FitBit

I am in love with my FitBit Ultra.  A FitBit is a teeny tiny pedometer, but calling it just a pedometer is like calling Romeo & Juliet a play.  It is, but also much more.

The happy little black gizmo is about the size of my finger, and can be clipped onto your waistband, or stuck in a pocket or even a bra.  It's much less conspicuous than any other pedometer i've ever tried, which i admit, was a concern.  I may be geeky and overweight, but i try to draw attention to neither of those things!  It tracks your steps, flights of stairs (and hills), calories burned, distance traveled and gives you the time.  All of this you can see by pressing the little button on the unit itself, or when it syncs to the website via wireless connection when it is 15' or less from the base station.

It took a little adjusting to get my mileage more accurate to my runs, initially it was overestimating my stride, and i still would like to go to the track to get some more accurate measurements, but in due time.  I've now used it for several walks, walk/runs and even a hike and found it was quite accurate.  It's been a great motivation to do a little more throughout the day, and even helped me do my chores!  If i am 'short' on my daily goals, i will walk around the house putting things away to collect steps and flights of stairs.  It's amazing how sedentary i am during the day at the office and how active i can be by just simple things like cooking, cleaning and having fun!  Even shopping suddenly turns into a mental game of how i can get in a few more steps.

For years i've heard the lines about park further away from your destination, use the further copier, and other little tricks to get more activity in your day, but never really thought hard about how they actually have an effect.  It's 20 seconds, right?  Wearing a pedometer has turned those little things into something numeric, and therefore more real for me.  Because i have a goal to work towards each day, i am inspired to try those small changes, rather than see them as something nice, but not important.

I also feel that by using the fitbit i am more accurately tracking my calories, because some days i am very active at work and other days not so much.  It's helpful for me to know what an office day looks like so i can find other ways to be active.  Similarly, when i am more active, i can balance that with a lighter workout for balance.

Although i don't know how accurate it really is, you can also use it to track your sleep.  By wearing it on your wrist (it comes with a wristband), it will track your movement and create a report of how long it took you to fall asleep and how often you woke up.  This has been very helpful for nights where i have had trouble sleeping and noticing patterns in my sleep habits.

Because it syncs with tools i am already using, primarily LoseIt and RunKeeper, it also is particularly useful.  Unlike a traditional pedometer, i don't have to enter anything.  Each time i sync, Lose It adjusts my exercise calories and tells FitBit what i've eaten.  There is a huge list of apps and sites that work with FitBit's API, and i suspect it'll keep growing.

Overall, i love this little gadget and think it will continue to be a great tool on my weight loss journey!

Eating the Moment, Activity 2 - Why am I about to eat?

This week's activity in Eating the Moment was to shift the question from "Why did i just eat?" to "Why am i about to eat?". I admit i didn't do this perfectly, and intend to continue trying to incorporate it into my routine.

Plenty of times the answer was "I'm hungry" but it definitely wasn't the only one. Sometimes it was about trying something new and tasty (like at the wedding), or how my cooking/baking was (like the failed GF rolls). I sometimes ate because i wasn't hungry exactly, but felt like i needed fuel, like after my morning run. And sometimes i think i felt as thirsty as i did hungry, but wanted to go for food instead of water. There were also some opportunities where i ate to fill my calorie needs more so than hunger. I need to not be so afraid of things. Eating more fruits & veggies is great, but they can't be the only thing i eat. I can eat something with more than 100 calories per serving and not explode. Really.

Sometimes i did choose to put something down and wait, because it was out of boredom or wanting to delay going back to work. Today was a great example. On the one hand, i was more productive, because i came back to the office without a stop at Dunkin Donuts. On the other hand, i'm back and the office earlier, and totally could have stopped without any negative consequences (it's sort of an unwritten rule about field work). 

Anyway, i'll keep working on it. Eating isn't just about bare nutrition or we'd of turned food into a pill. It's about pleasure and taste and so if the only reason i eat is pure hunger... well, it'll be missing all of those things. But there are bad reasons. Learning the difference between thirsty & hungry, or tired and hungry will help me in the long run take better care of myself as a whole, not just my waistline.

LoseIt App

Recently, i made a deal with one of my closest friends.  She has been on a weight loss journey for quite some time related to her health issues as well as becoming a parent.  It's very impressive, and she and i struggle with a lot of the same challenges.  She has some extra ones, like a gluten intolerance, but generally speaking, we have some similar Stuff to work on.

