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

Tuesday Classes - Pilates & Body Works

This classes up to listed calorie burn was 710 and I burned 96% so I followed the appropriate amount of effort throughout the whole workout. Following pilates, my arms were ready to fall off from their sockets from holding out the pilates ring for so long. I busted my butt in the body works class afterwards, had to put the weights down every time after the first time that I had to put my arms straight out. Was just too fatigued. Overall I was proud of myself. I would definitely want to avoid doing any weights with my arms the day before.

Monday Classes - Yoga & Zumba

Today I did the Yoga and Zumba classes and hung out in the sauna for a bit after the fact. The up to calorie burn for these classes was 280 and 550. My calorie burn was 570.8 which is about 69% of the up to calorie burn listed for the class.

These is my short notes on the Yoga class. As a beginner I found many of the floor exercises very painful on my hands as they are not used to holding up my whole upper body and those are weak muscles for me. The instructor said over time it will grow to be more comfortable and that using a rolled over mat or soft towel where my hands are for downward facing dog should help a little in the mean time. I learned the trainer was right it is much easier to balance on the left side of my body than the right presumably because my posture on the right is a little off because of my feet. Doing the eagle pose was especially difficult so I look forward to working more in this class since there is a lot of room for growth. That might be why I didn't reach close to the up to calorie burn. Note that between 4:30 and 5:30 my heart rate stayed mostly around 90 but I did feel a lot of muscle working so I'm wondering how heart rate doing something besides cardio exactly looks like. Something to research a little later.

These are my short notes for the Zumba class. I had the same instructor as I had from Sunday morning and I found her class more enjoyable the 2nd time around since I was familiar with the music selections and routines as she seems to always use a specific routine for certain songs. I really tried to execute the moves sharply to get the most out of it since I knew my calorie burn from yoga would be less than ideal.

Following my 2 classes I spent 15 minutes in the sauna and I spoke with a girl who I had done Zumba with on Sunday and that evening about what kinds of weight machines were where and when the quietest hour was for me to look around without looking lost. Not that I really feel self-conscious about being a newb it's more that I want to be respected for my efforts and doing my due diligence. In any case while I was in the sauna my heart rate stayed consistently between 120 and 130. I sweat quite a bit but I never felt dizzy or nauseas. It was nice and soothing on my sore arms.

Sunday Classes - Body Works Plus Abs & Zumba

I took Body Works Plus Abs and Zumba classes at LA Fitness yesterday and while I didn't burn the up to amount of calories (990) I did burn 697.6.  Details below.

Now for my review on the classes. The Body Works Plus Abs class really pushed me and about half way through I needed to put down the weights because it felt like my arms had been sawed off. Obviously I am very weak in my arms and shoulders so I'm glad that I will be taking this classes a few times a week to help get stronger there. The Zumba class was very high energy but I didn't know a lot of the music chosen but when they did playa  song I knew it was infinitely more fun. Perhaps with regular attendance I will grow more accustomed to the music selections.

I had a complimentary personal training yesterday as well for one hour and overall these were the results. I have excellent posture on the my left side but poor posture on my right. My poor muscle groupings are my Shoulders, Triceps, Abdominals, and to a lesser degree my Lower Back. My range of motion is excellent overall. The trainer worked me around my heart rate zones from my watch and was cautious about over-doing it and providing encouragement on the exercises I was most weak with. I burned 285 calories over the hours I spent with them working my upper body. Overall I wish I could see a trainer at least once a week but it's beyond expensive.

Happy Morning Playlist

Click Here to get the playlist off Spotify

Hula Hoop - OMI

Love Myself - Hailee Steinfeld

Shut Up and Dance - Walk the Moon

Brave - Sara Bareilles

Feel So Close - Calvin Harris

All About that Bass - Meghan Trainor

The Lazy Song - Bruno Mars

Put Your Records On - Corrine Bailey

Cheerleader - OMI

Trick Yourself Into Drinking H20

Okay, so I can't be the only person in the world that struggles to drink the right amount of water every day and thus struggling to lose weight.

So I did some research on what a person can do to "trick" themselves into drinking more water and some of the tips I found made really good sense and those I will share with you know and will update in 2 weeks about weather the experiment was successful personally.

