December 2009Monthly Archives

I’m back from vacation and had a wonderful time! San Francisco is such a wonderful place to vacation. There are tons of ways to get in activity which helps burn off some of the delicious food that can be found there, too. I’m not even going to pretend that I ate properly while we were there, because I didn’t. Everything I did eat was really tasty though.

Speaking of activity, on Thursday, I actually registered a new personal best for steps taken in a single day. According to the pedometer on my Bodybugg, I logged a whopping 18,427 steps that day! Of course, it didn’t hurt that it was a VERY active day for us. We walked the Golden Gate Bridge in the morning, then wandered a bit down in the Fisherman’s Wharf area for lunch, and then went on a tour of Alacatraz Island that evening.

I’ll share a couple of photos and then get on to the main purpose of this blog entry. If you want to see the rest of my photos, they can be viewed here.

Taken as we were getting ready to walk the bridge

Taken as we were climbing the hill up to the cellhouse

Now, on to Project 100! Now that vacation is behind me, the time has come for the beginning of my Project 100 undertaking. As you may recall from one of my posts earlier this month, I have set a goal for myself to lose 100 pounds between now and January 1, 2011 (1/1/11). As part of that endeavor, I have outlined some criteria to help my reach that goal. To hold myself accountable, I’m going to share those criteria here:

1. Average of 1000 calorie deficit per day

In order to meet my goal, I will need to lose between 1.75 and 2 pounds per week. This means I will need to average a 1000 calorie deficit each day. For those who may not know, one needs a deficit of 3500 calories in order to lose 1 pound. So, if I want to lose 2 pounds per week, that means a weekly deficit of 7000 calories which can be met by a daily deficit of 1000 calories.

How do I plan to meet this 1000 calorie deficit goal? I will be doing it the old-fashioned way of eating less and moving more. Per my Bodybugg program, my AMR (Active Metabolic Rate) is approximately 2550 calories per day. What this means is that I can eat around 2500 calories per day and maintain my current weight due to how many calories my body burns through my day-to-day activities. Since I want that 1000 calorie deficit, I’m planning to reduce my calorie intake down to 1800 calories (750 calorie deficit) and burn the other 250 calories needed through exercise. On the days I don’t exercise, I will drop my calorie intake down to 1550 in order to still meet my 1000 calorie deficit goal.

2. Exercise at least 5 times per week

Some might wonder why I don’t set a goal of working out every day. Well, that’s because I know that the body also needs rest in order to rebuild the muscles I’ll be working. For the few weeks, I will pretty much be doing only cardio in order to get myself going and set a good routine. There will be a bit of strength work since I will be using some of my fitness titles (like EA Sports Active More Workouts) for my Wii console on some days. At the beginning of February, I will add in a basic strength training routine at the gym as well.

3. Early to bed, early to rise

I freely admit that I am a horrible night-owl, so this one may well be the most difficult for me. However, I have heard repeatedly that getting a good night’s sleep is paramount for weight loss, so I want to tackle this one. Sleeps aids weight loss both in giving the body the energy it needs for metabolic function, as well as reducing the amount of stress hormones created. So, my goal during the week will be to go to bed at 11pm and get up at 6am. This will allow me to get 7 hours of sleep (I usually only get between 5-6 hours most nights now), and will also give me time to get in my workout before going to work.

4. Other Misc. Things

Since none of these really warrant a separate entry of their own as they don’t really require explanation, I’m clumping these final items into a single bullet point.

• Walk around the parking lot at work on my break when weather permits.
• Drink a minimum of 48 oz. of water per day.
• Eat at least 5 servings of fruits & vegetables per day.
• Consume at least 2 servings of dairy products per day.
• Brown-bag my lunch instead of eating in the cafeteria or going out to eat.
• Faithfully keep my food journal each day — good, bad, or ugly.
• Weigh in each Saturday and post results here (unless on travel).
• Take body measurements every 4 weeks.

I had Tracy take some before photos of me when we were in San Francisco on vacation. I haven’t downloaded them from my camera yet though. I haven’t decided how often I’ll take updated photos, but I’m considering once per month since that’s how often I’ll be taking my measurements.

Ok, I think that’s it for now. If I think of other things, I’ll post them later. For now though, I have to finish this up in order to make my bedtime.

Until next time …