Watch My Weight Loss

Dumbbell Swings

One of the exercises that I have a love/hate relationship with is dumbbell swings.  I love it because it is a compound exercise that works out many muscle groups and it really gets my heart rate up.  I hate it because it is hard work! It is very tiring and not many exercises are as exhausting to me as dumbbell swings are. The exercise is traditionally performed with kettle bells, but dumbbells work just as well once you have figured out the best way to get a solid grip on yours.

Here is a video showing how dumbbell swings are performed:

After a few sets of these, you will feel your legs, arms, and shoulders burning! Be careful not to start with a weight that is too heavy. If you have never done dumbbells swings before, you should start with a comfortable weight and work your way up to heavier weights.

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Benefits of Chia Seed

If you haven’t heard about the many benefits of chia seed, here are a couple resources

The Top 10 Benefits of Eating Chia Seeds

What is Chia?

If you don’t have time to check out the above pages, here is a summary. Basically chia seeds are being touted as a super-food for a number of reasons. They are great source of fiber, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. They also contain Omega-3, an essential fatty acid and even a good amount of protein! If you aren’t including this amazing nutritional powerhouse, you are definitely missing out.

One of the unique properties of chia seeds is the way they absorb liquid and gel up. This helps you to feel full on less calories. Also important is the fact that you don’t have to grind them up in order to digest them as you would with something like flax seed.

To get my daily tablespoon or two of chia seed, I add some to my oatmeal, cereal, soup, or shake. I also often mix a tablespoon in with a drink in the evening as kind of an energy drink before a workout or run. This last option may not be for everyone. If you don’t like your drinks to have a “pulpy” texture then you probably won’t like adding chia to your drinks. If you do want to add it to a drink, you will need to let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour to let it absorb as much liquid as possible, otherwise it is like drinking grit.

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Looking for bean recipes

Last week I purchased a huge container of mixed dried beans from Costco.  It was $6 and it looks like it would make dinners for a month. Healthy foods that are also inexpensive are so hard to find that I was very happy to find these.  I wish I had discovered them sooner!

Since I have more beans than I know what to do with, I am looking for recipe ideas to use these in. I have tried turkey/bean/vegetable soup which was good. I am going to try turkey chili tonight. Other than that, I don’t have too many ideas for how to use these beans and I don’t want to get sick of eating soup and chili every night.

If you have any recipe ideas, please post them in the comments – it would be much appreciated!

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Beating Food Cravings

Is there a certain time of day where you find it more difficult to resist eating certain foods? Many people find that at a certain time every day they develop cravings for sweets or salty snacks and often feel “hungry” even though they know they shouldn’t be.

For me, this time of day is the evening.  I rarely, if ever have a problem sticking to healthy eating in the mornings and throughout the day.  If there were no such thing as evenings, I would have reached my goal weight long ago! I often get cravings 1-2 hours after dinner.  Sometimes they get so intense that I lose all interest in my weight loss goals. I literally only care about satisfying my craving – that’s how powerful food cravings can be.  Of course, if I do indulge, the next morning I feel like crap. Not just physically from the junk food, but mentally as well. I get angry with myself for not being strong enough.

There are a number of things you can do to reduce cravings, or to increase your willpower to overcome them. For me, a short 20-minute run or other workout usually does the trick. It gets me in a better state of mind and helps me to feel better about myself which boosts my motivation to stay on the right track.  Of course, you have to have the willpower to actually do a quick workout, which I find that I often don’t.  It can be a vicious cycle sometimes.  If you find yourself getting very intense cravings and you feel like you really want to give in, just try doing some exercise for a bit and see how you feel after.  You might be surprised how much it helps.

Here is an article with some unique tips to help you beat cravings: 8 Out of the Ordinary Approaches to Defeating Your Food Cravings

And another good page that has some good info on what you can eat when craving certain types of foods: How to Stop Cravings for Carbs, Fats and Sugars

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New Year, New Goals

The new year brings with it new motivation for many, myself included.

One of my goals for this year is just to get into the habit of doing something every day to improve my health/fitness, even if it is only 20 minutes (or even less on some days). My hope is that if I do it consistently for long enough, that it will become a habit like waking up and brushing my teeth.

