Food Choices - Old Favorites and New Habits

Source: http://www.afeastfortheeyes.net/

The other day I was mall-walking and the aroma from the Cinnabon was so overwhelming. It took me back to my childhood and a rich sugary-cinnamon breakfast treat. I recall some childhood foods which I would never dream of eating today nor ever serving to my kids.  One of these was a summertime treat from my Grandmother. She would place a generous portion of rich vanilla ice cream onto Rice Crispies for our breakfast! The other was a treat breakfast my  mother would prepare which centered around brown sugar/butter broiled onto white toast. A fast homemade Cinnabon! This would be 1/4" thick sugary sweetness. You can find the recipe here. My mom must not have been alone in preparing this rich treat - plus she always put a few eggs on the side, for balance :)

Week 7 ... Hold Please

I often say that maintaining my weight week over week is good but going down a few pounds is better. This past Friday when I weighed-in I was hoping to just stay the same from the prior week - and my wish was granted. 

I was simultaneously happy and unhappy. 

My Balancing Act - 2015

This week I had to make adjustments to my work/life/workout balance. I worked out just over an hour a day. That is the second lowest weekly performance so far this year - second only to the first week of the year.  My food intake was on plan - although I did have some high days and other very low days. Two days I felt ill and only ate ate less than 800 cals/day and worked out very little

Working it at the office...

When asked what the hardest part is regarding my new leaf and focus on getting fit - my answer is almost always "getting up early to workout."  I know that I'm not the type of person who will be happy at the gym at 9 PM - hey, I want to be asleep by then! However, I can get myself up at 4:30 or 5:30 AM on a regular basis and workout for a few hours before the day begins.  I really enjoy taking walks outside in the early morning. There is little traffic, I can usually see some wildlife, and the sunrises are a treat. 

OK so here are a few of my tips for making a morning workout work - and also for getting a good workout in during the day while in the office!


Morning Workout Routine
1) Plan the night before what my workout will be - treadmill, walking outside...
2) Lay out both my workout clothes as well as my daytime/work clothes

Week 6 Summary - WOW

There is no logic behind the success I had this week. I ate more, worked out less, and lost more.  Maybe the scale calibration was off - but for now WHOO HOO!

TOFU Galore!

Here's my summary for this week. I stuck to my meal and exercise plan. The new food for the year appears to be Tofu. I continued to mix it into my breakfast, it also makes an easy snack with salsa. I'm also adding it cubed onto my salads. I guess we are now eating TONS of tofu as we had more than 6 containers in the refrigerator at one time. Now that is a major change! So I continued to do a great job of hitting my protein percentage. One day I had birthday cake - and on that day the calorie intake was high - 1634 cals, but for the week I'm right on target!

Functional Fitness - Working Body

The other day I had a discussion with a friend who wanted to know what I was lifting and how many reps I was up to. Typical guy :)  I described that in my time with My Trainer we focus on functional fitness to enhance my ability to do everything I need to do in my daily life. Our workout routines are placing emphasis on balance, working several muscle groups in combination, and requiring activation of smaller stabilizer muscles  (at risk of atrophy in my body :)  )

Top 10 Functional Fitness at SheKnows

There is a good list of these types of exercises in the link below the photo to the right. I'm doing many exercises that combine upper- and lower-body movements, or require lifting and twisting. These moves activate core stabilizer muscles plus back and arm muscles. Over and over and over. Sometimes we do 50 of each move - three times. Right now my goal isn't just to gain strength, but also to improve flexibility, range of motion, joint alignment and balance. This helps my ability to function more smoothly and easily in my daily life! 

Blisters into Week 5...

My success depends on many things, most importantly, my feet. Bet you thought I was going to say something else :) A big part of my program is cardio workouts - which for me is treadmill. The past week I developed a few blisters which put a spotlight on just how important my feet are to my plan. 

So I've developed a three part program to care for me feet and hopefully prevent blisters. 

Specialty Socks

1) Foot Maintenance - that means pedicures, moisturizing, and removing calluses and rough skin. It's the rough skin that develops blisters under them. At night I coat my feet in lotion and wear socks. This really helps. 

2) Best socks - I invested in Feetures(r) socks. I'm also considering a pair of Injijis (toe socks)

3) Good Shoes - not sure that I have a really good fit on my shoes. However, I make up for that with volume and assortment, aka six pairs. I try to never wear the same pair of shoes two days in a row.  Sadly, my favorite aesthetically also seems to be the bad actor in the bunch with respect to blisters. 

Ok so beyond blisters, how did I do this week..