A friend of mine periodically posts entries from her grandmother's journal on Facebook, and they sound like that. 'Did the work, went for a ride...' I always wonder what work she is talking about--housework? or something else? It's a mystery.
Anyway, it just isn't as much of an adventure, living in a big city. Unless you count the times when our psychotic GPS has a meltdown and tries to run us around in circles for no apparent reason. I tell Budd it's because he made her (we call it Bigmouth, and it's a she) have a nervous breakdown by refusing to follow her directions. But it's more likely to be some kind of glitch in the communication with the satellite. One time, driving back from Phoenix to Ajo, she told me to turn left right in the middle of a long stretch of highway with no crossroads in sight.
Back to the reasons for my neglect... I've been spending a lot of time at SparkPeople.com. I mean a LOT of time. Social media is wonderful for keeping up with friends and family every day online, but it can become very addictive. I've always had trouble tearing myself away from the fascination of exchanging ideas with people I would never meet in the course of my normal life, and with the normal life more or less on hold it's even more of a problem. Only in the sense, though, that while I'm playing on the computer, I'm not moving. Not such a good weight-loss plan.
I got a new toy yesterday to help with the weight loss, though. It's called a BodyBugg. I had forgotten I wanted one of these, but seeing something on SP about one, it all came back to me. It's a device that is worn on the upper arm to track the calories you burn, using a sophisticated four-part measurement system and algorithms to calculate it. Clinical trials show it to be more than 90% accurate, and it gets better as it gathers more data. Simple physics tells us that weight loss is a matter of calories in vs. calories out, and that it takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound. That's why these ads that claim you can lose a pound a day or more are just silly. Only someone who would require more than 3500 calories a day to maintain their weight and could manage to somehow cut out that many could lose a pound a day.
I first saw the BB when a friend of the family came over after my not having seen her for quite a few months--maybe almost a year. She was almost literally half the size I had known her to be from the time we met! I couldn't stop being amazed at the transformation, and of course I asked her what she had been doing. It turned out that she had been creating that calorie deficit with a combination of eating smaller portions and just moving more. Not even necessarily exercise--one thing she did was sit on her stability ball to watch tv, and if she needed to burn a few extra calories, she just bounced on it instead of sitting relatively still. I say relatively because sitting on a stabilty ball requires constant micro-adjustments in the muscles to stay balanced, so even just sitting still on one burns more calories than sitting in a chair. She showed me her BodyBugg, and I looked it up, but it was beyond my means at the time so I tucked it away in my brain for later and lost the note, lol.
Back to this past week, when I saw the post and remembered that I wanted one, I decided to look online for a used one, and was able to find one at a reasonable price. I was a little disappointed to learn that I'd have to subscribe to a paid website to use it, but I've decided my health is worth the price. So my piggy bank is now broken, but I'm excited to see exactly what my calorie deficit is per day, or if there even is one. I have to assume there is because I've lost two pounds in the last five days, which is well above my goal. The coolest thing is that I haven't been hungry. Actually, I'm hungry right now, but I have a scheduled snack coming up. Watermelon, yum! I may add a bit of cheese, too, as I have some unspent fat calories to spare. Will have to see how far over the carb limit that puts me. I've taken to balancing all that on a weekly basis, since sometimes I am under and sometimes over on certain of the macronutrients (fancy new word that I saw on SP today and think means carbs, fats and proteins).
Since my ultimate goal to lose is over 60 pounds, I have some interim ones, including being able to get back into my winter clothes this year. Since right after Easter, when I was at my heaviest, I've lost 8 pounds, most of them in the last month. I should be on track for getting into this winter's clothes, and maybe those from the winter before last that I couldn't wear last year. By next winter, though, I'll need a new wardrobe, as I'll be smaller than I've been in 25 years--since shortly after the girls were born. And I owe it all to Kathy Dempsey, who told me about SparkPeople.
We're on the home stretch for the Lakewood assignment. Budd intended to talk to his boss today about taking Friday as a travel day, so we will have time to get to Salt Lake and pick up some things we want from the utility trailer for Canyon de Chelly and then get back there for his one-month assignment. I made a happy discovery that, since he can install the DSL modem, we won't have to pay another large installation fee to get our DSL back. That means I can go back to tutor.com just in time for the start of school rush, as well as stay on track with my weight loss. I've already used the Google Maps mileage calculator to lay out my daily walk around the campground, but hope to get into the canyon itself for a hike to White House this time. Never thought I'd be this excited to go back and live in that little duplex, but after a month in less than 350 square feet, it will seem big! And we're excited to see friends we made there.
We'll be on the road this upcoming weekend, so won't post until after we are there and settled in. Bye 'til then.
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