My other goal is to finally reach my goal weight of 200 lbs by the end of this year.  To do this, I have to lose less than 1lb per week.  I feel that this is a very achievable goal.  It allows for some poor weeks, which are inevitable, and still gives me lots of room to meet my objective.

When I was thinking about what my goals should be this year, I wanted to make sure that they are very realistic. I find that when I get excited and motivated, I make plans that are too difficult to achieve. Examples of this would be working out an hour every day or losing 3 pounds per week.  At this stage in my life I just don’t have time to do that, so I will inevitably fail to meet such lofty goals.

I have decided to go ahead with my plan of opening up this site for people to create their own weight loss blogs.  I have started working on setting it up and it should be ready to go in a week or so. I would also like to keep posting here as often as I can about my progress (or lack thereof). I want to post a minimum of once per week (preferably more) to keep myself on track.

Here’s to a great 2012. I hope we all meet our goals, whatever they may be!

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New site direction

Given the fact that I am unable to be really active with this site, I am thinking about taking it in another direction.

One option I am considering is creating a community where people create profiles, post their goals, track their progress, and blog about their weight loss experiences.  I think that it helps to keep the motivation levels higher when you have a community of people encouraging each other.  I realize that there are other sites out there like this, but it is something I would really like to try anyway.  Meanwhile, I will continue to post as often as I can.

What do you think?  Would you use something like this to track your progress and help keep yourself motivated?  Let me know in the comments!

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November goal update

Just a quick update for November so far.  I’m going to do a quick update every week to keep myself honest for my goal this month.

So far I have not touched any of the Halloween candy.  It’s been hard, but so far so good.  I exercised 5 of 7 days last week.  I ran 3 days, did some spin intervals one day, and a 30 minute dumbbell circuit one day.  I will aim for 6 days this week.  Hopefully not eating the candy will get a little easier instead of harder!

It looks like I’m not the only one who struggles with the Halloween candy…..

• How I stayed Away From the Halloween Candy (this year) (dalailina.wordpress.com)

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Goal for November

My intentions for school this time around were good, but once again I got overwhelmed by the amount of work and how busy I have been and I have fallen off the wagon a bit.  I have just finished a month of fairly constant exams and I did not find the time to exercise as often as I should have.  I have packed on a few pounds due to lack of exercise and too much snacking.

Seeing as how yesterday was Halloween, and we have a bunch of candy left over, part of my goal for November is to not eat a single piece of candy all month.  I LOVE candy, so that is going to be difficult, especially with so much of it lying around the house.  Personally I would like to give it away or throw it out to remove the temptation, but my kids wouldn’t be very happy with me if I did that.

The second part of my November goal is to make time to do at least 20 minutes of exercise 6 days per week.  I really need to work on my consistency!

I’ll post with my progress as often as I can!

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4 Minute Fat Burning Tabata Workout

I have been looking for quick and effective fat burning workouts for days when I just can’t find the time to do a full 30-60 minute workout.  If you are like me and have trouble finding time to work out every day, you may be interested in learning more about the Tabata workout.

With the Tabata method you do 20 seconds of very intense exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest.  You repeat this for 4 minutes, so you do 8 cycles of intense exercise and rest.

I believe that if you don’t have time to get an hour workout in, it is always better to do even just a few minutes than nothing at all.  Whether you decide to try Tabata or something completely different, it is important to keep in the habit of daily exercise and not to get into the habit of skipping workouts.

I have heard good things about the effectiveness of the Tabata method and plan to give it a try on my super busy days.

Here are a couple of videos with examples of exercises you can do:

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Latest Weigh In – Sep 22, 2011

Life has been incredibly hectic now that I am back in classes.  I am in class 9 hours per day.  When I come home I have children to feed, dogs to walk, a business to run, and studying to do.  I have still been able to find time to exercise at least a few times per week, although my workouts haven’t been as long as they were during the summer.  I have been mainly concentrating on running.  I try to get in 30 minutes per day although some days there just isn’t time.

The good news is that I have lost a couple of pounds since my last weigh in.  It just goes to show that no matter how busy you are, you can still lose weight if you are consistent.  You just need to lower your expectations and don’t expect fast results.  Slow and steady…..

• Weight: 237.5 lbs (down 2 pounds)

That’s only 2 pounds in a month, but any progress makes me happy.  I didn’t do all of the other measurements this morning.  I will do that next time.

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