Like many people here, I have an on-again off-again relationship with weight loss. I was very fit in my 30s but a motorcycle crash (and 2 year recovery) caused me to gain 50 lbs. I lost 20 lbs once I could walk again but the rest has been difficult. I go through (year-longish) phases of hopelessness and then equally long phases of keeping at it. Then Covid19 hit, I was out of work, and I didn't get off the couch for 2 months. I ate and ate and ate and I didn't do a bit of exercise. Not good. I was worried about my health but was simply too scared to weigh myself. Then something magical happened.
In late April my 12 yr old said she wanted to start jogging. WHAT? WOW! OK! She's a couch potato so this was a VERY welcome surprise. And it was all I needed to break me out of my funk. We started the Couch to 5K (C25K) program the very next week. We are now 9 weeks into the Under Armor 16 week program and it's been great. Now, I HAAAAATE jogging, but this program increases the jogs and decreases the walks so gently that we never feel overwhelmed. And I can't let my daughter down, so even when I don't feel like it, we do it.
At this point you might be wondering, "Why is this post titled 'In praise of fitness trackers'?" In order to even do C25K, we needed a timer (you walk then jog every few minutes so you're constantly checking the time). So I bought a fitness tracker. At first I just used it as a timer. But a few days later I started looking at my steps and became obsessed with getting 10,000 every day. Sometimes I go out at 11pm and walk around the neighborhood if I'm short for the day (it resets at midnight). A couple weeks later I started logging my food with the app. This was HUGE. The app makes it really easy to track calories. The cool thing is, the app tells you exactly how many calories under or over you are at that instant. So you can adjust your habits real time. At the end of the day, if I've been good (I kept my eating in check and/or exercised a lot that day) I reward myself with desert. If I haven't been good, then I feel like I didn't earn it and I better try harder the next day.
And I finally got on the scale this morning and I was 5 lbs LIGHTER than I was in March. Woo-hoo!
A lot of this is common knowledge and many of you are probably rolling your eyes. But I hope at least ONE person reads this and starts tracking steps / exercise / calories.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/3ioc2Aw
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