Saturday, March 02, 2013
These are the daily healthy habits that I am currently working towards:
1. Eat a salad every day
2. Eat 9 servings of fruits/vegetables (mostly vegetables)
3. Workout in the morning, alternating strength training with cardio
4. Walk at lunch every day (weather permitting)
5. Track my food on SparkPeople, and stay within my ranges for calories, carbs, fat, protein, fiber and sodium.
How I'm doing:
1. I've missed a few days on the salads. It takes quite a bit of time to eat a big salad (lots of chewing!) and it also takes a bit of time to prepare. I didn't have a salad yesterday because I was short on time. I actually try to have my salad for breakfast because that helps me meet my fruits/veggies goal for the day.
2. My worst day this past week was only 6 servings of fruits/veggies, because I was banking some calories for a pizza with a friend. There were a couple of days when I only had 7 servings.
3. Morning workout: I have a 19 day SparkStreak for morning workouts! I do not enjoy strength training, but I'm committed to doing it every other day. I alternate upper and lower body workouts on my ST days, but I always add some lower body exercises to my upper body workout days, and vice versa, so it's really a full body workout with an upper or lower body focus. And I do an intense cardio workout on the spin bike on the days between the strength training workouts. I had to go to work at 5:00am yesterday, but I still set my alarm early and did my morning workout at 3:30am so I would not break my streak.
4. Lunchtime 2-mile walk: this is my easiest habit, and it's also been my long term habit for probably 12 years. This may get interrupted by weather - I didn't walk last Sunday in the snowstorm - but it's always in my workout plan for the day. This week I brought my foul weather gear to work and walked on Wednesday in the rain.
5. Track food and stay within ranges for calories, carbs, fat, protein, fiber and sodium. I have been ON PLAN (tracking food and within calories) for a 12 day SparkStreak. As for the other categories (carbs, fat, protein, fiber and sodium), I find that I'm always within range for carbs and fat. I struggle to hit the Spark protein numbers unless I include animal protein, so I've added yogurt to my daily plan and I've been within range for protein since doing that. I'm invariably over on the fiber because of my fruits and vegetables goal, but I don't think thats a bad thing. I'm usually fine on the sodium as long as I don't eat too much processed foods - last night the pizza with my friend put me over on sodium for the day.