I really like breaking up my goal for the year into monthly goals.  Each month seems like a fresh start – I begin each month excited to start working on my next small goal.  Having a small amount of weight to lose each month seems a lot less daunting than thinking of the goal for the entire year.

So, my goal for February is to  be at 242.5 or lower on March 1st.  This in in keeping with my overall goal of losing 1lb a week until I reach 200. My goal and progress is posted on my weight loss goal page. I update it every month with my progress for that month.

I have been using Fitday to track my calories off and on.  To prevent myself from getting too complacent with it, I’m going to try a little experiment.  I’ll post my average daily calories and macros once a week for the month of February and see if it helps keep me motivated to continue with the tracking.

For a few years I have had enough equipment in my home to do pretty much any exercise. One of the reasons I kept a gym membership was because I really like the assisted pullup machine (not to mention the leg press and squat rack). Recently, money and time have both been a lot tighter and I had to cancel my membership. This left me wondering how I was going to do pullups at home – especially since I still can’t do more than one unassisted pullup yet, and the “one” that I can do is really more like a 3/4 pullup.

I started looking at options. The first thing I looked at was the Iron Gym. It seems like a decent solution, but I have seen a couple of funny Iron Gym accident videos. Well, funny to me. Probably not so funny to the people who ruined their door trim and fell flat on their backs.

Next, I spent a bit of time trying to think of some way to build something in my basement.  No luck there….

Then I came across this product called the Perfect Pullup bar.  It has a number of features that I really like.  First of all, it doesn’t just slip over door trim, you have to actually install it into a doorway – perfect for my basement.  It seems a lot sturdier!  It comes with handles that rotate, so you can do a number of different types of pullups.

My favorite thing about the Perfect Pullup is that it has different settings so that you can do regular pullups, or you can do horizontal pullups.  This is great for someone like me who still can’t do very many regular pullups.  I also got some ab straps which you can use to do vertical leg raises.

If you are looking for a way to do pullups at home, this is one of the better options that I have found.

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.

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.

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!

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

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!

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!

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)

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!