Pretty sure I went over my calories tonight....

I didn't mean to, but I think I did. By maybe a hundred calories or two. Nothing too terrible, but it's 10:00 and I haven't exercised yet.

We went to Over the Tapas for dinner and split an entree and two sides. Well, we split one side, I ate one side, and Leif ate the entree (the teeny tiny entree!). He wasn't a big fan of the creamy potatoes, which I love, but I was expecting to eat only half of them when I ordered them. Instead I ended up eating a whole bowl of the cream laden potatoes, which is where a lot of my calories for the night went. Ack! I went into dinner having 900 calories or so to spare, and I guess it wasn't enough! Sigh. But it's okay. We had a GREAT night out and I got some MUFA in with my dinner. (Have I posted on MUFA yet? If not, that sentence probably sounded naughtier than it was intended, LOL!) If I haven't written a MUFA post yet, I will. I'm giving it a try. But that's beside the point.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try to get some extra exercise in. If I get myself organized I can put Ellie in the stroller and walk over to Bible study. That will be something, at least.

Oh, we did walk around downtown (we parked at Over the Tapas, ate, then walked down to T. Charbonneau's and back the other direction to the Co-op, then back to our car, so however far that is...) so I think that should count as exercise for the evening. =D Maybe I'll still do some DDR if Leif will play with me, but we're both pretty beat, so I don't know. And it IS 10:30 at night already... maybe I'll just go to bed.

Date Night

Tonight we are going out on a date. I don't know where we're going, so it's hard to plan my calories. But I will be in town for a good portion of the morning and early afternoon, so I'm hoping that will make it easier for me to conserve calories. But I'm going to pack myself a bento and take it with me so I don't have to eat while I'm in town and that should help.

The hard part may be getting exercise (that doesn't use my already sore muscles!!) in today, but I'm going to do my best!

Oh, and I'm down a lb today! Hooooray!! 121 it is!

Wiiiiii!

I did housework pretty much ALL day today. I don't know if that counts as exercise or not, but I'm sure I burned more calories than sitting on my bum all day! We had a girls' night tonight, so I saved up my dinner calories and decided to eat dinner there. Because 3 of the 4 of us are working on losing weight (before our 30th, 40th, and 50th birthdays this year!) most of the food was healthy. That made it a little easier tonight! It also was good that I went into the evening with about 650 calories to spare... =D

Because I hadn't done any real exercise today and I didn't think I'd have the energy to once I got home (you know how it goes...) I decided to head downstairs and play some DDR on the Wii quickly to see how many calories I could knock out in the 25 or so minutes I had to spare before I needed to leave. I got about 215 burned, which meant I only had to burn 150 when I came home. Hooray! When I got home Leif was in the hot tub, so I changed and joined him for a bit, relaxing in the warm water and talking. Then he suggested we go play DDR, so I took the opportunity to burn those last calories of the day and maintain my goal. Little did I know that we would have so much fun and play for so long.... I ended up burning a total of 550 calories playing DDR today!!

Hopefully that will encourage the scale to move!!

Fleeting moderation

I'm struggling with moderation today. Just a little here and a little there... but it all eats up calories!! I'm going to a girls' night tonight, so I might just skip dinner until I get there. I don't remember if we're having real dinner food or not, but there will be calories there for sure! I'm bringing yummy hot chocolate fixins, and I'd hate not to be able to enjoy them just because I couldn't resist eating a handful of sprinkles earlier in the day!

So... I've got 2 hours to get through without indulging before I go tonight. I need help!

(and really, I should be exercising for a good portion of one of those hours!)

Treadmill time...

Just walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes and burned 365 calories. I've got just under 300 calories left to consume today. And right now? I'm pretty tired... I think I'll make some Christmas cards, drink some hot chocolate, watch a show, clean the kitchen, then go to bed and actually get 8 hours of sleep. It'll be good.

Rethinking the numbers....

Given the new goal of 7 lbs in 6 weeks, it occurs to me that I might need to rethink my numbers. So here it goes...

7 lbs = 24500 calories
24500/6 = 4083 calories per week
4083/7 = 583 calories per day
I will burn 350 calories through exercise each day.
583-350 = 233 calories less to eat
I burn 1600 calories a day just by living my sedentary lifestyle.
1600 - 233 = 1367 calories I need to consume per day.

Interestingly, 1350 calories is my basal metabolic rate, which sort of makes sense. So.... I think I will aim to keep doing the exercise and just eat a little more to keep my body going and still lose at the rate that I want to. According to the numbers, it should still work. =D

So... does the reverse math work?
1600+350 = 1950 calories burned in a day
1950-1350 = 600 calories lost each day
I need to lose 583 calories per day to lose the weight by my goal, so yes, it works! Hooray! I love it when math works.

So the new goal is to lose 7 lbs in 6 weeks by exercising to burn 350 calories a day and consuming 1350 calories. That sound MUCH better!

It has started...

Last night after I wrote out my new goal I decided that it had to start THEN, not sometime in the future. So... I got up and exercised!! I burned 400 calories playing DDR on the Wii for 40 minutes. It is really quite a good way to get some exercise in!

I've been counting calories for a few days now and starting to exercise, so I decided to weigh myself this morning... and I'm at 122! I know it could be standard weight fluctuation, but it's still encouraging to see myself down 2 lbs.... it makes my holiday goal a little more manageable! Now I need to lose 7 lbs in 6 weeks!