New Year, old weightloss shows

I don't watch the Biggest Loser, sometimes I think I should, but I just can't get into it.

I do like to watch the shows about the morbidly obese people who have to be cut out of their homes though. They usually show them on TLC or Discovery and I can't get enough of them.

Typically at the first of the year they break out all the good shows. You know, the ones where the people aren't just morbidly obese, but they are super morbidly obese? This year they are showing the same ones from years past! I've seen all of those. Don't get me wrong, I keep watching them over and over, but I would like a new one to air.

I just watch and watch and watch. I just want to know what they are thinking and how they got to a weight where they are immobile. How do you feel when you have to be CUT out of your house? How do you get to that point and keep justifying eating? I know that I've justified some crazy things about food, but not being able to move on my own and to keep eating? I'm not sure if I could have done that. Could I? I think that's why I watch. I wonder what I would have done in their situation.

It's kinda like a train wreck, in a way. I don't really want to keep watching but I can't turn away. I have to know more about these people. I need them to do follow up shows about them!

Basically, I need to see more of these shows! I need new documentaries and I need updates on the old ones!

Resolutions

Ok, a lot of people have been talking about resolutions for the New Year. I don't really have one. Well, I do, but it's nothing weight loss related. If I have one that is related to this blog it is to keep up the workout routine I have and to continue to follow my meal plan. That's not really going to be a challenge. I just don't want to fall off the wagon at this point.

Anyway, I was talking to Kelly (my tall friend I refer to from time to time) and she was thinking of resolutions for herself. I feel like she's coming up with some good ones for herself. Her basic idea is to be healthier. She is not going full boar/cold turkey on anything. She wants to get back into working out and doing Zumba. She is starting slow. She did a class this week and is making her plans for next week and beyond. She is also looking into changing cooking and eating habits. She doesn't really need to lose a lot of weight, like 10-15 pounds at the most, but she still wants to overall be healthier. So she is going to change little things here and there to overall improve her quality of living and life.

So that got me thinking about resolutions in general. People make crazy resolutions for themselves. Honestly, they do. It's like they make the ending goal of something the resolution. For example: Someone says they want to lose weight and sets a goal amount of weight to lose. That's a great goal, but they have no plan to lose the weight. Making the plan is 90% of goal setting. How are you going to get to that goal? What are you going to do? (OMG! The teacher in me is just coming out all over this post! I've been on winter break too long! I'm trying to teach through my blog!)

I feel like (and that means I've stating my opinion, not a fact) a lot of people fail at meeting their resolutions because they fail to plan for that goal. They don't map out the small steps they need to take to get to the overall goal.  I also feel like people get frustrated when they don't immediately reach their goal. Sometimes things can't change 100% on January 1st. I feel like when people don't see the immediate change they give up. They don't continue to try until they get it right.

I did that for years. I would say, "I want to lose weight." After that I would do nothing, because I didn't take the time to see and plan what I needed to do. I would try to eat salad and grilled chicken. I would swear off all fast food and sweets. I would go to the gym hot and heavy for like a week and then it would just become too overwhelming. I would crave fast food and fried food, but felt like I couldn't have anything like that because it's just not healthy. I would be bored at the gym. I didn't know how to workout so I would just give up. I would go get some fast food and skip the gym. Then I would think , "Oh well, I failed. I ate fast food and I hate the gym. I guess I'll try another time."


When I finally got my act together and started working out with Janelle it was just that; working out. It also was not a resolution, more of the one step at a time thing


There is no way I could have started working out and eating on a schedule all at one time. I would have freaked out and quit. I think Janelle realized that too. Honestly, after writing this I feel like Janelle and Zach had this master plan going on all the time. I think they were priming me for a meal plan for almost a year before I started one! Holy crap! I wonder if that's true?


Anyway, just don't forget to make a plan for your resolution, whatever it may be!

Family Health Challenge

            Since I’ve been on this whole healthy lifestyle band wagon, I’ve wanted to get my family motivated too. I think the more weight I was losing, the more motivated they were getting, so I said to my mom one day that we should do our own Biggest Loser competition at the beginning of the year.

            I never liked the Biggest Loser competitions that would be hosted by my job. They wanted everyone to donate the money and weigh in once a week or so, usually with the P.E. teacher. I didn’t like that I had to weigh in with anyone. I didn’t want anyone that I worked with and saw on a daily basis to know what I weighed or how much I was losing! Also, not everyone has to lose weight. I wanted to see a competition that everyone could join. So, I didn’t want to design something that would track weight loss only.

