Girl Power Country List Part 2

You can catch this and Girl Power Country Playlist Part 1 here on Spotify.

Rededication

So remember a few years ago when I wrote about the struggle of maintaining momentum? Well a year long hiatus did me absolutely no favors and so I'm rededicating myself to the task at hand. I know hte month is already half over so I'm setting simple January goals.


January Goals:

Less than 100 g of Sugar/day
10,000 Steps/day
2x Strength Training/week
500 Calorie deficit/day

Balance in the Body & Water Retention

Lately I have learned the hard way about the proper electrolyte, digestive, and cardiovascular balance, more specifically, the balance between Potassium and Sodium. We have all heard that high Sodium (Salt) levels leads to high blood pressure and an increased chance of  a heart issue. However, I have learned this is only one part of the whole. If your Potassium levels are low even if your Sodium levels are not very high you could still be doing yourself an incredible disservice. Potassium works to remove Sodium from the body through a balance in the digestive tract. Additionally, if your blood pressure is already high you could talk with your doctor about increasing your Potassium intake instead of taking a beta-blocker (like Metoprolol) that ultimately increases the Potassium in the bloodstream but sometimes comes with other side effects.

However, don't make huge diet changes without consulting your doctor. I made the mistake of increasing my Potassium intake to the daily recommended 3,500mg a day but was met with a few unpleasant surprises. It upset my stomach and I felt very ill and dizzy. As it turns because of the Metoprolol I take for my heart condition I was already getting enough Potassium and the extra was actually doing me physical harm.

You may be wondering why you should care about this beyond making sure your sodium levels aren't hurting your heart. The answer is simple - water retention. My whole purpose in finding balance was to help reduce the water retention I had been fighting since I've been chronically dehydrating myself for as long as I can remember. My weight would fluctuate as much as 6 pounds in a day primarily due to water retention and it was getting difficult gauging my weight-loss progress without addressing the issue. I noticed some improvement after drinking 80 oz a day over two weeks but I found I was still retaining water and so I did the scary thing - I googled it. I was reading that Potassium levels if they don't balance with your Sodium levels could be yet another reason beyond dehydration that you could be retaining water. It proved to be accurate. I find I'm carrying considerably less extra water around my middle.

If you've spoken with your doctor and it's safe for you to increase your Potassium the following are some excellent solutions: Campbell's Homestyle Healthy Request Chicken Noodle Soup - 1 can (2 servings in a can) is 200 calories but it has a whopping 1,780mg of Potassium. Even if you haven't talked to a doctor but you slowly want to increase you intake this might be an easy place to start. If you're looking for jam-packed raw veggies and fruits as the solution the best is beet greens - 1 cup is 1,309mg. Baked potatoes are another good choice but the calorie content without a large quantity in other healthy bits might make it a less attractive choice. 1 cup of Canteloupe and a medium Banana have the same Potassium content at about 358. Be careful with adding lots of greens all at once to your diet if you don't already eat them - it made me feel really sick.

Sources:
LIVESTRONG The Effects of Potassium on Water Retention
Natural News Balance Sodium with Potassium for Good Health
LIVESTRONG The Relationship Between Potassium and Sodium
LIVESTRONG Metoprolol & Potassium Chloride

Coming Back to FitBit

At this point in my life I have used quite a number of fitness wearables. I have owned a Fitbit One, Jawbone Up24, Basis B1, Basis Peak, and a Fitbit Charge HR. I've never owned any of the Garmin, Microsoft, or Shine products but I have never really been interested in those. 

I was left woefully unimpressed with Jawbone's platform - it was buggy and often the device would just stop syncing and the lack of a web dashboard (all the data lives on a mobile app) and the fact that because it's not popular there wasn't much of the way in friendly competition (since you can't friend someone you don't know) there wasn't much in the way of motivation. Additionally, there's not a read out display on any of their models so no matter what you are chained to the mobile app for everything. There was some 3rd party integration but it was a little buggy so if you like to participation in fitness rewards/games apps or sites it doesn't always play well.

