Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Treading Lightly--Take two!

Well, if you follow my blog, you know that I've made several attempts to get healthy, only to be derailed time and time again by random happenings in my life, and my own negative self-talk. I lost around 12lbs a few months ago, and have managed to keep it off, which is good. I'm finally getting back on track now, and though it has proven to be even more difficult then last time, I'm doing ok. Slow and steady wins the race, right? ;-)

So I started again about a week and a half ago. I'm down 4 more pounds--which I'm amazed by, really. Matt and I have been going to the pool, and I really think that swimming is boosting my weight-loss. The reason a lot of people don't lose weight swimming, is because when you're done swimming, you're usually really hungry. So then you end up over-eating, and undoing all the work you did at the pool. So I've eating a small protein-rich snack before (string cheese, or sometimes a plain veggie burger) and then heading to the pool. Then I come home, make dinner, and eat again. I must be doing something right, because I'm not dying of hunger after an hour-long swim. Also, as long as I'm staying within my calories, I can eat what I want. Because I don't eat meat, I end up eating fewer overall calories, which leaves me extra calories for dressings, and things that I normally wouldn't have enough calories left to add in. So the food I eat still tastes good because i can add those extra things.
I'm still doing my daily calorie counting on www.calorie-count.com It's such an invaluable tool for keeping track of exactly what I'm eating, and how many calories. The fact the it's free to use is a definite plus! It also has an activity tracker, so I type in "swimming" it gives me a few options, and then adds up the total calories burned too. Love it! Since the last time, I increased the total number of calories I allow myself daily. I realized that by not eating enough, I was slowing down my metabolism. I looked up my BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) and realized that I needed to allow myself to eat more.
I'm really committed to sticking with what I have going right now. Things have been really stressful the last few months, as we're having major family issues, and things have been over-the-top dramatic, but I'm really hoping that I won't allow myself to fall back into the patterns I was in before!

2 comments:

Sarah Yanagi said...

GO SARAH!!! I'm right there with you friend. I've found that exercising truly is such a more healthy and satisfying release than eating. =) We're doing this together.

Sarah said...

What I love about exercise, is that I don't want to eat a bunch of crap afterwords, because I don't want to undo all of the work I've done! Swimming has been so nice! I can do it for an hour, and not have awful knee pain after... it rocks!