So i'm joining her.  We have a trip planned Labor Day weekend, and my goal is to lose 25.2 lbs by then.  It's ambitious, but as of this post I'm 5 lbs down already, so i feel it's not impossible.

Food has always been a challenging issue for me, and to help me reach this goal i am using something called LoseIt.  LoseIt is an app available for iPhone and more recently Android systems.  It is incredibly simple in what it does, but that's what makes it very powerful.

At it's heart, it's a calorie counter.  It allows you to track what you eat, how much you exercise and what your basal metabolic rate is.  Using that information, you can follow the calculated limits to gain, lose or maintain your weight.

I don't know how large the database of foods is, but i've yet to have trouble logging something.  It can scan bar codes from packages and automatically knows the calories, and has a large list of restaurant and prepared foods as well as single ingredients.  Similarly, the exercise options are varied and allow you to fine tune your activity levels.

There is also a social media element, though i'm not currently using it.  You can connect with Facebook or Twitter, or just connect with friends.  You can certainly add me if you're interested in joining along!

Through some of the forums there i stumbled across The Hacker's Diet, which is a pretty simple and mathematical look at weight loss.  It ties very well with LoseIt in that it's really about energy in and energy out.    It's worth a read if you're trying to lose weight and connect to math/science. There are also some neat tools to tracking your weight change.

What geek tools are you using for weight loss?  I'd love to know!

Eating the Moment, Activity 1 - Why did I just eat?

As part of my weight loss goals, i'm working on Mindful Eating and developing a more healthy relationship with food.  Part of this is finding resources that work for me.  One of those is a book called Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time by Pavel Somov.  I'll try to write more about it as we go.  


The first activity in Eating the Moment is, after you eat, write down why you ate, for a weekish. It was pretty simple, but having to actually think why something just landed in my mouth was interesting, particularly as i'm being more aware of what and how much i'm eating.

Today is technically 7 days, but since i don't have a functional computer at home, i thought i'd make yesterday the last day and move on to the next exercise today. Because Duncan and i are using Friday as our weigh in day, it also feels like a good time to move along.


Saturday
Breakfast - hunger
Snack - hunger
Dinner - hunger
Dessert - craving, needed calories, hunger(?)

Sunday
Breakfast - hunger
Snack - tired, thirsty, hunger(?)
Late Lunch - hunger, boredom
Dinner - hunger, needed calories

Monday 
Breakfast - calories, fuel/tired
Lunch - wanted a break from work, lunchtime trigger?
Snack - hunger
Dinner - social, hunger

Tuesday
Lunch - hunger, smelled food
Snack - hunger, bored(?)
Dinner - hunger
Dessert - calories, craving

Wednesday
Breakfast - fuel, hunger
Pre-dinner - cooking trigger (tasting), hunger
Dinner - hunger
Dessert - hunger, tired, calories, pain (wanted cold)

Thursday
Breakfast - hunger
Lunch - hunger, habit
Snack - hunger, food in front of me
Dinner - hunger, tired



There is a huge bias here. In reducing my calories i'm being forced to think before i eat, and not eat so mindlessly. If i wasn't being so careful boredom, tired, lonely and cravings would likely have shown up much more. 

When i looked at this, i first thought "gosh, i must be hungry all the time!", but i think the reality is i'm feeling hungry, so i eat, which is a normal cycle. And normal people eat every 4-6 hours. Normal people eat meals and snacks. This is OK.

Breakfasts are still a challenge. I've been doing a greek yogurt and sometimes fruit in the mornings, though often one becomes lunch or a snack. 


Today i start the next activity, which is asking before i eat "Why am i about to eat?". The upcoming week includes a wedding (social eating opportunity) and four unscheduled evenings (bored/emotional eating opportunities). I can change my mind or not once i answer that question, but it's about the honest check in beforehand. I wish loseit had a notes option to keep everything in one place, but so it goes. 

Related, C25K continues. The dental work is still sore and mucking with my sleep, so exercise is being pushed to after work. I hope to get back to 6AM next week. Still, i'm doing it. Yesterday was a walk day, but i chose to run 2 3 minute sections just to see if i could. God that's a long time at this point, but i know soon enough it'll be easy. Just keep swimmin'. Or runnin'. Or something.