Day 1

Motivation is a funny thing. Last night, I was up way too late for a weeknight, dealing with some issues at home and not getting to sleep until around 1. In the past, a night like that would have deterred me from following through with a tough day like the one I had planned for myself today. Sure, I’d have been fine just doing my work and any necessary chores and errands, but the workouts and eating plan would have been thrown out the window, replaced by something more “comforting”. Not today.

I woke up and made myself a different kind of breakfast than I usually have: toast and an over-easy egg. Usually, I’ll grab myself some frosted mini wheats cereal or a packaged instant oatmeal. Both of those options are overly processed and sugared. I figured some carbs and protein would do me good to start the day – and I was right.

When I have the kind of sugary/processed breakfast that I usually do, I tend to become ravenous as early as 10:30 in the morning. Today, that didn’t happen.

I’ve eaten well all day so far and got in a 40 minute elliptical workout at the gym as planned during my lunch break. I’m really enjoying the Polar FT so far. It turns out the elliptical I used today was actually tracking my heart rate pretty well for the majority of the workout (calories too), but I loved knowing FOR SURE that I burned a certain amount.

I had some problems because of my ever-lingering cold. It’s gone for the most part, but my nose is still stuffed up and runny, and was especially at the gym. Breathing was not the easiest, but I watched my heart rate and made sure to pull back when I needed to.

I’ve also begun tracking my calories on sparkpeople.com, which has helped me in the past. It’s not something I intend to do for the long term, but while I’m getting things started, it will be something important for me to keep up with.

There are already a few key nutritional trends that I’m noticing (that I’ve noticed in the past as well) that I should work on changing.

1. More protein. I’m not doing terribly here, but I’m barely making it into the minimum recommended bracket for protein according to SparkPeople.

2. Most of my calories come toward the end of the day. Dinner is way bigger than any other meal (by a lot).

I’m going to work on fixing those two issues as the weeks go on. I’m already thinking about adding some additional calories to breakfast, either through almond butter on the toast, or 1 more egg. Being a vegetarian for the past 12 years, I have always been conscious of the protein issue, but seeing the numbers right in front of me helps a lot.

When I get home from work, I’ll be going for workout #2 of the day – the easy 30 minutes on my stationary bike.

 That’s all for now!

~L

Tomorrow’s the big day!

Tomorrow morning will begin day 1 of my new plan. I’m all ready to go: I’m taking my gym clothes with me to the office so I can work out during lunch, I’ve got my new heart rate monitor (the Polar FT4), which I have yet to test out, and I’m going to try to fit in a second smaller workout when I get home from work at the end of the day.

I’m super excited to try out the Polar FT4. In my entire history of going to the gym, I’ve never had an accurate view of my heart rate or calories burned. I’ve relied on what the machines I was using at the time were telling me, which I know can be notoriously deceiving.

I work as a software engineer, which means I’m chained to my desk all day, making it all the more important for me to make time for working out. I figure, I can get in a somewhat lengthy workout during lunch, as I have done in the past. I’ll aim for around 45 minutes. If I can do that and then get in a quick 30 minutes on my bike at home after work, I think that would be pretty great to start.

Tentative plan:

Monday: 40 minutes on the elliptical (lunch), 30 on the bike (after work)

Tuesday: I have a lunch meeting this day, so 30 on the bike (morning), Zumba wii (after work)

Wednesday: 40 mins. elliptical (lunch)

Thursday:  20 mins. elliptical, 20 mins upper body weights (lunch)

Friday: Zumba Wii (morning),  30 on the bike (after work)

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Saturday: 40 mins. elliptical, weights (upper and lower body)

Sunday: Rest day

I will probably make some slight tweaks as the week goes on and the usual craziness of schedules starts to happen. But this sounds manageable and I need to keep my ultimate goals in mind to succeed.  I’ll be back with my first check in tomorrow!

~L

Starting Points

As promised yesterday, I officially weighed in for the first time.

