WebMD Fitness Rx Challenge: Polly

2 small successes!

2006-11-20T09:48:00.000-05:00

I have had two small successes since the last time that I wrote! YEAH!

The first is that I have been doing a good job cooking new recipes. I have discovered Zucchini and Green Pea Fritattas, as well as lowfat Lasagna. I also found a good stirfry recipe that has squash, zuchinni, and capers over Orzo pasta. (Does anybody know what a caper actually is?) It's been fun to go shopping for new types of food. It's alot like going on a scavenger hunt!

My second success is that I have been able to pull my belt in one hole! I am really excited! I guess that means that I'm losing a little bit around the waist!

I haven't had as much success with cutting out the soda as I would like. I'm going to focus more on that. I'm also getting a little bit nervous with the holidays coming up. There's always so much great food! I plan to take it one day at a time, and have small portions of food and one or two small treats rather than denying myself any. I think that it will work!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Related Topics: 10 Tips for Healthy Grocery Shopping, How to Keep Holidays Healthy and Happy

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Thank You!

2006-10-27T16:21:00.000-04:00

Wow! Thank you for all of the supportive comments! After I read them, I felt so much better! I know that I'm not alone in this battle for better health, but sometimes it does feel like it!

I've tried two new strategies this week. First of all, I've worked on cutting back on the Diet Cola and Diet Root Beer. They are so addictive for me. I've decided to try to substitute 1/2 of the soda that I normally drink with a glass of water instead. That way the soda isn't completely gone, but there's less of it.

The second thing that I tried this week was to cook two new recipes. A long time ago, my mom gave me a cookbook called "Lite and Easy". The recipes are supposed to take 20-30 minutes total, but with my lack of cooking skill, it's more like an hour. But the main thing is that they are actually pretty tasty, and they make enough leftovers that we can have them for two nights. I hope that if I only try one or two new recipes a week, I won't completely overwhelm myself.

I like the idea of writing a log of everything I eat, because then I'll have to own up to the little things that I've been cheating on. For instance the "fun size" Milky Way bars that are out for Halloween. I guess that they do add up over time. I'm also going to work on doing more walking in the evening!

I'll let you know how it's going. Thanks again for the support!

Related Topics: Help for Soda Lovers, Recipe Makeovers: 10 Commandments of Healthy Cooking

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More Frustration

2006-10-21T19:06:00.000-04:00

Okay, I have no excuses for being absent. I'm just really frustrated, and pretty much feel like a flop with this whole challenge. The longer I go, the worse I feel. I've been eating so much better, but haven't lost more than a pound or two. Which of course makes me more frustrated, because I feel like I'm letting you guys down (as well as me).

Finding time to exercise is awful. By the time I get home from work and spend time with my son and husband, I have house work, and school work to do. As a result, health goes by the wayside. Ideas?

Related Topics: Losing Weight is Easier with Support, Expand Your Definition of Exercise

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Back to work!

2006-09-15T17:27:00.000-04:00

I've been so busy! School started again last week, and I have been running around trying to keep up with my new schedule, my new batch of first graders, and everything at home! The amazing thing is that since school started again, I've lost 3 pounds! I think it's because I don't have any time to sit down and snack. Or it could be from chasing my students all over the place!

I feel really good about the 3 pounds because I had hit a plateau for a long time and felt awful about it. Fitness and weight loss are a real frustration for me. Now that I'm back to work, I'm eating healthy salads for lunch, and I am much more conscious of how I use my free time for exercise since I have less of it. This includes time on the weekends.

This past weekend, Alex, Davy, and I took our dog to the county dog park. While we were there, we discovered that there are a ton of great trails for walking and biking. The nice thing is that they are up and down, but they are paved so that I can push the stroller. We went on an exploratory hike, which actually wore all of us out. But we are excited to start going every weekend. It will be especially nice now that the weather is getting cooler, and the leaves will start to change color!

A friend of ours is trying to get us interested in doing some 5K races with her. I think that doing one could be a good goal to aim for in a month or two. I don't think that I'll be running one any time soon, but I can definitely walk and push Davy in the stroller.

So right now, I feel upbeat about fitness and diet. Maybe I can lose 3 more pounds this week!

Related Topics: 5 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance, Getting into the Race

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I can do this!

