Intentional Health: Tracking Progress!

One of my favorite bosses once said something that stuck with me: you can manage what you can measure. He was talking about marketing campaigns, but it applies to so much more. Since this week is all about intentional wellness, what better way is there to intentionally live healthy than to collect and track data?  For today we're going to let the answer be, "none!" :)

There are plenty of ways that we could get all compulsive about our health, micromanaging it down to the point where we're so stressed that we forget that being healthier is supposed to make us happier. I don't recommend that. Instead, let's focus on two of the biggies: what goes in and what goes out. I'm talking about calories, just so we're clear.

First, the calories that go in. For years I collected stacks of little spiral notebooks where I had logged my meals, and then I found http://www.fitday.com/ and started logging my meals online. Way easier. Keeping a food journal is not only a proven technique for permanent weight loss management, but it provides both data and accountability, two of the other tools in my healthy tool chest.  When I find myself out of synch, I check the log and look for clues. Have I been eating the same thing for too long? Have I been eating out more often? Or even worse, are there are few days in a row when I *gulp* haven't written anything down? If you're accurate in your log, you should have the data you need to solve the mystery and get back on track. I'll also refer back to it to see what I'm doing right. When I want to go back to a place where I remember feeling better, I flip (or click) back to that date and check to see what my fuel was like back then. I'll give you a hint: it's usually spinach.  Planning and logging your food is a great way to use intention to have a healthy day.

Second, the calories that come out. Yesterday I gave you the formula for determining how many calories you need to take in and/or burn to lose or maintain weight, but my favorite tool for tracking this is my GoWearFit.  I seriously love this thing. I bought it a year ago and while I haven't been wearing it since I've been pregnant, I am planning to pop that sucker on the second this baby is out. Not only does it track your calorie burn and provide tons of awesome data for you to manage it, it also reveals your sleep patterns, breaks down your macronutrients, and more. Once you enter in your meals, it tells you whether you're on a weight gain or loss trend. Seriously, it cannot be easier.  Get one.

Living intentionally well simply means doing something every day to move closer to health. Recording the actions you take to do just that.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and get healthy!

New Year Resolution Guide: The Suitcase

I've always wanted a suitcase like this!

So we talked a while ago about our metaphorical fanny pack (and how we were not going to fill it with cookies).  Now I want to upgrade our visual and talk about our 2011 suitcase. I think all of this is a sign that I need a vacation!

But anyway, I've got my 2011 suitcase open and ready to be filled with everything from 2010 that I want to bring with me into the new year.  And as you can imagine, not everything from 2010 will make the cut.  Here's what made it into my suitcase (and what got left in 2010).  And just FYI this is just about fitness stuff so if you're not on the list, don't freak out. I'm not tossing you.

1. My gym family. I love the people I workout with! They motivate me, make me laugh, indulge my motormouth, and prod me into working harder than I thought I could. They are definitely making it into my suitcase! 

2. My clients. Wellness coaching is one of the most rewarding things in my life and my clients teach me something new about the world every time I talk to them.  They make the cut!

3. My gadgets. Data drives progress, and I get a lot of value from my GoWearFit, my new Garmin, and iPod filled with GetFitPod running podcasts. I may look like a cyborg half the time, but I use them every day and they make the cut.

4. My wellness community. In 2010 I connected with a lot of wellness advocates and its been wonderful professionally and personally. I've created great friendships with people who inspire me every day, and that definitely makes it into the suitcase!

5. Last but definitely not least, my actual family. Trust me, life with me is not always (ever) easy, and the amount of patience, tolerance, humor, and love that I get from people who have no choice about having me in their lives is immense. I will need a lotta lotta more of that in 2011.

That's it. Oh, well, also a bunch of workout clothes and shoes and stuff.  But that's pretty much everything I am taking with me in 2011.  I'm leaving some significant things behind...I'll talk about those tomorrow.Yesterday was about positive thinking. I hope that you made your list of positive versus negative influences and figured out which ones you can change and which ones you want to ditch. Put the positive influences in your suitcase today!

See you soon! Have a healthy day!

GoWearFit: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has never been so rewarding

So I've been wearing my GoWearFit for a little over a month now and have not lost any of my initial enthusiasm for it.  Where has it been all my life?  I will tell you what, if I had this thing 10 years ago I could have saved myself a lot of time in the self-help section of the bookstore. 

But I don't want to dwell on the past.

Or do I?

You see, my GFW (we're BFFs now so I can call it that), tells me about my past.  My immediate past, that is.  It allows me to look back over my shoulder (or my left tricep, since that is where it lives) and see if I really did burn what I thought I did.  And then, it allows me to make a better plan for the future by showing me in black and white what my body is doing, within a 5% margin of error.  So, for example, yesterday I burned a whopping 2,443 calories (give or take), which gave me an approximate calorie deficit of just over 900 calories, which means that vacation weight is going bye-bye. yay!  Today I estimate I'll have about 800 calorie deficit, based on my workout plans for the day and what I plan to eat.  I'm going to a party this weekend, so I will workout Saturday morning, sync the GWF up to my reporting software, and decide on a calorie goal for the day that will result in a break-even (if not a small deficit) so I can relax a little at the party but stay within maintenance.  If I don't hit my mark, GWF will tell me and I'll adjust accordingly on Sunday.

And in a week or so, when I am back in my happy zone, I'll go back to eating more and exercising a little less, so I can break even around 2,000 calories a day.

