More Fitbit: Progress Keeps You Motivated

We all have our sluggish days.  Mine was this morning.  Bailey (my doggie with cancer) woke me up 3 times last night to go potty outside. This made me wake up later this morning.  I'm a creature of habit and like starting the workout videos at 7:35am.  That was not going to happen today.

The only thing that was really going to give me a push this morning was to see some progress on the scale.  I didn't weight myself yesterday.

And...woohoo!!!  ONE full pound down from 2 days ago.

That got me putting on my workout clothes in record time!

So, yes, it's later than usual, but my sweat session is done.  And the chart above?  That's a snippet of a screen shot of my weight loss progress over the last 6 days.  I like the healthy, gradual, but consistent, loss on this chart.  That's what I'm aiming for.  Sorry, no numbers for you!  I can't post everything.

What does this tell me?  First, not to expect these kinds of results--3.6 pounds in 6 days--to happen consistently, because we all know that it usually gets harder the closer we get to our goal.  That's the negative, or realistic, thing.

But what it really tells me is that our bodies are willing to work with us if we work with them.  I've been working with mine lately, especially with the way I've been eating the last few weeks.  It isn't just about quantity of food, but the quality.  I'm a little thick.  I should know this by now, right? 

I'm still plugging through the Jillian Michael's book on metabolism.  It's a little wordy, but it does give some insight on real food vs. diet food.  She listed a day of meals that she used to eat.  Ugh.

Diet Coke and power bar for breakfast.

Diet Coke, white bread, a few slices of lunch meat for lunch.

Diet Coke for a snack.

Diet Coke, non-organic chicken, non-organic veggies for dinner.

Yuck.  Who knows what the sizes are on those Diet Cokes?

**People who eat lots of diet foods are more likely to gain weight.  Your body doesn't know how to interpret the diet foods and stays hungry, making you want to eat more. (From the book.)

Then she listed the ingredients in the power bar.  Most of them were unpronounceable.

Now, in the health section of Fred Meyer, where I do most of my grocery shopping, you are still forced to make choices.  I've bought coconut oil there, and olive oil. Good choices.  My Vitamin Water, which still has a few questionable ingredients, is there.  A medium choice. 

But there are other things there that I would never eat, like tons of protein bar/power bar choices.  I've never found them to be very filling, or tasty!  (Cardboard, anyone?)  And there are lots of canned soups, cookies, cereals and pastas.  We do keep some cookies in the house, first the Back to Nature Fudge Mints and now the Newman-O's Mint Sandwich cookies.  I dip into them sparingly.  Maybe 2 cookies a day.  And the calories get logged.

Speaking of cookies, I looked at the calories on 1 cookie at Quiznos the other day--350 calories.  My breakfast this morning didn't even add to that. Yikes. 

I got off of my original topic, which is staying motivated.  This morning's scale results really did that for me, and it was motivation that I needed at the time.

What I'm also hoping with the Fitbit is that I don't see plateaus as I continue.  And if I do, I'm hoping they don't last for 2 weeks like the one a while ago.  Because I can now see calories in vs. calories out, there is no reason why that should happen.

Visual break!  Here's my "dashboard" this morning: (Click on it to see it full-sized)

As I'm still learning, I added some features to my dashboard today.  The steps, distance, and activity are all new to what I immediately see when I go there.  Again, I'm not worried about the "red zone" on calories, because with my -1000 calorie deficit in the food plan I've selected, I just have to burn more during the day.  And I always do.

This morning's breakfast was 1 yolk/2 whites of an egg, an apple, and a banana.  My body feels clean and happy.  A little better than a Diet Coke and a Power Bar, right?

OK, off I go.  It's a beautiful day today.  Time to get burning.