Fall For Fitness

My company is launching a fitness challenge - Fall For Fitness. Over the next 12 weeks employees across the states will join teams and compete for most weight lost, most steps walked and most exercise minutes.

I created a team, the Lake Center Loser Corps, to get people from my building to encourage each other and compete against all the other teams in this challenge. The website we're using will have a calorie tracker and allow us to enter our daily activity. Every 2 weeks is a round; round 1 starts on Monday, September 13th and ends Sunday, September 26th.

My goal for this challenge is to walk more (yay free pedometer from the company!), exercise every night after my daughter goes to bed (well, except Sunday night cuz that's just insane after Bible study ends at 10:00 PM), and lose 1-2 pounds per week. If I keep it up (which I should, since I'm the team leader), I should lose 12 pounds (if I lose 1 lb/week) to 24 pounds (2 lbs/week), giving me the chance to lose up to almost 50% of the amount I need to lose to be at my recommended weight.

So my real goals are to lose 2-4 pounds, exercise 360 minutes and walk 70,000 steps per round. That sounds sooo big! But breaking it down by day, that's 1/4 lb, 30 minutes of exercise (taking out Sundays) and 5000 steps.

My average # of steps this week has been around 5500 - 6000, so that shouldn't be too hard to do. 30 minutes of exercise hasn't happened every day, but I'll do my best to either force myself to do it each night or add extra time on some days to make up for the days I can't. If I do this, plus watch what I eat, which I've been doing (cereal with non-fat milk each morning, Eating Right lunches and mostly-healthy dinners at home), then I should have no problem losing .25 pounds a day. Thank goodness for my Wii, with the Wii Fit Plus, Dance Dance Revolution, and Sports Resort software to keep me from getting too bored with my workout routine. Plus, I use the Wii Fit Plus software to weigh myself each day, so tracking that will be a breeze, and motivation to step up my game if I stop losing weight or gain.

So, here goes. I look forward to updating here with my progress; I probably won't do it daily, but update weekly and include my team's progress and standing in the competition each round.

Day 6 - September 2, 2009

I'm going to have a rooftop dance party!

Well, not really. But I am going to dance today. Not on a roof, but on the top level of our parking structure which is always empty. When I lived in Oceanside, I used to go line dancing at a club on the Marine Corps base Camp Pendleton every Tuesday and Thursday. Every time I found a new song I could dance to, I would buy the track. I eventually put together an album, and I just remembered that I still have that album on my iPhone. Hooray!

So today instead of walking on my breaks, I'm going to dance. I'm not worried about looking like a fool; I love to dance and I'll probably get so wrapped up in it that I wouldn't notice if anyone was looking.

9:00 AM "Kirkland Signature" weight loss shake for breakfast

1:00 PM Small salad of Romaine lettuce and bleu cheese dressing on the side

7:15 PM Slice of Tropical Torte with Fresh Pineapple (under 350 calories)

8:30 PM One piece of garlic pull-apart bread

9:30 PM "Kirkland Signature" weight loss shake

11:00 PM Slice of Tropical Torte with Fresh Pineapple

In General: 80 oz of water

Wow, I miss dancing! I can't remember the last time I went to the DD at Camp Pendleton; I'm rusty! I went to a club in Fullerton once (can't remember the name) and it was packed. I'll have to try it again so I can remember the dance moves. The shoes I've got at the office for walking aren't the best for dancing, but then neither is the parking structure concrete. But I got a good 15 minutes in during my first break. Sweating like crazy, though, because of this wonderful weather, plus I'm wearing black pants today. I'll have to make sure I keep hydrated.

I might be able to sneak in a different workout today; I'm supposed to organize the storeroom that my department uses for plan materials. Lots of boxes and bending and lifting. Will probably work up another sweat and get to claim it all as weight lifting. :)

I did not get to dance or walk during my lunch. I spent part of it eating, and the rest of it venting and crying to a friend about my boss and job. If my boss stays in the office for the rest of the day, I won't feel comfortable leaving my cubicle, let alone the building, to take my break; she's watching my every move, trying to find a mistake. Right now all I can think about is going out and buying a pack of cigarettes; stress is definitely a trigger for my urge to smoke. And there's nothing more stressful than my boss. I've got to find a way to suppress the anger I feel every time my boss is here or sends me an e-mail or calls me on the phone or talks behind my back at a meeting I can't attend because she holds it after my normal working hours and she won't approve overtime.

I did get to walk during my second break, but only for 10 minutes since I didn't want to send my boss over the edge. I used my iMapMyRide but it somehow stopped recording near the beginning of my walk, so only 30 seconds of data was collected; I discarded it.

Today was a weird day for dinner; I had a party at my house for my second job (think demonstration involving kitchen products). I always forget to eat right before people arrive, so I end up eating a little bit of what I cook, then have something healthy-ish later on. The end of today concludes my second day of not smoking. I am still using my ecigarette and nicotine gum when needed, but I still feel the urge to smoke when stressed. I can't wait for that feeling to go away.