2006-08-23T10:23:00.000-04:00

I've decided to start over again. Up until now I've been cutting back on snacks and portions, but it hasn't been enough. I need to be better about exercising, and I need to eat better food, not just smaller portions. I am not going to let this beat me. I am determined to lose some weight. I have enlisted the help of my husband Alex, who has also decided that he needs to lose some weight, too. I think that his participation and support will help motivate me toward my personal goals. I'll check back in a few days.

Frustration!

2006-08-09T10:41:00.000-04:00

I'm frustrated. I've been eating in moderation, I haven't been snacking, and I've been eating better food. But I'm not seeing or feeling any results. I know that weight loss takes time, but I've lost one pound. I want to get rid of these big clothes and start wearing my nice clothes that used to fit. Last night I was so annoyed that I ended up eating half a pint of Ben & Jerry's "Phish Food" frozen yogurt right from the container. Luckily it wasn't the ice cream...

Where did I put that fitness ball?

2006-08-02T16:19:00.000-04:00

We just came home from our vacation in Washington State, and though I didn't make any progress, I didn't lose any ground either.

We spent much of our time in Spokane walking around visiting local sites, like the River Walk. It was fairly flat, but when we had a choice of paths, we took the hilly route. I also added to my workout by being the designated stroller pusher throughout the trip. Later in the week we visited Mount Saint Helen Park and Mount Rainier National Park. It was pretty hot, but we did some walking in at each park. I had planned to utilize the fitness rooms and pools at the hotels that we were staying at, but I never got around to that.

When we were at the airports, we were lucky enough to have time between flights. So instead of riding the moving walkways, I convinced my husband to powerwalk through the terminals with me. It felt really good to walk quickly and get some blood flowing while we were between flights.

I think that I did well with what I ate while I was on vacation. My meals were pretty well balanced, and I ate in moderation. I did a good job of remembering not to snack between meals, too. This was tough because there were lots of places to pick up a quick bite to eat, and since it was so hot, ice cream was really tempting.

Oh, before I forget, I met with Kate, the trainer, the day before I left for vacation. I told her about my history with joining the gym, and not enjoying it. Kate was really supportive about that, and she gave me some great ideas of simple things that I can do at home. One thing that she suggested was that I dig my fitness ball out of the pile of stuff in the basement. She showed me how to do a variety of exercises that range from stretching to strengthening my core muscles. Kate also taught me how to do squats by propping the ball between my back and the wall, and then carefully rolling down the wall. Boy, was that painful!

I discovered two other great uses for the fitness ball, too. The first is that my little boy, Davy, loves to sit on my lap while I bounce around the living room! The higher I bounce, the better! The second is that it keeps our highly energetic, two year-old black lab, Lucky, entertained for hours. He spent most of the night barking at the ball and chasing it all over the house. Then he slept for the rest of the night. It's fun for the whole family!

Related Topics: 10 Fitness Time-Wasters, WebMD Video: Have a Ball Building Muscles

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1 Week, 1 Pound

2006-07-17T10:35:00.000-04:00

Well, I made it through my first week, and I lost 1 pound.

When I went shopping last Monday, I bought lots of salad supplies and I bypassed the cookie and ice cream aisles completely!! One thing that Kathleen, the nutritionist, told me is that it's actually not that hard to prepare meals that are healthy because you can buy so many things that are already partially prepared. One of the meals that I made was salad out of a bag, a rotisserie chicken, and some lowfat ranch dressing. I cut up the chicken, put it in the salad, and added a little bit of Feta cheese.

At the end of the week I visited my grad-school roommate and attended a teaching workshop. While I stayed with my roommate we went out to eat two nights in a row, and I had a salad. Okay, I admit that I also had some really yummy Fettuccini Alfredo, and white wine one night, and another pasta dish and white wine the second night. Way too many carbs! But I didn't have any dessert!!!

During the day we went to the workshops. The danger with workshops is that there are usually pastries and cookies to munch on all day, and you don't do any exercise. I had a bagel and coffee both mornings. But when I went back for more coffee, I practically ran away from the danishes that were sitting on the table because they looked so tempting!

My big no-no this week was the eating the McFlurry from McDonald's on my drive home from the workshop. But it tasted so good!

This next week and a half will be really challenging because I'm going on a vacation. Vacations always seem to lend themselves to unhealthy eating. I'll keep you posted!

