Sweat it Our:
1 Hour Elliptical
Today was the first official workout that I felt like I was going to throw up on the way home. I was a little panicked thinking that I had nothing to puke in and would just have to do it all over the steering wheel. Lucky me, I have a horrible gag reflex and only throw up if my life is in danger like food poisoning. I haven’t had the flu since 6th grade. Stomach of steel over here.
Another fabulous thing about today’s workout is that I increased my resistance and completely zoned out the entire hour. I worked harder than ever and didn’t even notice, I was so deep in thought. What was I in thought about you ask? Oh, you didn’t ask? Well I’m telling you anyway!
Let me start with saying that I Love the Weight Watchers plan, and I love the way the point system works, but the last few days I’ve been wondering if I eat ALL of my WW points plus how many calories am I ACTUALLY taking in? Before I started Weight Watchers, I used the Livestrong website. They have a program called The Daily Plate, and it’s awesome. It has the caloric information for almost every food imaginable. My only gripe with WW is when I go to enter in my food, the particular item is almost never in their database and I have to enter every food myself manually, and sometimes when I go to put it in again, it has lost the information so I have to enter it AGAIN! Kind of Frustrating. If you are calorie counting, I HIGHLY recommend using The Daily Plate. You can even make nifty nutritional labels for your meals. Anyway, it’s awesome.
Moving on. Today I decided I would answer the question of “How many calories am I actually consuming?”. I took all the foods that I ate yesterday and put them into my account on The Daily Plate and I found some interesting information:
Did I really eat 162 grams of protein?! To see the actual nutritional breakdown is interesting to me, and puts a LOT of things into perspective. Like I am eating too much salt and my cholesterol is pretty high for the day. I should probably cut back on the eggs a little!
When I had Gestational Diabetes, my nutritionist told me that I needed to keep my protein, fat, and carbs in balance so that my blood sugar stayed stable. Looking at this pie chart tells me that my carbohydrate intake was a little high yesterday. Could it have been the 3 LARGE peaches I ate yesterday? Little sidenote: when entering in my peaches to The Daily Plate I found out that I ate 532 calories in peaches alone yesterday! Say what?!
After doing this little experiment I found out that each Weight Watchers point was about 54 calories. The other thing I found is that I need to do a little extra work when it comes to tracking my food. The nutritional breakdown really put a lot of things into perspective for me and there are area’s that I need to cut back on. Let’s remember I’m in this to be healthy not thin, and although staying within my alloted points will help me fit into skinny jeans, it won’t help me live longer and that is the ultimate goal here.
Anything you’ve been enlightened with lately?
BTW: This is my 100th Post! Yay me!
Dustin
/ September 20, 2011So how many calories are you taking in if you eat all your points? Easy on the peaches. Save some for later agustas.
Shrinking Carrie
/ September 20, 20112,175 and that is if I count fruit as actual points! But on the WW website they put fruit in as zero unless you add them in a recipe! No wonder I haven’t lost more! (that and a few other reason’s I’m sure).
tobyhorton
/ September 20, 2011enjoyed your post!
Shrinking Carrie
/ September 20, 2011Thanks!
Marion
/ September 20, 2011Hi Carrie! I enjoyed your humor in the middle there.
I’ve been eating about that amount of calories. I truly believe that if I am *very consistent,* I will end up in small 12′s or even 10′s for jeans with this calorie amount and my level of muscle and exercise. I can’t know why that wouldn’t be the same for you.
If you are exercising that hard, you probably will get a pukey feeling. I certainly do! I mean, try rowing hard on the rowing machine for half an hour and you’ll really hope that you didn’t eat before gym!!! Also, if I do a half hour of hard AB exercises, my gut feels gross! I’ve talked to a lot of very fit gym buddies about this and they have this too. I often joke about exercising until I feel pukey–meaning I’m going to give it all I got! This is why I *NEVER* eat before gym.
Marion
Shrinking Carrie
/ September 20, 2011It was definitely a sensation that I had never felt before, not even in my running days! I have to eat a little something considering that most days I do almost 2 hours of straight exercise and not until 8 in the morning. When I use to workout at 5:30 am (when I had a job and no baby) I absolutely couldn’t eat anything or I would feel sick. Its weird how your body changes. It’s usually something light like a 6 oz yogurt, nothing big.
The problem with me is staying consistent, but now that I have been posting my food it seems that I am more motivated to stay on track. It’s weird the things you’ll do when you have to show the world!
emwindisch21
/ September 21, 2011I am so jealous that you can go on the elliptical machine for an hour. My gym has ONE elliptical machine. ONLY ONE!! and there is a limit of 20 minutes, and as soon as you get on it it feels like every girl in the gym is eyeing you to make sure you don’t go over the 20 minute mark!
Shrinking Carrie
/ September 21, 2011OMGosh! i would die if they only let me go for 20 minutes, not to mention that I wouldn’t lose any weight! And like there isn’t enough self conscientious at the gym, who needs other women giving you the stink eye!
Ana
/ September 21, 2011I use the website MyFitnessPal.com to track my food. Their iPhone app even has a scanner so I just scan the barcode of the food and it gives me all the nutrition info. Very handy! I did Weight Watchers at one point and was able to lose 60 lbs. (and gained it all back then some when I stopped counting points). My only gripe with the program is that they don’t really focus on macro nutrients too much. That’s especially important when you’re trying to build muscle and doing a program like NROLFW. And I just have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE your attitude about healthy vs. skinny. Good job girl!
Shrinking Carrie
/ September 21, 2011I have heard that My Fitness Pal is great. There is also one that my friend told me about called 411fit, and it actually grades you on how good you are doing! I got kind of frustrated with it. And I agree about the macro’s not being important with WW. I like to see the actual nutrition that is going into my body, but I like the accountability of WW.