Results of the experiments... new toy, and new goals.

TOYS

My newest toy is pictured to the left. It is an accessory for the fit which allows you to get slightly less accurate but constant updates on your progress throughout the day... so, for example, when I got home from my errands today, I knew I had 500 more cals to burn before I could come online WITHOUT checking it on my computer, which is nice. I like it, I just wish it stayed synched more reliably... sometimes during a workout I'll need to re-synch it every 5 minutes. 

I think I need to get the watch band for it... so it will be easier to wear/see all the time. My new obsession is... this. What do you all think?

Adjusting goals:

I decided to adjust my goals... as having lost nearly 40 lbs has surely changed my BMR... and also, I've been setting new requirements for myself, so I might as well make the site mirror them... right? First I had to figure out my new BMR:

So... it's only a change of 80 cals or so, but it seems to make sense ot me... and I want to get in more activity... so here is the new daily plan, for now, when it comes to general numbers. (note, 1500 is a max... not a min)

The only downside to all of this is the beautiful red trendline that I was beating so well has been reset D:!

 

Nutrition: 
 I decided to check the nutrition stats  of my plan over the next few weeks... cuz I like graphs and numbers and all that lol. As long as I take my vit, I should be more or less all set :D

Low cal day - No casein shake

Low cal day, no vit but shake.

Current plan with Vit... everything is more or less in good shape :D

High-cal day with a vitamin.

High cal day without vitamin. So... why is b-12 and zinc so hard for me to get? D: Ah well, doesn't matter all that much, does it? since I take a vitamin 95% of the time.

What burns more?

The elliptical trainer wins!

elliptical trainer

Arc Machine

The two cycles were more or less the same... but the one where you sit down with a back support was well... more supportive, so on days where I am all crooked and stuff, that is where I will get warmed up.

seated bike

seated bike but more... well, like a real bike?

I still need to do the express circuit to see how that does. Will post it tomorrow night probably. Super tired, so I gotta go even though I'm sure there are thins in this post that will make me cringe tomorrow (like grammatical errors or random things I wrote while in a semi-passed out state. <3<3<3 you all.

New measurements and more on the Body Media Fit

This post is mostly inspired by a comment I got a few days ago on the Week 7 progress update post. I guess someone was reading backlog. It made me SOOO happy to get my first comment, and I replied back to them in a comment but I'm not sure they saw it, so I'm putting what I wrote here too, and more info as well!

First @Anonymous:

omg <3 my first comment. How exciting lol.

I don't know which country you are from, but in North America, Australia and New Zealand, it's called the BodyMedia Fit (www.bodymedia.com). In the UK it is the Ki (http://www.kiperformance.co.uk/ ). I don't know about other countries =/

As you can see if you go to either of those sites, it is part of a service connected with an actual device that measures a number of things you do throughout the day/changes in your body. Write back if you have more questions!!

So... The bodymedia fit, formally the Body Bug, is as you can see above, a really nifty little tool. Many of the pictures I include where it shows food, or daily burn stats or something, is from that item/service. Here are some old ones to give you an idea...

ewww I was eating so much then :( though... I'm going to try and eat that much again so... meh :(

this is 1 weeks worth summary. So you can get a lot of different info.

the red line shows a rate of 2 lbs per week. Purple shows what is actually happening. (red line can show .5, 1, 1.5 or 2 lbs per week but nothing more)

Ok... now, another thing I was asked about by one of the forums I frequent is how easy food logging is. Here's a quick youtube video on that. I love it, except that when you create your own foods it doesn't let you put in enough info... and, the way it tracks micro-nutrients could be more informative.

So, that's that. I love it, aside from the micro-nutrient issues I have with it. it's a wonderful investment!

In other news, I put it on the progress page but, it's been 2 months since I started working out this time around. Here's what's going on with my measurements.

• bust: 38 (-1.5 since last time)
  
• waist: 31 (-2.25 since last time)
  
• hips: 42 (-1.75 since last time)
  
• left upper arm: 13 (-0.5 since last time)
  
• right upper arm: 13.5 (-0.375 since last time)
  
• left thigh:  24.75 (-1.125 since last time)
  
• right thigh: 25.75 (-0.625 since last time)
  

TOTAL LOST since first measurement: -19.75
TOTAL lost since last measurment: -8.125


So... I'm still disgusting... still a large... but considering the last measurement was May 14th, I'd say that is pretty decent progress. This has been a very productive month.

Watching TV while lying down = Sleep?!

Ok, I guess this shouldn't come as such a shock but, last night before actually trying to go to sleep I decided to watch an episode of The Biggest Loser because while I had of course heard of the show, I had never seen it and as mentioned in the last "thoughts" post, I recently purchased a BodyMedia Fit which I have been told is used by the participants in the show. I was laying down while watching it, which is something I often did (thought probably won't anymore...) and my Fit thought that I was asleep!

Dark gray = sleep
Light gray = lying down but not asleep
Red Circle = time spent watching the Biggest Loser

 

So, moral of the story... if you are going to watch TV, at least do it sitting up otherwise your metabolism slows down SO much you might as well be sleeping. Better yet, don't watch at all or do so while on a treadmill or something.

New Toy

I work at a retailer that sells lots of gadgets... and decided to get one of them yesterday to help out on this quest. It is the bodymedia fit, which apparently is most well known from the Biggest Loser (never seen it).  Anyway, I'm excited about it. I've been religiously logging and planning meals for nearly a week now (not that long) without one slip up, but with a lot of questions over whether I'm going overboard/doing it right/etc. I think this thing will clear it up a lot for me.

The only thing that I am not looking forward to is logging foods in two places :( I've been using fitday.com up until now, and feel I should continue... because it tracks micro nutrients more precisely, and makes the little graphs I like so much that show not only how much zinc I've gotten, but also what % of the RDV it is. The online tracker, which is an integral part of the fit, is a lot more intuitive, and is way easier to enter in meals (it can duplicate them!), but lacks that one feature which is quite helpful I think... Well, we'll see. First things first is to let it track my sleep. Which is kind of exciting. Will post more on it after a day or two's worth of results :D