1. Make drinking water a part of your routine. If you have a well-established routine adding a glass of water will make you more likely to get to the almighty 64 oz. I will personally add drinking a glass of water to following brushing my teeth in the morning and evening, when I arrive at work, when I leave work, on my 2 breaks and on my lunch. Just on drinking a glass of water when I do something that I always do I have found a way to drink SEVEN glasses of water.

2. Carry a water bottle with you and mark it with time increments so that you drink that much by a certain hour. I don't know that this one would personally work for me but it might for someone who doesn't have routines in their day.

3. Set alerts on your phone to go along with your routines or time increment bottle to further establish the time ritual.

4. Make it a game, try using Habitica, you can this to help establish regular routines if you don't have them already, bonus, there's a social/competitive aspect if this appeals more to you. They also have an accompanying app, in the app store search for HabitRPG.

5. Try infused water if you just can't stand the taste of nothingness.

Re-Committing to Fitness

So I know I've written a post on the difficulties of being young with Heart Valve Disease and how I get discouraged and stop caring altogether but since my August Hiatus with my heart trouble I'm jumping back into the fitness swing of things. Yeah, I know, terrible timing, I'm committing to be healthy and fit during the hardest season - Holiday Season.

These are a few tips and reminders to avoid the Holiday Belly!

1. Don't arrive to a party already hungry, you'll pig out on WAY too many sweets and desserts if you do or be inclined to take oversized portions on calorie dense dishes.
2. If you're attending a potluck or are the hostess - make every effort to make sure the dishes you are making/bringing are nutritious AND delicious. Try searching for guilt free comfort food recipes for makeovers on your favorite dishes to be healthier. Try Cooking Light or Eating Well.
3. Be mindful of your beverages; alcohol, soda, and juice are high in sugar and calories. If you do drink one of these do it in moderation and alternate with tea, coffee, or water.
4. Plan 1-2 workouts a week, it might be too hard to commit to a half hour every day but at least try once or twice maybe when you're running errands make efforts to park further away or shopping time inefficiently.
5. Do you, don't worry about what the hostess thinks if you skipping out on her "famous pecan pie". If you don't want it, don't feel pressured to eat it.

Weight-loss...It's Not As Awesome as Ice Cream

Work Walking Challenge Week #3

Daily Average Stats

47,245 Steps

19.77 Miles

41 Floors

3,622 Calories

I'm up from last week but I still haven't regained that overall steam I had in that first week. I did top myself in the personal best category this last week, I did 100,000 steps in one day! I finally got that last fitbit trophy for steps in a day. Now I just have to work through the floors in a day category but somehow I think that one is going to be MUCH harder. :/ But I will do it before the end of the year is out. It's on my Fitness Bucket List for this year. :D

How To Get More Steps in Your Day

Okay so in doing this work challenge I have been asked how I manage to get so many steps into my day. Here are some of the things that I personally do to help get more steps into my day.

1. Place time blocks in my personal calendar on my phone that remind me 15 minutes ahead of time that I need to be walking soon if I'm not already. It helps to pair this with a special alarm on your phone to be a helpful reminder in case a notification ding isn't enough. I have scheduled three 2 hour blocks into my day entirely devoted to walking, that's 6 hours! I like to get up at 5:15 and walk until about 7:15 to say hello to other fittie and pet-walking neighbors. I block the first two hours I get home to walking from 5:20-7:20 before I settle into cooking dinner for the evening. I then take a walk from around 8:00-10:00 on my gym's treadmill so I can watch live TV while I walk during prime time when all my favorite shows are on. To keep myself from getting bored in these 6 hours I spend that time talking with my significant other, calling friends and family to catch up, listening to an audio book or news podcast. I don't like to listen to music while I walk because it makes the time feel longer than it is. It should be whatever will captivate your interest the most.

2. Be a fidgeter! That's right, fidget, do NOT sit or stand still. If your eating a sandwich, walk while you eat it. If your cooking in the kitchen step back and forth - likewise for brushing your teeth! March in place when you watch TV instead of succumbing to the Sitting Disease (see post from 7/29/15 for more information on that), put your laundry into the washer one piece at a time so you have to take multiple trips to the washer, same for putting away dry clothes and bringing in the mail. Call your folks and make laps around your living room!

