Saturday, September 19, 2009

Getting started

Ok,

Well we are all weighed in and some of us had a nice mini work out. It was super great of Adapt fitness to welcome us and give us all of that great material. The math of it really is more calories burned than more taken in. Not to sound like a broken record, but use either the sheets Steph printed out for us, www.sparkpeople.com or www.livestrong.com to track what you are eating and see where adjustments need to be made.
My personal philosophy is that it is hard to follow a reduced calorie diet forever so it might be helpful to cut back on some calories, but for a long term weight loss and management plan find out where a good baseline of calories is and just work out more. I would rather do some extra sit ups and stair climbs to get in 2000 calories and be happy than cut back 500 calories in food and be grumpy.
I will try to give tips every other day and info from the sites I am on. Please feel free to post your opinion and or give other advise on top of mine. :)

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

1st meeting

Hi all,

It is suddenly more official, the first weigh in is just over a week away! The date is September 16th. We will be meeting at 5:45-6pm at Adapt. The address is 9923 SW Artic Drive Beaverton OR 97005. Looks like we will be doing a weigh in with pictures and a work out. Sounds like it will be an evening of great information and a fun work out together.
Look forward to seeing you there.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Interesting to notice

How many of you have signed up for Spark People yet? And of those of you that signed up, how many have started using it? I noticed that just by tracking how much I eat, not purposely making changes, that I have dropped my overall daily calorie intake around 1000 calories a day! I had no idea I was eating that much. Now I am in a healthier level and will be ready to reduce the calories a little more come contest time. It's good to hold yourself accountable and see the trends.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Spark People user name

Hi all,

If you want to sign up for spark people, will you give me props as the referring person? My user name is Harpie19. Thanks.

Body Fat Testing

Hi all,

I know not everyone is checking out this blog but it is the best place to post info.
If we want to be super on top of getting this contest and numbers worked out we can get hydrostatic body fat testing done. It is done in a water tank and gives you a break down of your weight and then what % is fat and muscle etc. We don't have to be that specific, but I did call a local hospital and they will do a group discount if we are interested. The discount price is 40 dollars at the start of the contest and 35 at the end. I don't want to make this expensive, but those who are interested for their own knowledge, just respond to this post and I will start setting up some times for us or a way for them to know our group and what to charge. :)
You need to bring a bathing suit and a towel to the hospital for that.

More about Spark People

Morning,

I just wanted to let you all know on www.sparkpeople.com you can get points for tracking your nutrition and fitness and goals on their site. You even get points for reading articles and taking polls. You can then cash in these points for prizes. Sounds like fun to me. It is a fee site so there are a bunch of ad sponsors. If you can overlook those, then it is a very user friendly site to use. I am already seeing a pattern of me eating well all the way until dinner time and then I overconsume. I personally have also used the site to track my measurements and come up with mini rewards for following a plan.
For those who have joined this contest but just want to bulk up, there are fitness tracking goals under the myfitness section. I am really liking the site and all the things it offers. Please post to the blog when you have signed up so we can find each other there as well. :)

Monday, August 24, 2009

Great tracking website

Hi all,

I found a great website for tracking your nutrition and calories. http://www.sparkpeople.com/
This is a very user friendly website. I played around with it this weekend. Terri Jo has also used it and recommends it.
I have never used a more easy food tracker to enter my food and calories. It is just hard to be honest about the actual portions I eat. :) It will total the calories, protein and fats for you so you can scroll to the bottom of the page and see what you have left for the day.
Entering the workout stuff is easy. I cannot find anything for Dragon Boating but I would use Kayaking for regular practices and maybe vigorous rowing for our race weekends.
Interesting point I found for me is that our race weekends we normaly burn around 300 calories with our races and warm up before hand yet, for me I eat around 3000 calories. Not great for the fitness goals. I will post this link as one of the main websites to visit on the right hand side of this site if you aren't checking things out right now. Get all your information in order now though. Start tracking your diet to see where you are at and what will have to change by the time we start our contest. :)