Finally Getting Fit

It’s a brand new month as of some days ago, and I realized that I haven’t done a monthly goals post in quite a while. I don’t know how many months it has been, but it seems like a few at least.

I bet you can guess what I have decided to do.

I am quite proud for having made it twelve days straight without skipping a single day of exercise and I did not skip a single rep of exercise. Day thirteen saw me with a fairly nasty shoulder/neck strain that took hot baths, pain pills and multiple massages to get out, but that’s just the name of the game.

Mr. JM and I are currently shopping around for some proper office chairs so that sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Setting my back and hips right with exercise and then sitting in a chair that encourages me to slouch is not a good combination. Until we find a nice chair, it’s back to the exercise ball seating for me.

I will confess that part of my prompting for May goals is that I have a doctor’s appointment next week and I’m a bit freaked out. I haven’t lost any weight and the doc is a bit… intense. I know I’ve had glandular fever, stress and all that stuff since the last appointment, but I would at least like to show her that I have some good habits in place.

On to the goals, which I have written on a notecard that is propped against my monitor right now…

1. Keep a food diary. This slipped off when I got glandular fever and could barely keep my eyes open when doing nothing.

2. Drink at least two litres of water per day. I always have trouble with sticking to drinking, but at least now I have a one litre bottle which will make things easier.

3. Weigh in daily. I’m just doing this for right now to keep myself on the right track.

4. (Continue to) Exercise daily. I had a few days off with the anniversary getaway, but I still got a bit of exercise in, so I don’t feel they’re lost days. Plus, my shoulder and neck probably needed the time off anyway.

There they are. Simple, yet the foundation for wonderful things to come.

What are your goals for this month?

I was reading the diary of a friend who had weight loss surgery (please do not let that fact colour your view of the rest of this post) and she mentioned something I hadn’t heard of before – water loading.

We all know that water is very important whether or not you are talking about weight loss.

I have read in a few places that you shouldn’t drink too much water while you’re eating because it washes food out of your stomach too fast, dilutes stomach acid, and keeps you from getting all the nutritional goodness you could be getting out of your food.

However, water loading proposes you don’t drink anything with your meal. For up to fifteen minutes before a meal, you can drink as much as you want. Then, after the meal, you don’t drink anything for ninety minutes.

Of course I decided to try it out.

I usually drink so much water before, during, and after a meal that my husband has made comments in the past. I always equated drinking a lot of water with meals with feeling full, so I always did it. However, I found something quite interesting when I tried water loading.
One day may perhaps be a fluke or have other reasoning, but I find the potential from the results rather interesting.

I tried out the stopping drinking fifteen minutes before my lunch today. I found that when I was eating, I definitely wanted to drink just as much as I usually do, but I resisted. I also found that I felt full faster with noticeably less.

Very interesting.

I’m going to continue on with the experiment and see if it helps with things.

Around November or December of last year, I began losing motivation with my dieting and exercise and needed to get my head back on track. I took the holidays off with the vow that the new year would bring a new me. I started off the year not with exercise but with a week of drinking more water.

I lost four pounds by drinking more water.

Anyone who has dieted, is dieting, or has anything to do with weight loss will tell you water is very important.

Did you know that a good amount of the time you think you are hungry, you are really thirsty? Talk about making a difference in how much you eat if you drank when you were truly thirsty.

The question is how much you are supposed to drink. Drinking too little or too much water can have bad consequences, so how do you know what’s safe?

The longstanding advice of eight to twelve ten ounce glasses OF WATER day won’t steer you wrong. If you’re like most of the world, you’re probably not getting this much, so the increase will be an improvement. You might have to urinate a bit more often, but that doesn’t last forever, I promise.

You might hear, however, that to calculate how much water you need, you have to divide your weight in pounds. The number you get is the number of ounces you should drink a day.

That sounds great in theory, but I for one cannot drink five 750ml bottles of water a day. It makes me feel ill.

So I take the middle of the road stance. Three 750ml bottles, which is more than the eight to twelve bottles and less than the weight in half calculation.

A good way to keep track of whether or not you’re drinking enough water is to keep an eye on the colour of your urine. Yep, check the potty. Lighter is better. The darker your urine, the more likely you are dehydrated.