Related Topics: Kathleen Zelman's 8 Favorite Diet Books, Take Your Diet on the Road

Here I go!

2006-07-10T13:20:00.000-04:00

During the past several weeks, I have been following Stefanee and Jeff's WebMD Rx challenge progress with interest. I have been really impressed with their honesty about the successes and challenges that they have faced, and I have been cheering them on! I have especially been able to relate to Stefanee's blogs because many of the challenges that she has described about fitness and weight loss apply to my own experiences.

Here's a little bit about me. I just turned 30, and I am also a new mom. My little boy just turned 7 months old, and life has been a whirlwind of activity from day one. Changing diapers, getting up in the middle of the night to breastfeed, doing laundry, making baby food, keeping the house clean, walking the dog... you get the idea.

To add to life's craziness, I went back to work as a first grade teacher when my baby was 9 weeks old. So add getting the baby to daycare, lesson planning, correcting papers, keeping a positive attitude, AND staying awake during the school day to my list of things to do!

I love all of my different roles, and my husband has been really supportive and helpful! However, healthy food and fitness for myself has gotten pretty low on the list of priorities.

My husband and I have never been particularly healthy eaters because neither one of us enjoys cooking. From the beginning we have found that it is a lot easier to go out and grab some variety of fast food - burgers, tacos, French fries, an occasional salad, and yes...usually some sort of chocolate dessert. The refrigerator is usually pretty empty, except for bagels, cream cheese and diet rootbeer. Every once in a while I make an attempt to cook, but it is usually something out of a box. When I do buy fresh vegetables, we eat a few, and the rest end up sitting in the back of the fridge until they are mushy. It's pretty bad.

Our exercise routine is not much better. It generally consists of walking our dog through our hilly neighborhood. In an effort to improve our fitness a few years ago, we both decided to join a gym for a year. The one that I joined was an all women's gym and it started out well. I went 2-3 times a week for an hour, I worked with a personal trainer, I tried a new diet, and I made some gains. But after a few months, I started to lose interest. I thought it was pretty boring to walk on treadmills and bike for miles with no destination. As a result, I found lots of reasons not to go to the gym, and ended up canceling my membership.

Last year, we decided to start our family. During my pregnancy, I was aware of the healthiness of what I was eating because I knew that everything I ate went straight to my baby. I cut out caffeine, sweets, and fried fast food. I took my vitamins, ate balanced meals and drank lots of water.

After the baby was born, I continued to pay attention to what I was eating because I was breastfeeding. Unfortunately, I also continued to eat the same amounts of food, and excess calories that I was eating during my pregnancy. Let me add here that while I was pregnant, my love of chocolate disappeared. Unfortunately, once the baby was born, my desire for chocolate came back with a vengeance. As a result, I indulged. Just a little bit at first, and then with an increasing regularity. All of the baby weight that I lost initially, came right back - to 194 pounds... I was so frustrated with myself for my lack of self control.

My frustration stems from the fact that I want to give my little boy the best example of healthy living as possible. But I have wondered how I can provide an example if I can't control my own eating habits and do very little exercise. Even though he is only 7 months old, he's eventually going to notice when I tell him that he has to eat all of his veggies, but I don't eat any. He'll also notice later on when I tell him to go outside and exercise, but I sit down with a jar of peanut butter and and a sleeve of crackers (another one of my major downfalls).

When I saw Stefanee and Jeff on the WebMD fitness challenge, I decided that I should give the challenge a try, too. The folks at WebMD have asked me to write a blog that reflects my experiences as an everyday reader. I will weigh in every 2 months, and WebMD will provide me with 2 fitness workouts with Michael Lin, and 1 nutritional analysis from Kathleen Zelman.

Where I go from there is up to me. I will write in each week and tell you all how it is going. My starting goal for this year is learn to eat healthier foods and get exercise so that I can get my weight back down to 160 pounds and fit into my prepregnancy clothes.

However, my ultimate longterm goal is to get back to 135 pounds, which is how much I weighed when I met my husband in 1999. I know that getting into healthy eating habits, and exercising is going to be a huge challenge for me, but I am really excited to get started! So HERE I GO!!

Related Topics: WebMD Weight Loss Clinic (Subscription Service), Getting Fit with Baby on Board

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