Basis offers a solid dashboard and all their models collect a wide variety of bio metrics outside the norm. They track Skin Temperature, Perspiration and all their models track heart rate which is how it accurately determines caloric burn rather than basing it off steps, height, and weight like trackers generally do. The graphs provided are insightful and great for a person who really is in to data crunching. There are a few drawbacks though. The platform offers no socialization which means it doesn't have a competitive edge if that is what motivates you to do better and there isn't a way to track caloric intake. You can sync your data to Google Fit and then have that provide information to MyFitnessPal but overall the connection wasn't seamless. This is still wonderful device and if I wasn't competitive and was looking more to gain muscle than lose weight the drawbacks wouldn't bother me. This is better suited for a person who is already in a good place with their health and weight. This app has no 3rd party integration outside of what can connect through Google Fit which is very little. If you like to participate in 3rd party fitness rewards or games this will leave you completely disconnected.

My very first tracker was a Fitbit One that I was given for Christmas and it was the very best gift I had ever received until I got my newest tracker from Fitbit the Charge HR. My heart condition must be continually monitored so as much as I loved my Fitbit One I had to look to other trackers to have the data I needed. I love the platform, I love the competitive aspect as well as the social aspect. It motivates me in a way that none of the others have and now that they have a heart rate feature included I'm beyond happy to be back on this wonderful platform. Almost every fitness rewards or game app/site connects with Fitbit, it is probably the most universally accepted wearable and its popularity means that most of your friends are probably on it and if not you can make fittie friends over the community board to compete against if competition is more your deal. I only have 2 minor complaints with the dashboard. I dislike that when you're using the mobile app and you choose to "track your exercise" the pop up that comes up only shows average pace and time - it would be more beneficial if it showed current heart rate. However, to get around this you can choose to have it auto detect for a specific type of exercise and still see the current heart rate on the main dashboard of the app. The other thing I don't love is the limited food library, but this is easy to fix by syncing with MyFitnessPal instead whose library is massive.

Tuesday Class Pilates and Arm Dumbbells Workout

Update for the whole day:
Total Calorie Burn: 2,298
Total Calorie Intake: 1,495
Total Calorie Deficit: 803
Notes: If every day was like today I'd weigh 132.1 in 5 weeks, per MyFitnessPal

Other Stats:
Resting Heart Rate: 68
Active Minutes: 48
Longest Idle Time: 0:30
Total Time Sleeping: 6:19
Steps:16,300
Weight:168.2
Fat Percent: 28%
Water Percent: 44%
BMI: 24
Total Cholesterol Intake: 255
Total Sodium Intake: 2,090
Total Fiber Intake: 9
Total Sugar Intake:73
% Calories Carbs: 47
% Calories Fat: 15
% Calories Protein: 38

Monday Classes - Yoga & Zumba

Okay, so I burned 20 less calories this Monday than I did last Monday. I think I might starting leg weights on this day as I'm not usually fatigued following this round of classes and I never made it to that "happy burn".

Update for the whole day:
Total Calorie Burn: 2,256
Total Calorie Intake: 1,245
Total Calorie Deficit: 1,011, equivalent to 28% of a pound.
Notes: If I keep up this calorie deficit through Monday morning next week (1,011x7)/3500 I could lose about 2 lbs.

Other Stats:
Resting Heart Rate: 68 BPM
Active Minutes: 1:23
Longest Idle Time: 1:03
Total Time Sleeping: 8:34
Steps: 12,406
Weight: 138.2
Fat Percent: 28%
Water Percent: 44%
BMI: 24
Total Cholesterol Intake: 155 grams
Total Sodium Intake: 1,220 grams
Total Fiber Intake: 7 grams
Total Sugar Intake: 88 grams
% Calories Carbs: 54%
% Calories Fat: 11%
% Calories Protein: 35%

Correcting Swayback

Since going to my personal training the Sunday before last I did my own catalog of postural issues that may or have come up while training.

It is possible to have such weak glutes and abs that your tilt your pelvis forward and push your butt out. Today I attempted to walk and sit properly, meaning that my stomach was stacked directly above my butt and the sensation was so foreign it felt like I was going to fall backwards and I could barely hold the position for more than a few minutes at a time! Talk about being super weak! This could explain why so many things related to balance and upper body strength and I am even lower than a novice.  It was a humbling experience to be sure.

After doing some extensive research I found a few websites that offered some exercise suggestions to help correct Swayback. Pilates and Yoga has proven to be a recurring theme.

Websites

1. IDEA Corrective Exercises: Swayback Posture
2. LiveStrong Swayback Posture Exercises
3. ePain Assist Lumbar Lordosis or Lumbar Swayback: 5 Simple Corrective Exercises, Tips For Prevention
4. YogaBack A Holistic Approach to Correcting a Sway Back Standing Posture