I’ve been floating around a few websites and have them linked in my blogroll now. I’ve also joined another blogroll so check out some of those links when you get the chance. I think I’m going to spend some time going through the blogrolls to see how other people are doing with their weight loss / fitness lives. This should be a lot of fun.

I’m actually pretty tired but I’m really in the mood to do something. Even though it’s 4am I think I’m going to take a quick jog around the block to get my heart rate up. Maybe it’ll put me to sleep faster.

The real key to dieting is to make sure that you’re burning more calories than you’re taking in. With a ‘power-walk’ for two miles you can burn about 1200 calories. I know that doesn’t seem like much but figure that’s less than the amount of calories you eat during the day. When you factor the numbers like that, it all makes sense.

I’ve changed my goals around to something a bit more reasonable. Originally I was placing myself on a 500 calories-a-day diet but with the small amount of food I was eating and the extra exercise I was doing, I was literally starving myself. That’s not the way to lose weight so I’ve upped myself an 900 calorie-a-day regimen. A thousand calories is what most personal trainers would put a new person on, considering a lot of people seem to consume about 1800+ calories a day, especially if you binge eat because of other underlaying factors (depression, stress, etc…)

Today, I had the following - and note that portion control is a MUST!

• Breakfast: 90 Calorie Special K Cereal Bar
• Lunch: 2 slices of turkey with 1 tablespoon of light mayonnaise on whole wheat bread - 230 calories
• Snack: Medium Banana - 90 calories
• Dinner: 6oz Filet Mignon with 1/2 cup of mixed vegetables - 407 calories.
• Drinks: 2 bottles of plain water, 3 bottles of Crystal Light (Raspberry Ice, Lemonade, Iced Tea) - 15 Calories.
• Today’s Totals: 832 Calories

So, I happened to come in about 60 some odd calories below my maximum goals. Dinner was a little high but when you go out to dinner it’s kind of hard to keep track of what you’re bringing in. Luckily the restaurant had a diet menu so that really did help me out. It wasn’t a bad meal for Filet Mignon either, $15 for my meal.

So if I can continue with what I’m doing and still continue to cut down on cigarettes (I’m down to 5 a day, from 30 so that’s a huge jump for a long-term smoker like myself) I think I’ll be able to reach my goal.

Baby and I just got back from our nightly walk. We didn’t do our usual two miles, which is kind of upsetting but based on the fact that I’m not feeling very well and his knee is acting up - it was kind of difficult to stretch ourselves for two miles. We did, however, do about a half a mile so I think tomorrow we’ll just have to kick it up a notch.

What really slows us down is the dog. We get a good stride going and then she’ll have to stop and pee or just sniff around because other dogs have been in the area (I think every other house in this complex has a dog, honestly). Maybe tomorrow while the storm hits we can walk around the complex together. It’s not supposed to be anything severe rain wise, it’s mainly thunder and lightening. Since that means there’s a merge of a hot and a cold cell on us, we’ll probably sweat quite a bit and that’ll make for extra calories burned.

I figured since it’s been a few days since I last weighed in, I’d hop on the scale tonight and do it. I was sadly surprised to learn that I’d gained 3 pounds. At first I thought it was just a fluke because I’ve been sticking to the diet, I don’t over eat, I don’t binge eat and I’ve avoided every ounce of sugar from here to california so it couldn’t get into my body. Baby is convinced it’s muscle because I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately but typically cardio doesn’t gain muscle it burns fat. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I guess it’s time to change my stats now.

Reaching my goal before September is really going to kill me. I can’t wait until the club house opens up here in my complex. There’s supposed to be a weight room and instead of doing two miles a day around the same gated area (I’m still new to the area so I really don’t trust it to walk outside of the walls just yet), maybe I can stay in one place and do more on a tread mill.

It’s been a little touch and go as far as getting this new template up but I’m working pretty hard on it. I hope to have some more content here over the next few days. I’m going on vacation with the boyfriend this weekend so I don’t know how much I’ll be around after Friday evening. I’m sure I’ll have a big update soon though, there’s still a lot to do so I’m going to hop to it.

I do still need to import my archives from my previous journal. This should take a while. :sigh: