One of the wonderful things about my new iTouch is this—LoseIt!. I started using this free app on March 13. With its simple assistance, in the space of almost 2 months, I've lost 15 pounds!
As with any tool, you get out of it what you put into it. The tool itself is not magic. If there's any magic, it's the wonder of asserting your free will—i.e., I'm gonna do this: period. In my case, "do this" refers to my goal to lose 20 pounds.
Being very conservative, I gave myself all summer to reach that goal. I'm simply amazed to see myself 75% of the way toward my goal within 8 weeks. So, I gave myself the summer and spring is not even over yet. Not too shabby.
In my case, I haven't been simply watching what I eat. I've also been working out. In particular, I've been taking advantage of a local hill. For weeks, all I did was walk up and down. Lately, I've advanced to jogging down the hill and walking back up as quickly as I can. I slow down to keep my heart rate between 150 and 160 bpm. It's easy on my aging joints. I burn a helluva lot more calories more quickly than just walking up and down a level street.
Long story short: LoseIt! has inspired me to cut down on sweets significantly, eat far more fruits and veges, and simplify the challenge of counting calories day to day. The end result is not just weighing less, but improving my quality of life in many, many ways.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
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2 comments:
Congrats on your progress so far! Have you read Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories" yet?
Also, while I'm being nosy: Why not run up the hill and walk down it? You might need to run a ways up the hill, then briskly walk the rest. It will give you a harder workout in less time, plus it's not so hard on your joints like running downhill is.
Thanks for the tip about Taubes' book! This is the first I recall hearing about it. I'll check it out.
Good question and great point about the hill.
At one point, running up the hill was out of my reach physically. Specifically, my heart rate would get too high too fast.
That said, I'm pleased to report that my conditioning is now at the point where I can not only jog up the hill but also sprint up it as well.
I don't get very far but it feels wonderful for the small, precious stretch of seconds that I sprint. It's a form of interval training, where I push as hard as I can for as long as I can and then stop or slow down to recover.
My goal, as always, is to do more. So I'm adding weight training to my routine to build upper body strength to help make my, well, uphill battle a little easier to do each time. :^)
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