Starting weight on 10/8/11: 144.4

Goal weight by 1/1/12: 130

I have close to 15 pounds to lose, and I’d ideally like to reach this first goal by the new year. My ideal body weight for my height is somewhere around 126, so once January comes around, I’ll reassess where I am and how I’m going to move forward. But for now, 130 would be amazing. I haven’t been that low since high school. When I lost weight last year, the lowest I was able to get was 133.2 and I felt great at that weight.

I’m still fighting this cold, and I’m hoping it’s on its last legs at this point. Monday is the kick off of this project, no matter what.

So… what’s the plan?

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I just came back from a week-long vacation. My boyfriend and I took our first big trip in our 2+ years of time together and went to Disney World. The trip was amazing and it felt we were walking miles upon miles every day while we were gone, soaking up more vitamin D in the Florida sunshine than either of us has gotten in recent memory.

But it wasn’t just the memories and souvenirs that I brought home with me — I also took home a lovely cold, complete with a terrible cough, stuffed up nose and no energy to speak of. I wanted to begin my new fitness journey as soon as we arrived home, but I knew it would be a bad idea to move forward with it when I wasn’t feeling physically well.

Whenever I get inspired to start a new project in my life, I usually like to jump in with both feet RIGHT that second. This time, I’m trying to make sure I don’t set myself up for failure. I now have the blog to keep me accountable, and on Monday morning, I plan to start in — full force: good eating, working out hard, and documenting the whole thing. I plan to do official weigh-ins for myself once a week on Saturday mornings, first thing after I wake up. Thus, I will record my official starting weight tomorrow morning to start the trend.

I’m lucky to have plenty of ways to work out that are convenient and that I can easily integrate into my life. There is a full gym at the office that I can use during my lunch break, after work or on the weekends. I live very close to the office, so there’ s no reason I can’t use that gym whenever the motivation strikes. At my apartment complex, there is a small, but somewhat lacking, fitness center. There’s one working treadmill, some scarily old weight machines and a few other miscellaneous things. I once told my boyfriend, D that being in that gym feels like being in a prison. Needless to say, I don’t use that gym very often, but it’s there if I need it.

If all else fails, there are plenty of workout options even inside my own apartment. I have a workout bike, lots of DVDs, some free weights and even a WII zumba game.

All this is to say – NO EXCUSES. People with much less than this have been able to get in shape. I think the harder part for me will be finding the right foods to eat and sticking to them. A post for another day.

I’ll be tweaking the layout and options on this blog over the next week or so. There’s so many options and I can’t make up my mind! In the meantime, I’ll be back tomorrow with weigh-in #1.

~L

Welcome

Welcome to the Ms. Marvel Project! I’m beginning this blog not only to start a new hobby, but also because this is a project I’m taking on to help reach my fitness and happiness goals.

At this time last year, I had successfully lost 14 pounds – something I never thought I was capable of doing. I was pretty much at the weight I wanted to be, even though it took me almost a whole year of very slow weight loss to get there. It turns out that going to the gym for 1 hour, 4x a week does work – but I have a very large, Italian appetite, and even though I watched what I ate (sometimes…), splurging was more the norm than anything else.

After that point, I moved, winter hit and each month another pound or so made its way back on. Then summer brought with it a new job, lots of changes and a big vacation (which I just came back from last week!), and now I’m only a few pounds away from where I started.

Now, I realize that in the grand scheme of things, 15 pounds or so isn’t that much to need to lose, but it’s more than just vanity that’s inspiring this process. Feeding myself better and exercising more is necessary in my life due to a long family history of health issues. So far, I’ve been lucky enough to avoid them, but I know that change is needed or my fate is in the hands of my genes.

I’ve had enough: I want some upper body strength! I want to be able to run for more than a few minutes without feeling like dying! I want change! And that’s what this blog will attempt to chronicle.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you stick around to find out where this journey will take me.