            Of course, I had help from my family and Janelle. We had to make our own rules because not everyone in my family needed to lose weight, but we all had things we could do to be healthier. After a few months of thinking, planning, and a PowerPoint presentation I finally had it nailed down of what I wanted to do. And yes, I did make a PowerPoint and send it to my family to review. I love making PowerPoint presentations. It’s the easiest way for me to present information and it really turned out like a lesson I would teach in class. I later heard my mom talking to someone about it and she was like, “Oh yea, we’re doing a family health challenge. Sarah even made a PowerPoint and emailed it to all of us.” Then she giggled to herself.

Here is the break down of what we are doing:

1. Objective: To make healthier choices in your daily life
2. Time frame: 8 weeks. Sunday, January 2 to Sunday, February 27
3. Buy in: $10/person
4. How it’s done: Set 2 goals for yourself. One goal is a daily goal and the other is a weekly goal. You will earn points for meeting your goals. The daily goal is worth 1 point per day. The weekly goal is worth 5 points, but you have to meet your weekly goal in order to get the 5 points. With the points from both goals, there is a possibility of 12 total points per week.
5. Winning: The person who has earned the most points at the end of the 8 weeks wins the challenge and collects the buy in money from all other contestants.

Here are some sample goals. These are the goals of some people in my family and my goals.

Sample daily goals; 1 point per day:

1. Saturated fat – 20 grams or less per day
2. No fast food
3. Pack lunch every day
4. One energy drink per day
5. 16 ounces of coffee per day
6. 20 minutes of physical activity per day
7. 10 or less cigarettes per day

Sample weekly goals; 5 points for the whole week:

1. 90 minutes of activity per week
2. Have dinner at the table 5 times a week.
3. Eat dessert only once a week
4. 5 or less energy drinks for the week
5. 5 of less alcoholic drinks for the week
6. Go to the gym 4 times each week
7. Run 5 miles per week

       So, as you can see some of our goals are focused on different healthy living objectives. Again, not everyone in my family has weight to lose, but we all have other vices. We all drink too much coffee, some too many energy drinks, eat too much fast food, don’t exercise enough, etc, etc.

       Currently, we are more than half way through the challenge. Some people keep changing their goals because they have been too easy or too hard, but for the most part it’s been successful. We all keep track of our own points and tell each other each week how many we earned. I’ll have to let everyone know how it turns out when we finish.

        Once we knew what we wanted to do, it was easy to get started. Maybe other people will try it too. 

New Year at the gym.

            I hate the gym at the first of the year. I’m all about people making resolutions to get in shape, lose weight, or be healthier, but I can’t stand it when you clog up the gym and have no clue what you are doing. Yesterday at the gym, I about lost is on a few of them!

            Here’s the situation. I woke up in a bad mood. I’m not sure why, but I did. As the day went on, I started feeling better, but when I was at the gym I was at my height of annoyance. Being at the gym with all the “Resolution Gym Goers” was probably a bad idea. They are always in the way, and not courteous.

I was going through my workout and I was a little ahead of Janelle and Ashley, so I went over to the “butt blaster” to get started on the next set. I was putting weight on the machine and making sure I had what I needed. Out of no where this girl walks up and takes a 10 pound plate off my machine. I stared at her, and she just walked over to this ab machine and started working her lower back. I thought to myself, “Someone really wants me to get in a fight today. I’m going to hit this girl!” Then I stared at her for a few minutes to size her up and decided to let it go, but talk about her loudly to Janelle and Ashley. That way she would feel uncomfortable and leave.

So, while I was staring at her to size her up I decided that she was just a “Resolution Gym Goer.” Her clothes and shoes were new. She looked like she had done her hair and makeup before coming to the gym and she had no clue what she was doing. She looked like she was having a seizure instead of doing low back raises. By the end of March she will be bored and I’ll never see her again.

I did start talking about her really loud. I know she heard me. She was only 3 feet away from me and she didn’t have on headphones. Janelle walked over and we were rearranging the weights on the machine. I looked at her and said, “Be careful with your weights. People will walk right over and take them when you are using them.” Janelle was like, “Oh, really? It’s like that today?” I told her what happened and then said, “Someone really wants me to get in a fight today.”

After I said that, the girl walked off. When she came back, I grabbed the weight and added it back to our stack. Maybe that was an a-hole move, but hey, if you are going to be in the gym, have some gym etiquette. Don’t just take things that other people are using, and since I really couldn’t hit her, I had to do something.

I can’t wait until April when all the “Resolution Gym Goers” have fallen off the wagon. Then the gym will be nice and quiet again. I know I’m not alone in this thought. I hear it every year from people at the gym and from other people I know that work out regularly. Like I said before, I want everyone to go to the gym and be healthy, but be courteous. If not, people like me are only going to be able to bite our tongues for so long.