Got a new phone on the 5th, a Galaxy s4. Made my old s2 look ancient and I thought it was a pretty nice phone. Anyways, it came pre loaded with Samsung's S Health app, and since my new years resolution was to make some sort of resolution within a week or two after the 1st in order to let all the celebrations etc.. die down, I decided to use the app and log my year with it. So far I haven't dieted or exercised, just recorded what I have eaten, and it counts my steps per day, and the couple times I have exercised I filled that in as well. (well one big change I guess... my 4-8 cups of coffee/tea a day have gone from 8 sugar packets each to a single sweet n low packet) Started at 245lbs and this morning was just under 230lbs so 15 lost so far just by being aware of what I consume. I figure that will taper off soon, and then I will start exercising to keep the loss going, and see where I get from there. My son is 4, so would like to get into good shape within the next couple of years so I can do more stuff with him. (sports, outdoors activities, etc...) How are you guys doing with your resolutions, and how are you going about them?
I'm doing ok. Need to work more on the diet a bit, but have been exercising pretty regularly. Over the last couple of years I've found a ton of exercise videos online and have them on the computer. It's been an ongoing resolution the last few years to ultimately get to the 'target bmi' that doctors say I should be at over the course of about 5 years. I have a graph in excel showing one line that shows that target, and then I plot out my weigh ins in another column of that graph that plots it in different colors to show me over time how far above or below that 'goal' I am. I also have another excel file (open office file actually) that outlines my workout schedules. Each week is divided in to three rows. First row outlines daily goal, second is a yes/no/rest pull down. Third is a row to take notes/diary type info/write down numbers of reps, notate why the day was a rest day, etc. Somedays are easier than others. I'm mainly doing workout videos or wii workout games. On the wii games, I'm using the "Just Dance" series mainly but sometimes switch it up to some other workout games that have high calories counts or are just fun. I need to download some more of the songs on to my just dance tapes someday otherwise it gets a little old doing the same song over and over in the just sweat routines. One time I did about an hour and a half of videos and at least one song repeated about 5 times! That gets old fast. I haven't got JD4 or JD 2014 yet but probably will before long. On the videos, I either run them in the roku through plex or if the main computer monitor if the format is something that doesn't work well with the plex server. I'm trying to do about 20-45 minutes of exercise in the morning and another 20-45 in the evenings. Some videos are longer than that, some a little shorter. I'm basically doing carido in morning and either hiit, interval training, or strength training (medicine ball, kettlebells, etc.) in the evening... I'm also just sometimes doing random stuff in morning if any of the videos are getting boring to me or I just want to change it up with something else... evenings are more structured. Some of the evening stuff is highly structured with 30, 60, or 90 day 'plans'. I'm sticking to the plans as much as I can unless I get bored with them. The reason I focus on workout videos or console workouts is because it's something I can do year round, and it doesn't rely on the weather or on "if I can find the time to get to a gym" because my living room IS my gym. It's very important to 'not beat yourself up' if things don't go as planned... because of that I'm happy if I get in a minimum of 3 workouts in a week, but the target goal is really to get in as many as I can, 2 a day, 5-6 days a week. Several years back I may have 'beat myself up' if I didn't meet targets, etc. However, life's too short to do that. Leading a happy, healthy life is something that includes removing negativity and so much self criticism that you lead to your own self-defeat. Here's a few tips if anyone has similar goals to mine: nice little video tools that may be useful if you wish to 'record' online stuff to play locally on plex, playon, etc: http://keepvid.com - allows you to convert many videos online to mp4 http://www.flvcd.com/ - allows you to do similar for some videos on some sites that keepvid doesn't work on. http://portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1408 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25105 http://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/fast-video-download-with-searc http://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/media-stealer/ http://download.cnet.com/Moyea-FLV-Editor-Lite/3000-2168_4-10912717.html - awesome flv editing tool. If you ever download several flvs and need to piece them back together later, this can usually do it. The 'free' version only lets you do 3 segments at a time, but that's ok since you can like piece together first three segments, segments 4-6, and segments 7-9, then do those three splices in to one long splice for 1-9, etc. http://freevideojoiner.com http://mp4joiner.org In bing, yahoo, and google, and youtube do video searches for 'long' over 20 minute video options. There's a lot of videos out there that are 'free' if you can find them and know where to look. I'm always amazed at how much new stuff is coming out on youtube, etc. Hasfit is simply awesome. Also dig through video stores, amazon for buying dvds at good prices, netflix and similar video rental places, etc. There are a lot of videos out there that are cheap. A few names/keywords to look for.: efit, bodyrock, beachbody, fit for duty, denise austin, cathe, exercise tv, biggest looser, be fit, get fit, fitness blender, hasfit, jane fonda, jari love, jillian, bob harper, jnl fusion, tony horton, jillian, jnl fusion, les mills, medicine ball, cario, yoga, tai chi, kettlebell, rushfit, supreme 90, spark people, powerstrike, tracy anderson, leslie sansone, youfit, live exercise, kettlebell, Another little tip - go to the grocery store, by some mint leaves. Put them in a jug of water in the fridge. As you pour out water, keep refilling the jug to the top. It makes an awesome drink that will help you want water instead of soda, cool-aid, or other sugary crap. It also lasts a long time if you don't crush up the leaves until several weeks in after the water starts not being as strong in flavor. Some folks say you should crush the leaves when you first put them in. I say don't do that if you want it to last a long time since the leaves sort of stay green and live on the water a bit for a while so you won't have to keep buying new ones as soon to replace the old ones if you don't crush them until absolutely necessary when the flavor needs the boost.
Well they had an update for the app a few weeks ago which lost all my history. I stopped using it at least for now, but the discipline seems to have stuck. 221lbs this morning for a total loss of 23lbs since jan. Played about 2hrs of basketball last night and felt great, was able to run the entire time and was still standing at the end.
