Fresh motivation? Free rewards or charity donations for exercising? Um... okay!

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:36:54 EST

I just got an email about "earndit.com" via my BodyMedia armband account. They provide incentives for people to work out and get fit, in the form of points that you earn and can redeem for rewards or charity donations. I just signed up and can use either my BodyMedia or Garmin to track my exercise, although they use all sorts of toys, including FitBit (Rachele!)

If you're interested, use this link to sign up and we'll BOTH get referral bonus points.
earnd.it/14Rw76e

Ready, ready, ready... go?

Sun, 12 May 2013 02:27:01 EST

Okay. Confession.

I have been kind of easing myself into Spark since I found my pep again, but it hasn't been terribly stringent or successful. (Funny how those two go together!) It's been a pretty lacklustre effort. Tracking most days, but not til after the fact, and by then it's too late. Not doing great with water. Not even sleeping great, although I finally finished the last book of the Sookie Stackhouse series, so I'm not staying up late because of that. (I'm also now looking ...

Sun Run photos - hahahaha!!!!

Wed, 8 May 2013 00:07:49 EST

I just received these pictures from one of my best friend's little sister. (The best friend who wasn't pictured in the previous blog entry, in fact! So technically she's in this one!) They were watching the Sun Run a couple weekends ago, and I passed them during the race. I knew where they were going to be, so I knew to look for them and then yell and wave to get their attention in the sea of 54,000 runners. There was lots of excitement. These pictures say it all!

So he was in the hospital for three and a half days, a...

Oblogi-catchup

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:43:16 EST

Sorry folks, I totally missed last weekend's scheduled blog. Things are very "same ol' same ol'" around here. I weigh the exact same as I have since the beginning of February, which is probably good considering my (lack of) weight loss effort lately.

The running is going well: I'm up to 6k+ on my longest run and my feet are generally doing alright. I have some pain on the left foot but it's more prevalent going up and down stairs and wearing poor shoes than during or shortly after ...

Weekly oblogatory: all good.

Sun, 3 Mar 2013 01:52:57 EST

Heyyyyy it's the weekend, time to do a progress blog! A blogress post? The obligatory blog. The oblogatory.

This week was pretty good. Not 100%, because I had some stomach weirdness late in the week: perhaps I disagreed with something I ate - yes, me - or maybe it was a touch of a stomach bug... it lingered too long to be food poisoning unless it was something I ate a few times, I was starting to worry I'd developed an intolerance or something, I've heard it's possible to develop o...

Let's Try This Again! (Super-Awesome Giant Workout Calendar: Take Two.)

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 23:03:42 EST

So.... February was a bit weird for exercise.

It wasn't a total wreck, as I kept mostly up to my running schedule. We skipped two of the runs during the toned-back recovery week in order to catch up, but now we're on top of things again, and so far I'm feeling good. Which is, in itself, amazing and spectacular and makes me want to jump up and down in delight. I ran about 5k today (with 3-and-1 intervals) on wooded trails in a park not too far from my house. I remember going for ju...

All clear? All clear? Sneaking back into forward motion again...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:54:17 EST

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I haven't had any more of the bad heart episodes in a week and a half, so that's good. Hopefully they'll go away for another 12-16 months, or, you know, forever. That'd be swell. Bloodwork came back normal (although a bit low in iron), doc said not to change my lifestyle or cut back on exercise, and they're still setting up an appointment for me to go back to the cardiologist. So all good things.

I haven't done a great job at staying on t...

Headshake

Tue, 5 Feb 2013 23:40:49 EST

You know that head-shaking move a cartoon character will do after he gets punched in the face? Where he was reeling, seeing stars, then he shakes his head and his lips flop around loosely and after that he's back to normal? I think I'm almost there. Raspberry-lip-flapping sound and all, haha!

Thanks for all the supportive comments after that last post, my peeps! (OMG Mar/Rachele, that isn't where the chickens reference comes from, is it???!?!?! Hahahaha... I always thought it was b...

We regret to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming...

Tue, 5 Feb 2013 15:45:44 EST

We regret to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming...

...but we're just gonna throw some wicked crazy heart palpitations into your day. First thing Monday morning, when you're almost to work. Maybe you shouldn't have walked up those three sets of escalators, coming out of the subway, feeling all Spark-y and dedicated, even though you do it every day. Maybe that one sip of Max's coffee was too much caffeine. Sounds like it's just time for that crazy heart rhythm thing to po...

Further thoughts on the BodyMedia Fit & Spark integration

Sat, 2 Feb 2013 02:16:19 EST

I've been wearing my BodyMedia Lync for the last week, now that it's integrated with Spark. I mentioned my doubts about its calorie-burn-tracking accuracy already, but wanted to make a quick in-progress update.

