Wrapped up my first two weeks of staying on track to get fit and healthy. Weighed in this morning to be down 2.6 pounds, for a total of 9.8 so far.
I know it’s the beginning and just a couple of pounds, but I am not going to undercut any successes. I’m thrilled to say that I stuck within my calorie counts every day this week. Yes- even on Thanksgiving! I planned out my day in advance to plan what I could eat that day. It meant having way smaller meals earlier in the day followed by a big dinner with family, but that’s just fine with me. I did end up making a few small tweaks from the plan, but still in under the calorie cap.
One thing I am noticing already is that my appetite and cravings have gone WAY down even after just two weeks. There have been a few times that I took something to eat (within my limits) and then ended up either not finishing it or not eating it at all because when I actually went to eat it I realized I didn’t really want it. Love that listening to my body is helping to stop eating out of habit instead of for nourishment.
This week has also marked the beginning of moving more. I didn’t go ahead and jump right into a hardcore working program, but rather started fitting in some movement to my normally sedentary day.
How sedentary? I work from my home office for 60+ hours a week. That’s a lot of sitting time. I do take breaks often to do chores around the house, but still the majority of my day is spent in my office chair. So this week I took my under-desk cycle out of retirement and put it back where I can use it. I’ve been pedaling away during work meetings and for short breaks throughout the day.
Here’s the cycle I’m using–the DeskCycle. I did a lot of looking for something like this last year after I hurt my knee and needed something cheap and low impact to replace the cardio I was doing then. It’s really low profile so you can easily pedal while sitting at your desk without hitting your knees. It’s also super quiet. There is a display to keep track of time, distance, speed, etc. if you want. (I actually just clip my Up Move fitness tracker on my foot and track the activity that way.)
Results? I went from an average of about 1500-2000 steps a day while stuck in the house all the way up to 6500-7000 “steps.” That’s a big improvement! Right now I am working it at resistance level 2 and plan on upping that slowly over time. Eventually I’m hoping to get in a full 10K+ “steps” at at least 5-7 resistance every single day…PLUS regular strength training and other formal exercise.
This type of cycle is also great because I can move it wherever. It’s usually been under my desk, but I took it into the family room so I could pedal while I binge-watched “Search Party” this weekend. Felt so much less guilt since I kept moving instead of vegging out on the couch.
Now onto the plan for next week…
Things are going to be a little different. I am heading from chilly Chicago to sunny Orlando on Saturday for 10 days of Disney Holiday Magic, so my routine will be going kaput. We will be eating a all WDW restaurants and snack booths since we have the Disney Dining Plan covering all our meals. Disney doesn’t offer nutritional information on their food, so I am going to have to do some guesswork. Thankfully as a serial dieter I can usually get pretty close to what things weigh in at. The plan isn’t to strictly track while I am there, but rather to just eat mindfully, enjoy small tastes rather than huge binges, and only splurge on occasion. Movement won’t be a problem since we’ll be walking, walking, walking!
I’ll be missing my weigh-in next Tuesday, so instead I’ll do it the week after for 2 weeks combined.
The official plan for Disney is easy: Lose weight.
Basically as long as I go on vacation and come back weighing less than when I left, I’ll consider it a success–whether it’s a single pound or five pounds.
(hoping to squeeze in a blog post or two while I am away as well, but I know it’ll be tricky.)
Be back with an update in 2 weeks on 12/13!