What is so exciting about all of this (for me) is that it is a completely sane way to manage my fitness.  A little compulsive, yes, but come on.  Being compulsive is like Christmas morning to me.  I love it!  Seriously.  I can obsess about so many other things now that my GWF tracks all of the stuff I used to obsess about.  Thanks, BodyMedia!

Speaking of compulsive, here's a little peek into my report from Sunday.  See the spike at the beginning of the day?  That's me exercising.  See where it is WAY higher in the second hour?  That's me doing sprint intervals outside.  The first part is an elliptical-and-weights circuit I did, and the second is this interval podcast.  Seeing the difference in the effectiveness of different workouts is golden to me.  That little flat part around 4:00 is when I was swimming with my kiddo.  GWF doesn't do water, yo.

Okay, I'm rambling.  Bottom line - if you're a control freak perfectionist tired of wondering if you really are burning what those formulas say that you are, go get a GoWearFit already! 

Be a control freak perfectionist about something else for a change. :)

Ice cream, cheesecake, and beer, oh my!

Let's just get one thing straight: I was not "good" on my vacation.  I drank wine, beer, and frozen concoctions without looking at nutritional information. I ate in restaurants and shared a chocolate volcano cake with my son. My cousin made these evil peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake bites dipped in chocolate and I ate like eleventy billion of them. 

But it's cool.

Trust me, it was a hassle. Fitday doesn't have an option to just enter, "I don't want to know," for your daily calories and nutrition. Oh no, I painstakingly relived each bite as I accounted for it in my food log, but I did it so I can get to work and back on track now that "vacation" is over.  I wore my GoWearFit and monitored my burn each day, which was a lot since I compensated for a lot of my calories with daily runs, cross-city treks, visits to the park, and even a community 5k.  I know I will be bringing a little extra baggage home with me, but it's so nice to know I have a plan to get rid of it soon.  Cardio, and lots of it!

Eh. I'm back to reality today, and seriously craving some rabbit food.  Vacation was fun, but I'm ready for a vacation from vacation food! :)

Good day!

Procrastination Station

I had to work out at a hotel gym this week, and as you probably know, hotel gyms are a mixed bag.  In this case, the website described the fitness center as "state of the art."  After visiting it for a workout, I am pretty sure they were referring to preschool art. 

But, I made it work. Warmed up on the elliptical for a while, then moved over to the treadmill for my HIIT workout.  But as I started to jog, my legs weren't into it.

Please don't make us do this again, they begged. 

The treadmill did seem a little rickety and I doubted its ability to handle the pounding of some of the longer sprint intervals.  So I went back to the elliptical.  But then that treadmill totally turned the tables on me.  It began to mock me!  Taunt me!  Act all tough like it had gotten the best of me! You know I wasn't about to let that fly, so I stepped back on.  My legs did one of those heavy sighs that women do when they want you to ask what's wrong so they can tell you it's nothing.

But after a minute or two I went back to the elliptical. This was getting ridiculous.  I knew I wanted that calorie burn but man, that workout is tough!  But, time ticking, I finally sucked it up, stopped procrastinating, and did the damn thing.  The treadmill held up, I finished the intervals, and then walked up 12 flights of stairs back to my room.  Done.  Fine.  Happy now?

When I plugged in my GoWearFit and saw that I had burned 800 calories in the last hour, I was glad I did those intervals!  My workout done, I was free to start procrastinating on other things instead.  :)

Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it. 

So go do it!

Good day!

Stalking the UPS Man

I am so so so so so so so SOOOOOOO excited!  My GoWear Fit is arriving today, which I know because my minute-by-minute tracking of the package on Amazon.com tells me that as of 5:29 am today, it is on the truck and scheduled for delivery.  I can't believe I didn't take the day off so I could play with it right away. 

OMG I AM SO EXCITED!

GoWear Fit is a nifty little gadget that monitors (within some relative range of error of course, which I will ultimately ignore) all of your body's functions throughout the day.  Well, all the ones that I wonder about anyway.  So throughout the course of a day, it will measure your approximate calorie burn, changes in heart rate, and even your sleep patterns. At the end of the day, you can plug it into your computer and upload the data to determine your overall calorie burn throughout the day and whether you need more or less activity, how to better time your nutrition, and if your sleep quality is adequate for your goals.  I've been skeptically researching its value and accuracy since I first learned of it back in December, but after reading enough reviews and convincing myself that I deserve something pretty, I decided that the GoWear Fit will be the perfect addition to my obsessive-compulsive lifestyle. 

I've already informed my husband that I am going to be out of pocket for a while as I charge it up, install the software, and figure out how it works exactly, which ironically, I will need my husband to "help" me do (read: do for me as I impatiently stand by).  But it's okay, I think he is ready for a break from listening to me go on and on about how excited I am about it and updating him on the progress of the UPS man as he brings my little darling closer to me. I wonder if I could call the UPS man and ask what time he is going to be at my house.  Would that be creepy?  

Anyway, for all of you know-me-in-real-life types who are asking, "Heather, isn't this the LAST thing that a neurotic, fitness-obsessed, control-freaky data-analyzing over-achiever (not that there's anything wrong with that) like you needs?  Won't it just make you even crazier? Won't this just send you over the edge into a pit of potentially-flawed information that will ultimately drive you insane?"

I thought about that. And, it is a risk I am willing to take in the name of science.

Be sure to get your hopes up!