I wore the armband all week, all the time (except bathing and during my yoga class today). Two days I wore it on my calf at work, which I know is less accurate, but I don't want it on display in my workplace - too much to explain to too many people who wouldn't understand. T...

Giant workout calendar!!!!

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:34:41 EST

Thar she blows!!!! Do you like that I have covered up the company branding on the freebie calendar with pieces of an old half marathon cheering-squad poster? Ardith, do you recognize it? Yes, I kept it. Yes, it moved with me! Sorry I cut it up, but it's on display, repurposed, now!

I have filled in January (what I did) and Feburary (what I plan to do). Here's Feb, colour coded of course:

Viagra for Weight Loss!!!!

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:42:06 EST

Hahah!!! I almost forgot to post this!

It gets its own blog, it's so bizarre and hilarious.

www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/v
iagra-as-diet-pill.html?smid=re-share&
_r=1&

Viagra apparently converts white fat cells (bad ones) into brown fat cells (which are used as energy).

Right-o. 337

BodyMedia Fit versus SparkPeople... and a really big calendar.

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:37:16 EST

I'm sure you've all seen the banner ads for the BodyMedia Fit armband around the SparkPeople website lately. You know, "as seen on The Biggest Loser".

I bought one last May, but didn't use it a whole lot after the novelty wore off. It was a pain tracking food in Spark and transferring the calorie intake to the BodyMedia website, and it didn't take me long to realize that the BodyMedia armband was counting WAY more calories burned than SparkPeople ever did.

Here's my firs...

Banana Bran Muffins

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 18:27:00 EST

Due to popular demand, here's the recipe I mentioned in my last blog. The recipe lends it self nicely to modification, so feel free to play with it - mine are slightly different every time but equally tasty. The recipe used to be a super low-cal recipe that I've padded a bit, but I'll note what to do to keep them as low cal as possible.

BANANA BRAN MUFFINS
Makes 12 large or 18 small

Prehe...

Lightbulb!

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 12:45:58 EST

I had one of those "duh...." knock-yourself-on-the-side-of-the-forehead lightbulb revelations last night.
189
I've been feeling like crap lately.

I've been eating too much crap lately, not drinking enough water, and not getting enough sleep. It's been easy to tell myself that I'd been eating MOSTLY healthy foods, so it can't be my diet that's bothering me, ignoring the slice of cake and the mini candy bar. It's so simple to justify that since lots of people g...

A photo reminder

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:27:19 EST

Here's a photo of me taken this weekend, during the annual potluck dinner we hosted. It's not the most flattering, and I almost deleted it off the camera, but wanted to post it along with another.

In contrast, this photo is one that, during the same dinner, my old roommate mentioned seeing on Facebook back in the summer. He commented on how good I looked, and how much weight it appeared I'd lost. (He kin...

Movin' on up

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:34:06 EST

Movin' on up....up the scale, that is. I'm up a pound and a half. What the heck? I've been tracking! Not doing great, but tracking. Must be that time of the month. Plus lack of water. Haven't done great with that goal. To recap (yes this is going to be a snoozer of a blog post):

Goals from last blog:
-Drink water at work, plus at least one glass before breakfast - better, but not great. I have a morning glass, and I do have a waterbottle at work... but I'm not back to my 8 gla...

Baby steps...

Sun, 6 Jan 2013 19:34:09 EST

My first three days back at work went pretty well. I got a lot of hugs from coworkers, and gave a lot of vague answers as to "how was your trip?" ("Hot!" "Long!" "Crazy!" "Really great!" "An adventure!") It's great to see everybody, but I'm not back into my routine just yet. I'm trying to be good about packing snacks and bringing my water bottle... but I'm doing a lot more thinking about my healthy habits than I am actually doing them.

As for this weekend... it's been pretty much a...

A new page, a new era, a new adventure... here we go again. (An epic, I'm sorry!)

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 01:25:11 EST

Hello everybody!!!

I'm baaaack! We returned from our 7 weeks in South East Asia five days ago, and it's been a blur of holiday visiting since then. I've seen lots of family, but none of my friends yet, as they're mostly out of town doing their own holiday things. And there's the fact that we live in the suburbs now. That's going to be a big change in my lifestyle. I've some angst-ing to do. This is going to be a long one, folks. Feel free to fast-forward to the photos.

T...

Oh, forget it. I'm just too busy right now.

