Health and Fitness, November, 2008

[Harriet]

Welcome. This is a thread about gaining and maintaining strength for our wonderful calling, homemaking. As we care for our own health, we grow more capable and competent to care for our families, our neighbors and our communities. As we grow more effective, our hopes for ourselves and those we care about get the best chance!

Oops - mistakenly deleted a great paragraph here about doing something positive with the month of November. Sorry!

BBL with my Healthy Habits! Gotta trick or treat right now!

[Harriet]

The change I can "put my finger on"? - getting back the stamina and strength I had when I felt my best.

The habit? - 30 minute workouts every other day (15 times) through November. (3-minute back stretch other days.)

Lately, coming back from some enforced inactivity I've been able to do 20 minutes at a time and check off one 15-minute square on my index-card chart. I've done that 6 times in the last 8 days, Woo Hoo! This November schedule will let me check off both squares every other day. Eventually (maybe by first of year), I might try for my old 45 minute, 3 times per week schedule. When I was doing that, I felt really well and strong.
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Skipable repeat of what my chart is like:

My own Healthy Habits chart is a 4x5 index card magnet-ed to the front of my fridge, either the grid kind or the regular ruled kind on which I make vertical lines. Each card can represent half a month. On the back I can write pertinent facts, like obstacles, weight if I am tracking it, etc. I save these forever (so far!) by rubber-banding them by year.

Date

Water 1
2
3
4
5
Vitamins
Exercise 1
2
Fts. Veggies1
2
3
4
5
Mostly God-made ?


Each water square equals 1 pint and I do count skim milk. Each exercise square equals 15 minutes. All I'm asking myself with the last question is whether I feel most of the foods I had that day were God-made - not asking for perfection. If I reach all 14 checks in one day, that's a happy dance - doesn't happen every time at all!

[trish]

I have gotten back into weight lifting the past few weeks, with more consistancy. I can tell a good difference. I continue to do well with the cardio and pretty well with watching what I eat. I too try for mostly God made. Weight is still up a bit- 152.5 although some may be muscle build up?

[Twins' Mom]

I'm committing to losing another 10 pounds by the end of the year. DH and I are going on one of his company incentive trips in early January and we tacked a few days onto the beginning of the trip to be in Cancun for almost a week.

Once tax season starts, I need to maintain and continue to workout but I know I won't be able to focus on losing weight consistently.

This week has gone pretty well. I'm feeling a renewed commitment to counting my points and eating right.

[Harriet]

trish it's always so good to see you - great report. So glad you are back to everything you like. Yep, weigh after your body has gotten used to the recent weight lifting and you'll probably see a drop. Muscle is positive.

Pulling for you in your goal, Twins Mom. The trip will be such a capper for you - a great year. And you'll have plenty of stamina to enjoy some sight-seeing, etc.

It relieves me so much to look back over the weekend (with so much housework then houseguests, and previous stress having nothing to do with house or guests but still weighing on my mind) and see that I did okay. I stayed reasonably close to my healthy habits card and made a point to be good to my back. I exercised Thursday and then tonight (Sunday), so that was only skipping one every-other-day day, which I can make up. Stamina is not perfect, but getting better.

[trish]

Twins,
How are plans working for weight loss? Keep it up and you will reach your goal. Sometimes our body will hit a plateau but I have noticed then the inches go down.
Harriet, WTG with sticking to your plan even with weekend company thrown in the mix.

[LurkyLou]

You guys are doing so well! I have been so sedentary lately it's really bugging me. I've become aware that since we've moved, we have all gotten out of the habit of being actively busy. So I'm going to try flylady's personal trainer guy for exercise and I'm copying your healthy habits card Harriet--thanks for sharing that! Even my water consumption is pretty nil lately . There are 7 weeks left in this year, so I would like to see at least 10 pounds off by New Years....

[Harriet]

Push-ups

Lurkylou, 2.

But, here's my question - how do I know I'm going down far enough? I need someone here with me to tell me I'm slacking on them, probably. Sargent Carter might or .

Then, after 7 girl push-ups, my shoulder objected, so I quit. Maybe I could do more if I was fresh before other exercise.

trish is our longest term weight-trainer, I believe. She can probably do a bunch. I don't do weights but do hope for strength in my arms, of course, so push-ups are interesting.

Also my carpet smells like a cat!!!! (Gee, thanks, LurkyLou, I could have gone all day without knowing that! )

Sure, no problem on the habits, someone else had asked a few weeks ago so I posted them.

Great good luck of your goal.

[LurkyLou]

Harriet, dh (his dad was a Marine) said you go down till your elbows are at a right angle. And I found a blue tinged thread mixed into my oatmeal colored carpet! I think I'll keep the colored carpet and you can have the cat carpet!
Congrats on the 2 though--I'll be very pleased when I can do 2....

[Twins' Mom]

On the push up subject - my trainer has me do push ups regularly as part of the upper body workout. I still do the "knee" push ups but can do 12 - 15 if I haven't already done another set of exercises that work those muscles. After doing a push ups, he has us switch to something else - usually an upright "row" that works the opposite muscles, then back to push ups, doing three rounds of the two exercises before moving on. Each three repetitions of the two exercises take about 10 minutes. I can sometimes do my 12 - 15 three times (again, these are knee push ups and it depends on what else I've done first.) Harriet, I had a period with some shoulder aches but I seem to have gotten past it.

trish, thanks for asking about my weight. I went down slightly last week - this has been a very rough week for eating habits so we'll see tomorrow where I come out. Yesterday - probably because of excess salt the day before) I was up by 4 pounds over last Friday.

Good news to report: New jeans, size 14 purchased yesterday are too big! (I was a tight size 16 starting out last summer.) The jeans I have on right now are size 14 but are cut in at the waist and are tight there but comfortable in the hips and bottom.