I have been thinking about compiling my own personal list of top weight loss tips, things I have learned along the way. Hopefully they can be helpful to others. They are totally in no particular order….Im not that organized.
1.Park at the far end of the parking lot. I thought this one wouldnt be possible with me having two little kids. But one day at preschool my son asked me to ‘back up’ like Daddy does. Well my backing up skills suck in my giant land yacht so I picked a spot at the very far end of the parking lot and he was thrilled. We walked in and ever since then I park as far away from the entrance to wherever I am going as possible. Everything from full on grocerie shopping to just dropping off a package at the post office. I want the furthest spot available! I usually haul my 30lbs 2 year old in my arms for added safety (and a better work out!!) Make it a habit, even if it burns 20 calories a day, everyday that adds up to 7300 calories a year- it takes 3500 calories to burn one pound of fat, with that theory you can knock off two pounds a year- but doing very very little extra work.
2. Eat meals and snacks on smaller plates. I am a habitual plate cleaner. I hate to throw away food, but when I take a smaller plate I automatically take smaller portions. A baked potato looks HUGE on a little plate, add in some veggies and you have barely any room left for the steak. Same with snacks, I like to snag my kids little plates and bowls. Im not great about measuring out every morsal I eat. When I do that I get really obsessive so I just dont do it. So taking a smaller plate or bowl helps control the portion sizes I give myself. I have a lot less issue with being a member of the ‘clean plate club’ when the plate and portion is half the size I used to use.
3. Exercise. The old me would have run away screaming and then stopped 30 feet away winded and die of heart failure. I tried dieting my way to being thin, I tried starving myself to being thin, yah it doesnt work. Youve got to have muscle to burn that fat off! Getting a good work out really helps boost my mood too, if I can get out the door or on my elliptical or treadmill and get moving a little my urge to emotionally eat gets stomped on.
4. NO EMOTIONAL EATING! This is an ongoing struggle for me. I am an emotional eater, I know I am and its very very hard to stop this cycle. Gotta just take it one day at a time!
5. Make yourself accountable. Grab a friend and recruite them to work out with you, or start a blog, tell your friends you are working out, getting fit and kicking some weight loss butt! After youve told all these people you wont want to flake. I actually remember reading that in one of those ‘crush your self confidence’ magasines as a teen. I actually still remember the cover, how crazy is that! It had ‘tips from skinny girls!’ Oh PUKE So here is a tip from a slightly overwieght mom who wants to be fit and strong-not fit into a size 0- make yourself accountable!!
Watch for 6-10 next time! Ive got a sick baby who just woke up.
My kids and husband wanted hot dogs tonight for dinner, which nearly killed me since I LOVE them but they are crazy high in fat and I havent been able to find the fat free version yet. So I went to the freezer and looked through my stash of healthy choice and lean cuisine frozen meals and I settled on Lean Cuisine’s Pork with Cherry Sauce. I thought YUM!! The description was pork in a red wine and dried cherry sauce with a side of rice, green beans and yellow carrots. It was pretty nasty. The taste was just….wierd. Some of the pork was a bit tough and the sauce just didnt go well with it. The rice had a nice texture but the green beans squeeked against my teeth and that just made it even nastier! I definatly will not be buying that one again!
Besides this Lean Cuisine meal that I ate for dinner today I ate a multigrain bagel, some dried pineapple and part of an apple for lunch. For breakfast I had cheerios and bananas with skim milk. For a total of about 1650 calories and 11g of fat. So 6% of my total calories today came from fat. I dont know why my scale isnt budging! Im eating well within my 20% guideline. Ill just keep at it!
Today was my cross training day today so I told the kids yesterday I would take them to the park in the bike trailer. My Dad bought me an InStep Take 2 Bike trailer for Christmas this year. Its so awesome! What a work out I get from pulling it. The only drawback I have found is its pretty wide, which when it comes to a double stroller, double trailer etc its sort of to be expected! Where I live people are not bike friendly so its a little dangerous to be on roads, luckily I am able to stick to the dirt shoulder since I live in the county. The park we go to is actually about half a block inside the city limits so I have minimal city streets and sidewalks to deal with. However I did manage to find the only closed road in a 20 mile radius. Ah well, it wasnt a big deal.
We brought a picnic lunch to the park and lots of drinks, I brought my camelbak filled with cold water, a couple diet Dr. Pepper’s, a bottle of tea and two sippy cups full of tea for the boys. It was 84 degrees out, and this was the warmest day we’ve had this year so I was a little worried about how all of us would deal with the heat, especially my little one since he has been sick. But they both did great! They had a great time in the trailer and at the park and I got an awesome work out today!
The past few days I have been experiencing some mild dizziness between meals and after working out. I feel like Ive been eating plenty, actually I feel like Ive even been over eating, and I certainly have not been losing pounds.
I went to fitday.com to track what I ate today because I was really curious as to how many calories and grams of fat I ate since I havent been tracking at all.
Breakfast- (pancakes and low calories syrup)
330 calories 2g of fat
Snack-(banana)
100 calories 1g of fat
Lunch -lunch was sort of a ‘miss’ I warmed up some spagetti from the other night but it didnt taste right but I did eat a few bites. I also had a super yummy bun with butter buds and garlic powder. Afterwards I ate an apple
290 calories 3g of fat
Snack-pre-work out
banana (yah I was on a banana kick today!)
100 calories 1g of fat
snack-post work out- Chocolate skim milk granola bar (this was 27% calories from fat…ack! I was starvin and just shoved it in my mouth without doing the math)
316 5g of fat
dinner-I made fish and chips- I didnt eat the fish since it was very high in fat but the chips were my very low fat steak fries
385 calories 0 g of fat
snack with my boys before bed-skim milk and dried pineapple
135 calories 1g of fat
So for the day my totals were:
1656 calories and 13g of fat
thats only 7% of calories from fat! Nice!
Generally I do all of my training in the aerobic zone, which according to my heart rate monitor is 70-85% of my maximum heart rate. But I was doing a bit of reading about getting faster with my running. One suggestion was hill training on the treadmill. Oh my. The directions were do intervals of 3-10 minutes at a 4-5% incline at a speed that gets your heart rate up to 85-92% of your max. And to repeat this 3-8 times. Oh my gosh. I did it 5 times and felt like I was going to DIE. But in a good way. (ummm….dont think about that too hard 
) I had 45 minutes schedualled today but ended up doing 35 because guests arrived. Was I a sight! Yikes! I was totally exhausted,shaking and sweating like crazy! I was definatly done the intervals and was going to do a very slow recovery run/walk for the last 10 minutes. Instead this evening I did a bunch of lunges with my oldest son, who thinks they are so cool 
I also did a lot of stretching since my legs got extreemly tight within a few hours. Im guessing it was the build up of lactic acid? Im not sure Im going to have to do some research on lactic acid. Im planning on taking the boys to the park tomorrow, which may not sound like much of a work out but I will be taking them in the bike trailer. Its about a 14-18 mile round trip. I think we will end up bringing a picnic lunch.