Tue, 2 Oct 2012 01:46:26 EST

Sorry, my lovelies, I hate to do this... but I'm just so busy right now that I can't seem to stay in touch. There was the wedding, then the mini-moon, then house-hunting, now packing and moving, and then we're heading to southeast Asia for two months! I just can't kid myself and keep intending to be a faithful Sparker when I'm such a MIA mess.

However, now that I've confessed, I will promise to be back in January, once I'm all settled into my new house, the trip is over, the holida...

I'm married, and I'm back!

Sun, 2 Sep 2012 00:47:37 EST

Woo hoo!

I've been a married woman officially for a week now. The wedding was beautiful. It was perfect. I don't have many photos yet, just one set from a friend plus some fuzzy ones saved from Facebook, but here's the day, summed up in photos:

...

Catching up... busy busy busy!

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:01:54 EST

It's now 26 days til my wedding, and the to-do's are coming fast and furious. So far, though, everything's been going alright. We had a minor hiccup with finding my wedding band - it's perfect now - and I'm still struggling to find the right undergarments for my dress (what do you mean there's no such thing as a strapless push-up bra that isn't full of giant fake foam boobage?) but beyond that, we're doing alright. Tux fittings, dress fittings, bridesmaid couture, rehearsal dinner reservation...

Updates post-paleo

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 15:44:48 EST

Sorry - this is quick. I actually posted this on Mar's sparkpage and then decided it would be better as a blog post! Sorry for the lack of blogging & updating... I've been working late every day after spending last weekend doing nothing feeling sick, and I just haven't had a break.

I am feeling better, finally - as of Monday, it was like somebody flipped a switch. Two weeks of paleo, and two weeks of feeling crummy... but I really don't think they're connected, just a big coinciden...

Picnic (paleo!)

Sat, 7 Jul 2012 00:40:53 EST

I decided to surprise Max with a picnic down on the water tonight. I popped over to Whole Foods and picked up some "decadent" items including candied salmon, a half a baby wheel of brie, some olives, and a few (four!) bars of various very dark exotic chocolates. I quickly cooked up (and cooled!) some chicken thighs, chopped them, and mixed them with mayo, greek yogurt, and curry powder, for a quick and easy curried chicken salad, which would go into lettuce leaves for DIY wraps. I mooshed an ...

Daily o'blog'itory and discussions on a Finish Line

Mon, 2 Jul 2012 21:34:27 EST

Sorry if this is blog overload. I haven't seen many comments, which likely means I've bored my usual SparkFriend-readers into a stupor. However, I've been doing a bit of thinking and am feeling pretty motivated. I wanted to do some planning ahead for this week, too. (Hooray for a 4-day workweek!)

I caught myself just now, looking at my SparkPage, and seeing the little fishie on my tracker swimming pretty close to the end. I'm in the last quarter of the tracker! That's awesome right...

Grain- and sugar-free carrot cake cupcakes... unreal!!!!

Sun, 1 Jul 2012 21:04:42 EST

Alright world.

I am LOVING this paleo thing.

You get to eat delicious things. You listen to your body's hunger signals. The paleo bloggers actually discourage calorie counting! You're not hungry all the time. In fact, I'm rarely hungry at all - I eat as soon as I notice I'm starting to get hungry simply because it's usually been so LONG since I last ate! And you get to eat delicious things. Did I mention that part? How freeing! How yummy!

Case. In. Point.
...

Week one of the two-week paleo trial: progress report!

Sun, 1 Jul 2012 01:01:21 EST

Alright! One week down!

I haven't been 100% strict with the paleo thing, but I think I'm doing pretty well. So I had a half a raspberry beer with dinner... yeah, well, it's a long weekend and I wanted to try it. And this morning I had a slice of sprouted-grain toast because my stomach was kind of unsettled from the high-fat rich breakfast I'd had after waiting too long and getting too hungry. (This one:)

...

Fatty-fat-fat!

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 01:07:23 EST

Whoa!!!!!!!!

Okay, so this paleo eating thing is pretty cool. I still haven't done enough of my homework but I'm following what guidance I've gotten. I'm keeping dairy in, but avoiding sugar and grains like the plague.

I turned down a home-baked banana chocolate chip muffin today! My colleague brought them in, bless his heart, his girlfriend made them and it was his first "gift" food-sharing with the office. (It's a bunch of ravenous vultures in my group, I swear... so f...

Pay-lee-ohhhhhhhhh!

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 19:38:42 EST

Alright, so after much musing, I'm giving a loose version of a paleo/primal diet a shot. I'm not great at "all-or-nothing", but we'll see how close I can get. I'm including dairy and sweet potatoes, which I know are questionable (or at least a personal decision) according to paleo.