3. Walk at work. Again, to avoid Sitting Disease, be sure to stop and get up at least every hour. Take the long way around the office and go to the furthest restroom (our furthest restroom is 5 floors away so I get about 500 steps every time I visit the loo!) Need a drink of water? Go to the furthest water phone - again for me 5 floors away! Just every hour find an excuse to get up even if it's just to throw something away. I know most folks have their own trash but it'll help if you put your trash away in the furthest central location.

4. It's easy to convert a desk into a standing desk. I purchased 3 shoe racks from Target and propped 2 on top of each other for my monitors so they'd be at the right height and a third to go in front for my keyboard and mouse. I spent $35 in total for this simple fix and I had gotten wood ones so they wouldn't look tacky. It's a little hard to type at first but over time it's something you can grow accustomed to.

5. Shop like your lost. Park in the furthest place from the entrance (bring an umbrella just in case) and take a walk around the whole store before you even put a single item in your cart and when you change departments when you do start shopping make another lap before you move onto another department. For obvious reasons do perishables last. :D If you don't have to worry about the items in your cart going bad take another lap around the store before you check out. Bring your groceries in one bag at a time, starting with your perishables, and don't ask the hubby or the kids for help.

6. Basically unless there is absolutely no reason why you couldn't be standing you can be walking in place!

The Sitting Disease - Are You Dying from It?

Okay first a very brief overview on the history of man, they were primarily either nomads spending most of their day hunting and on their feet or a farmer and spent most of their day farming also on their feet. There was no such thing as an 8 hour work day back then and there were no grocery stores so a person likely hunted or farmed as much as they were able in a day spending the majority (probably almost all) of their waking hours on their feet.

People today sit about 9.3 hours a day factoring for time spent at work and on the couch or at a desk for their leisure time. Now review back to the history of man. We were not built to sit, we were built to walk. Now this is where it gets really scary, sitting for 6+ hours a day makes you up to 40% likelier to die within 15 years than someone who only sits for 3 hours a day - this factors in if after those 6+ hours you exercise. Exercise will not deter the sitting disease.

Okay enough about how it's killing you physically, let's move on to how it's killing you emotionally. Obese people sit for 2.5 hours more than thin people, 1 in 3 Americans is obese. Sitting only expends the energy you body burns just from having working organs, you aren't burning off all that takeout we're all so fond of in our busy lives. 

Actually let me insert a rant into here real quick on the "busy life". The busy life entails a person who works for 8 or more hours, sleeps usually for only about 7, spends 2 hours in transit and then spends the remaining 7 hours surfing the web. You are NOT busy. You can make time for a healthier you. Actual busy people are so busy they schedule everything and even they can usually find one hour in their day to spend at the park or engaged in a non-sitting activity. End of rant.

When a person is sitting the electrical activity in your legs stops, your body is only burning 1 calorie per minute (your organs keeping you alive), really great digestive enzymes that help you break down that double cheeseburger drop down 90%, after sitting 2 consecutive hours your good cholesterol (HDL) drops 20% (FYI - this one is a factor for heart disease), and after 24 hours (I hope NO ONE really does this) insulin effectiveness drops 24% risking diabetes. I realize most people have to sit at work but you CAN get up every hour or so and walk to the water cooler or to the restroom to simple lower the sitting disease's effect.

People who sit and watch TV for 3 hours are 64% more likely to die of heart disease. Yeah, believe it, I watch several hours of TV a night and I have heart valve disease. It's all true. Now, when I want to watch TV I make sure to do it walking in place or streamed over a tablet or TV while I'm on the treadmill (way to reward healthy habits, with TV!).

Statistics were pulled from MedicalBillingandCoding.org, I claim all the snarkiness. :)

My Attitude Depends on My Success

Work Walking Challenge Week #2

I lost a little steam this week once we actually passed the "finish" line but I aim to gear back up this week after the successful weight-loss!

 

Daily Averages

41,320 Steps

17.13 Miles

46 Floors

3,366 Calories

 

Workout Buddies...Easy Ways to Cop Out