I have weighed since I was a high school freshman.

This being said, I recently came across an article from Men's Health that said that keeping your diet and fitness routine a secret could help you lose weight by avoiding those all too common 'one piece of cake won't hurt' and 'you have done well all week, you can take a break on Saturday' type of temptations.

My thought is if you don't have the will power to say 'Thanks, but I can't. Maybe next time.' OR if you do have that piece of cake, stay an extra 20 minutes at the gym to make it not matter, a diet might not work for you. . .

Diets are TOUGH. Sticking to a diet where you have to cut out most of your favorite delicious foods is even tougher.

I am glad you all are enjoying the blog. Have a wonderful Christmas and/or Hanukkah! 


Sunday, December 11, 2011

Snack Time

If you are anything like me, you love to snack. I know I sure do! Snacking away has not led to a very healthy lifestyle. Craving some candy or chips or something even worse (cake, brownies, sugar laden soda), can cause my diet to take a 180 straight into gaining weight (and not the good muscle weight I hear so much about)!

In the past, I would eat tons of sugar or salty chips (sugar in the form of carbs) then sit around watch tv and go to bed. No Activity! No calories burned! This is how I was able to balloon to 230 LBS.

The problem here is that I still love to snack. At work, at home, long drives, to get rid of stress (when I am not at the gym), snacking still comes to mind. What is the worst part of it all, is that I am not even hungry, most of the time I do have a desire to snack on something. I learned early on in this diet that I am very bad at stopping myself from snacking. What I can control is how much and on what I am snacking.

Yogurt has become my go to evening / after work our snack. I will cut up a piece of fruit, throw some almonds in there and you have a delicious, crunchy, healthy and low carb snack! If yogurt is not available I will eat a pickle, some almonds or a piece of fruit. Choosing the healthy snack option is definitely the way to go.


Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Cost and Pain of the Routine

Creating a routine and going from inactive to super active to lose weight can be costly, especially if you don't know what you are doing. I learned the importance of shoes over the past week. When first starting out, I was lectured by my brother about shoes.

'You have to get a new pair of shoes,' he said. 'You don't have shoes designed for running.' And right he was.
After a week and a half, I began getting blisters on the bottom of my foot. A really nasty one kept me going full pace the last few days last week, and was causing enough pain to have me give up the treadmill after 10 minutes on Monday.

I am not one to spend much on shoes, but I went out and bought a pair of new gym shoes for *gasp* the gym. Shoes designed for running and not to hurt my feet. After buying these shoes, I started adding up all of the costs for this new lifestyle. It adds up quick. Be warned, if you are going to attempt this, you should know what it is going to cost you in advance.

Thus far I have spent:
Gym- Membership: 21.00
Gym- Annual fee:- 50.00
Clothes- Shorts: - 28.00
Clothes- new socks and underwear (boxers and working out don't mix) - 20.00
Clothes- Shoes- 30.00
Gym Lock- 5.00
Total: $154 not to mention $20.00 a month for the gym

All of this cost has been worth it thus far, as long as these shoes prevent more blisters. ouch.