For those of you just tuning in, here's primal/paleo:
paleodietlifestyle.com/paleo-101/
cavemanstrong.com/food/paleo/
www.marksdailyapple.com/defin...

Cruising or buckling down?

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:03:07 EST

I feel like every time I blog (excepting my most recent entry, that is) I'm talking about how I'm going to buckle down and work harder. How I'm going to cut out sugar, eat more protein, drink more water, lift heavier weights.

But you know what?

I'm TIRED.

So instead of fighting and flailing and rehashing how I'm going to buckle down, I'm just going to cruise for a bit. Keep up the strength training when I am feeling peppy, keep eating the way I ought to, and d...

DRESS PICTURES!!!!!!!!

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 01:19:55 EST

It was dress fitting day today. First one.

Is that meeeeeeeeee????!!

Here's the back - they have to take it in because there's not enough of the laces showing and they're worried I'll lose more weight before the wedding... here's hoping!

Forgive the fuzzy look on my face, I'm just trying to hold still while she sque...

My Wall-o-Motivation

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 20:28:26 EST

I fully intend to come write a proper blog post today! It's finally Friday - it's been a busy week. As you can probably guess, since my last blog post was Sunday. I've been semi-sparking, semi-slacking. A good mix.

I wanted to post this picture in response to Grace's blog (posted a moment ago). She has her Certificate of Awesomeness (there are new my little ponies?!? Where have I been?) and her race finisher's medal on the wall. I wanted to show everybody my "office" at the apartme...

Sometimes all you need is a nap.

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 19:48:41 EST

Alright, so technically I didn't nap this weekend away, but I did watch two movies and four hour-long episodes of Little Dorrit on netflix!

Friday I felt awful, like I was fighting a bug. Hot, cold, hot, cold, dizzy, bleh. Awful. I get tension headaches sometimes, and I could feel my neck getting tighter and tighter. I cancelled our fancy dinner out, because what's the point if I'm feeling like garbage? Saturday was much of the same. I'd wanted to go for a hike; Max and I managed ...

So fast it's point form

Thu, 7 Jun 2012 00:21:06 EST

- I said I'd go to bed at 9pm so I could catch up on sleep and it's 9:09pm now.

- I forgot to say that on Monday I got my Professional Engineer designation. So that's pretty cool. They are taking me out for lunch tomorrow, and Max and I are going out for a swanky dinner at a posh French restaurant on Saturday night. We've both gotten promotions this week (mine is just the automatic one that comes with the P.Eng.; his is pretty major) so we figured we deserved a chef's tasting menu ...

New plans, new plans.

Mon, 4 Jun 2012 01:38:01 EST

Alrighty.

So I haven't been feeling terribly inspired with my workouts lately. And after all that reading I posted about last week, I feel like I should be doing shorter high-intensity workouts to inspire fat-burning. The P90X videos are great, and they do the job, but only when I keep them up - which, when they take an hour to do and I've been working late, doesn't always happen. I just want to have a little more fun. Flexibility doesn't hurt either!

Inspired by Grace's...

BodyMedia Link... still undecided.

Fri, 1 Jun 2012 00:49:34 EST

I just posted this on Rachele's page but thought I'd share because she wasn't the only one who'd asked what I thought about my new BodyMedia Link armband.

I still haven't decided if it's worth it or not. It's a fun toy, absolutely! I'm not sure it's really giving me an edge beyond tracking on Spark, though. I still have to track all my food, it just saves me from tracking exercise (which really isn't that tough to do). It has lots of fun graphs and pictures and real-time updates so...

Tuesday (yawwwwn) quick post before bed

Wed, 30 May 2012 01:21:40 EST

Good evening my chickens! (Yay Rachele is back - that phrase will never belong to anybody but you, haha!)

I had a really exhausted and exhausting day today. I slept poorly last night (and yes - my BodyMedia armband tracked how awful it was!) I was barely able to drag myself out of bed. I had a coffee after breakfast. Caffeinated. Not terribly unusual, but not something I do every day. Maybe once or twice a week. Doesn't typically phase me. However when I'm really really tired (and ...

Monday quickie

Tue, 29 May 2012 01:14:50 EST

It's 10pm and I'm heading to bed momentarily. (Don't most of my blogs mention how I ought to be sleeping? Hmm... that's not exactly a subtle hint, is it?)

My massage was great, and the headache I'd had all day was rubbed away. (Definitely a tension headache, she said!) I finished the invitation labels at lunchtime, so I'll take them to the post office tomorrow at lunch instead. I also ate a lot. I was good during the day, but was feeling so dreamy and space-cadet-y and had been sur...

