well-being | Living below parallel

301.6

Keeping track of the things that you do and the foods that you eat are important to building new, better habits. To use myself as an example, I put my lists out there, not as some shining beacon of perfection but rather as the tool that it is meant to be and to show you how to use it to your advantage.

My foods yesterday:
Roasted chicken thighs, 14.35oz.(847 cal.)
popcorn w/butter, 187g.(984 cal.)
tuna salad w/ crackers, (925 cal.)
2 bananas, (210)

The first thing I would like to point out is, all of the food was prepared in my kitchen, no microwave popcorn was harmed in the making of this list. Chicken thighs are cheap, they have plenty of moisture and don’t dry out in the refrigerator. I get thighs in 5lb. packages and cook them all at once, roasted in the oven, never fried. I like to mix it up with chicken, this batch was seasoned with some hoisin sauce and a little extra spicy barbeque sauce but you can use anything really.

One thing you are learning with me right now is how many calories are in popcorn! It used to be my go to snack until now. Writing down the calories for the first time really drives home the point of this list, not so much eating only certain foods but being able to see in black and white what the calorie impact of each food is on your body. I’m still going to eat popcorn, not every day, and probably not with the butter either.

As well as writing down your food, make a note of your fluid intake, just to make sure you are drinking enough water. Mine was 3 qts. water and a couple of diet cokes, don’t judge me.

I have a small digital food scale I got at WalMart for $15 to measure my food, and I use a couple of different websites to look up calories:

http://www.calorieking.com/
http://nutritiondata.self.com/

…anything you can’t find there, google ‘calories from food’ or go to the mfg. website. You don’t have to break everything down to weights and calories right now, just look at the foods you are eating and see where you can make changes, it is a marathon, not a sprint.

As far as exercise goes, yesterday was my ‘rest’ day, I try to maintain a day on, day off schedule. I did manage to take my bestest buddies for a dog walk, 1 mile=152 calories burned, sunshine, fresh and happy dogs=bonus! To track the exercise that you do you can go to one of these websites to figure out how you did;

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/lookup
http://calorielab.com/burned/

To fill up the blank part of yourpage today, think about things you enjoy doing, or would enjoy doing, walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, etc. Use this list when you feel bored and don’t know what to do, maybe one of these items will bring you an exciting day.

If you have come to the realization that you have to make a change in the way you manage your own health and are ready to start now then you need a few things. Pen and paper, a small notebook will do or a cheap spiral they sell in school supplies.

305.4
Make a small square in the top corner of the first page of your notebook and write your weight down there, you will do this every day. The purpose here is to develop the habit of weighing yourself every day, not that it is important to know what you weigh, but it is important to build habits. We are going to begin small and add things as we go. I say we because I am doing it with you, I need to develop good habits, too.

The rest of the page-
This is where you write down everything you eat and drink all day, come back to the notebook as much as you need to and be as complete as possible. You can’t change a bad habit until you realize that you have one. Don’t cheat here and leave stuff off, that can be of no help whatsoever. You will also write down all of your activities here, the ones that are active that is. If you mow the yard, that’s cardio, write down how long it took. If you walk somewhere, write down how far. Try and add a walk to your activity each day this week, even if it is just around the block, then write it down. Concentrate on doing these two things every single day, do them for one week.

Think actively-
When you wake up, get up. Don’t lie in bed and try to go back to sleep, it is exhausting. Do something around the house, tidy up, clean some dishes, pet the dog or cat, just don’t lay back down. Some things that you might ordinarily put off during the day don’t take as long to get done as you might imagine if you just jump in and do it. If you can get one thing done in that period of time that you would normally waste rolling around trying to get back to sleep your day got so much easier. One less load of laundry, one sink of dishes, tidy up the bathroom even catching up on email or surfing reddit, you are training yourself to get active and stay active during the day. This is a good thing.

OK, enough. Good job today, see you tomorrow. There will be a new post and some new information. Take it slow, do things well.

Living below parallel

'Because well begun is half done.'

Tag Archives: well-being

Day 2- A New Body The Hard Way, Marking The Trail

Day 1- A New Body The Hard Way, By Taking Action!