My Obsession with my Bathroom Scale.

Yesterday I bought a new digital scale. I was holding out until I found my old one which has been packed away somewhere in my disaster of a garage since November of 2011, but finally realized that's not going to happen anytime soon. I'm really excited about my new purchase because I can obsessively compulsively weigh myself several times a day and drive myself crazy!

This scale is fantastic. According to it, I lost 3 pounds overnight! But when I weighed myself about 5 minutes later, I had gained a pound so my net loss is only 2. I'll take it! Had I known that getting this scale would help me lose 2 pounds a day, I would have bought it a long time ago. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

I know they say you should only weigh yourself once a week, but who has that kind of willpower? I want to weigh myself before and after I eat dinner, before and after I pee....you get the picture. If I only wanted to weigh myself once a week, I'd do it at the ghetto gym and I could have saved myself $20. I almost splurged on the $25 one which remembers how much you weighed last time and calculates the difference, but then realized that I am still capable of doing first grade math on my own and I could save $5.

I think my new scale and I will be very happy together.

Burn Calories By Sitting On a Chair? I'll Take It!

Or at least that's what it sounded like. The ghetto gym I just joined advertised Zumba Sentao on Wednesday evenings. When I asked what that meant, I was told it's Zumba using a chair. Well hey, I was all over that! I have something to sit and lean on (translation:exercise without putting in too much effort). I decided to give it a try last night.

The chair ended up being my worst enemy. We did push ups using it, jumped up and down on it, squatted with it, crunches on it, and I don't even remember what else. By the end of the class my thighs were cramping and my arms were trembling! This morning when I woke up I have pain in muscles I never thought existed. I guess that means it worked, so that's a good thing.

Luckily this chair Zumba is only once a week so I have a chance to recover before my next hellish session. Regular Zumba is tonight and I think I might actually go. I've done regular Zumba enough to know where I can slack off and get away with it. Much more my speed....

Want to check it out for yourself? This is what it's all about!

http://www.zumba.com/sentao

Vintage Weight Lifting.

Hey Folks....I'm still at it! My New Year's Resolution is still usually the first thing on my mind and I'm trying to make smart choices. I've been going on walks around the block where I work at lunchtime, which has been great lately because the weather is amazing. The surrounding area is industrial and therefore isn't the greatest scenery for sightseeing and sometimes even gets a little creepy, especially when I have to walk back on the main road. I really hate that part. So today I decided to take a different route, which was actually longer than my usual one. Not only does that mean I don't have to deal with the creepy part, but I also burn more calories!

I also stayed up late last night and hard boiled some eggs to make egg salad to bring for lunch. Instead of drowning it in mayo, I only used a little squirt and supplemented the rest with extra mustard and dill pickle relish. And instead of eating it on bread, I used it as a dip for water crackers. It was zesty and tasty and low calorie and somewhat lower fat and full of protein. I had some Greek yogurt and an apple for dessert and I'm stuffed. AND I still have more than 1000 calories to play around with for the day.

I'm planning on taking my mid-afternoon break and heading over to the fitness center to pump some iron. We'll see how that goes.

Chicken Flavored Popcorn?

OK so it has been a few days since I posted about the plethora of healthy things I have been doing for myself. That's because I really haven't been doing any. This past weekend I had a three day weekend for my birthday, and the time was filled with wine tasting, skinny iced tea drinking, and eating stuff like chocolate, peanut butter and pretzel pie, clam chowder in a bread bowl, and even a burger from In and Out. But calories don't count on weekends and especially on your birthday, right? Plus I have already decided that wine is a health food and I did choose the 'skinny' iced tea over the fattening long island kind. So I didn't completely fall off the wagon.

I started to get back on track yesterday but didn't do anything mind blowing. I came in under my calorie count and managed to do about 3/4 of my stretching video. You can see why I didn't bother posting about it.

Today, though, I have to brag about the great decisions that I have made so far. First of all, we have an all day meeting at work and I go to the meeting room to find mini chocolate bars spread all over the table I had to sit at first thing in the morning. Now, that's just mean. I barely am even awake and I have Twix, Snickers, Kit Kats and Hershey bars staring me in the face. They are all wrapped in beautiful Valentine's Day wrappers which makes them look even more appealing. I feel powerless against their pull. I did eat one mini Twix, but before I downed everything else on the table, I got up and went over to the area where there was a bit of real food. I had a strawberry, half a banana and a handful of raw almonds.

Then, lunch time rolled around. I was offered a meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken for free! My god did it smell good. Free delicious food? Come on... I am so being tested today. But I actually said no. I walked away and came back down to my office with nothing but a memory of how amazing it would have tasted had I chosen to eat it. So now I sit here starving and craving KFC.  Guess I'll go make some popcorn or something. Hope it tastes like chicken!

My Arms Feel Like Wet Noodles.

There just so happens to be a fitness center at my place of employment. I asked for the combination to get into it a few weeks ago and finally dragged myself in to it the other day with the intent to give myself a great workout. Sadly, I got confused and left right away...

I'm not going to pretend that I know my way around a gym, but I'm not completely clueless, either. I've been to the gym many times in the past, but I usually make a beeline to the elliptical machine and maybe try out a weight machine or two. But the equipment in our fitness center is nothing like I have ever seen before. In the middle is a large universal machine that is from 1972. There's a treadmill and a bunch of dumbells...a bench or two...but it's no LA Fitness. That's okay, though. I'm not complaining. The fact that there is this facility about 20 paces away from my desk and it's free to use is fantastic. I just needed someone who has been in there before to show me the ropes.

Today was the day! I went in there with two of my co-workers who go every morning at 10 am and spend 15 minutes a day pumping iron. I can do 15 minutes! That's nothing! Fifteen minutes a day is 75 minutes a week. That's a whole lot better than the 0 minutes a week I usually spend lifting weights. Today I focused on arms and shoulders, and tomorrow I'll switch it up and do legs. I'll be buff in no time!

I am very excited about this. I don't have to spend money on a gym membership that I'll never use because it takes too much effort to get in the car and go to it. I don't have to find an hour or more in the day to spend working out. If I combine this with my lunchtime walk, I'll actually get some decent exercise every day. And that's with barely even trying. This is my kind of regimen.

Today I did about 6 different exercises for my back, shoulders and arms. They now feel like wet noodles. Stay tuned to hear me whine about how much my muscles are aching tomorrow!