Weekend round-up

Mon, 28 May 2012 01:40:26 EST

Things I said I'd do this weekend:
REEEEEEEEEELAX - done.
Blog - here I am.
Bake - made banana bran flax molasses choc-chip raisin walnut muffins (seriously, they're to die for... and only 130 calories!)
Read - done, I'm powering through Three Cups of Tea.
Kitty-snuggle (cutest term ever, thanks Amanda!) - a little, when she wasn't driving me nuts.
Flip through recent food magazine - done. A few yummy recipes in there.
Finish wedding invitations - mostly don...

Silly me...

Sat, 26 May 2012 02:42:53 EST

Thank you Noga, for reminding me of the big picture. You're absolutely right - what was I thinking? This is not just about a wedding dress. This is about lifelong goals and sustainable healthy lifestyle.

And Amanda, although I sometimes (usually!) have to remind myself, you're right too - I AM one of those "normal weight" people. While I don't have quite the physique I'm after (yet), my BMI falls below the cut-off at 24.3 - technically "normal" weight. And yeah, as much as I whine ...

Dough-girl

Fri, 25 May 2012 01:00:43 EST

I seem to swing from really happy with the way my body's changing to entirely frustrated and unsatisfied with my lack of progress. Just today, I had a moment looking at my legs and hips in my black stretchy dress pants and thought how slim I looked, how I really look like a "normal", not-overweight person. Then the opposite: after taking some progress photos of my back musculature - I swear it's there somewhere under all that dough - I was almost too disappointed to post them. Maybe they just...

Another body fat calculator...

Thu, 24 May 2012 01:27:25 EST

A-ha! This one says I'm 22.9%! Loooooove it.
www.ivannikolov.com/msns/calculators
/bodyfat-calculators.php

Heading to bed, no time for a real blog.

It was a yucky day for food today. My boss and one of my project managers took me out for lunch in "thanks" for all my hard work over the past few weeks, that was nice! I got a creamy carby lobster gnocchi dish because I'd been to the dentist in the morning and couldn't eat anything crunchy or chewy (n...

Fat loss isn't the same as weight loss: how I'm considering changing my plan... and some surprisin

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:58:29 EST

World's longest blog title. I don't even know if that whole thing will post! Probably not. It said:

"Fat loss isn't the same as weight loss: how I'm considering changing my plan... and some surprising calorie burn stats from my new toy!"

I came across some links online and watched a few videos. These ones happen to be from a trainer / diet program company called Metabolic Effect, which seems to have really random locations around the world (a bunch in Central America, on...

Long weekend, new toy!

Mon, 21 May 2012 02:09:38 EST

Hooray! It's a long weekend and I'm finally starting to wind down from two weeks of STRESS. I haven't been sleeping well and I notice my resting heart rate seems high, but I assume both of those will settle down on their own. I'm doing lots of stress-reducing, favourite happy-activities this weekend (hiking, resting, baking, seeing friends, exercising, etc.) so that will help!

I mentioned last week that I ordered a Bodymedia Fit "Link" online. There used to be a SparkPeople discoun...

Super quickie!

Fri, 18 May 2012 01:11:24 EST

A super brief quickie post!

(What? Brief? Who are you and what have you done with our blogger Monica?!?!!)

(I know. Har har.)

Work is still busy. One proposal went out, now I have two Expressions of Interest and another HUGE mammoth proposal to polish up and get out the door tomorrow. Pressure much? Uhhh yeah.

The scale was down this morning. 155.6 lbs. Yeah! Come on, I want the lower half of this "decade"! I want to see a 154!!! It probably helped...

Woo! Back at it! (And a minor stress vent - sorry!)

Wed, 16 May 2012 01:07:56 EST

The past week and a half was a whirlwind of stress. I don't know why I let myself get so frazzled over work, but it's hard not to when big jobs are put on my plate, and other people keep hoping I can help take on just a little bit more when they are overloaded - not realizing I am too!

It has a happy ending though - the exam for my earthquake engineering and seismicity class is over, and I'm making progress on the other stressors. AAAAAAAAAAAmen. The exam was ugly. I hope I passed....

Days 21, 22, 23, 24...uhhh... most of week 4, I guess.

Fri, 4 May 2012 00:43:22 EST

Sorry to roll four days into one blog, it's probably a snoozer this time. 20 I've been busy. Another proposal got dropped on my desk at work and it's due in only two weeks (not long to do all the cat-herding I have to do to get one of these to come together!) I had class today, and the exam in a week and a half is still looming over my head. The instructor for that course happened to be there, and I bugged him about providing a practice exam, which will make things easier for me (...

MONICA_W's SparkPeople Blog