exercise

Fitbit – Part One

8 Comments Posted on January 29, 2016January 28, 2016 by Snoskred

Remember earlier this year when I posted about my main goal for 2016? I said I would write about the Fitbit once I had it a little longer. Today it is exactly one month since I got this nifty device and I am loving it.

There are a lot of different aspects to the Fitbit, so I am not even going to try and cover them all in the one post. I’ll start off by telling you a little bit about what the Fitbit is, then I will talk about some of the ways that the Fitbit has inspired me to get moving again, and then tell you what I love and do not love about it.

What Is Fitbit?

Fitbit is an activity tracking device. You wear it on your wrist. Depending on which model you choose, it can track other things as well. I wanted to keep an eye on my heart rate especially when exercising, so I chose the Fitbit Charge HR. It cost $124 to purchase in the Boxing Day sales.

Fitbit reports the data it gathers back to your smartphone and/or your computer. You have a dashboard, which contains many different fields, and you can move the fields around to get it looking how you want.

The wrist device itself has a very small LED display which you can tap to switch between the time, steps so far, heart rate, KMs for the day, and calories burned. You can set it so that a flick of your wrist shows you the current time. I deeply love that feature!

Fitbit Makes Me –

Park that bit further away.

When you know you have a daily goal of 10,000 steps, you begin to find opportunities to add them in to your day. There is this local meat place which has a carpark of evilness, so now I park in a street away from the carpark and walk there instead. I discovered that I MUCH prefer this to driving in and trying to find a park and negotiating every other person in the tiny and badly designed carpark.

Get on the treadmill.

I’ve had this treadmill sitting here next to me for over a year now. There were times when I was very disciplined and would get on it every day, and there were times when I ignored it totally. Now I am on it most days, even if only for 15 minutes to get those last few missing steps.

Get out and about.

I’d much rather walk out at Huskisson and Vincentia than on the treadmill. Since the start of 2016, I have managed to get down there on average twice a week, sometimes 3-4 times.

Be Less Rigid

In 2015, I would only get on the treadmill first thing in the morning, before my shower. This meant if I did not feel like exercise then, it would get skipped. Now, with Fitbit, I have all day to get my steps in. If I do not feel like it first thing in the morning, I’ll take a shower, do what I feel like, and get on the treadmill in the afternoon, then take a second shower if I need it. I’ve even exercised as late as 9:30 or 10pm, if I needed more steps.

What I Love About Fitbit –

Convenience –

It is so simple! Wearing this one item on my wrist gives me SO much information about myself and my health, from heart rate at different times of the day right up to how well I slept.

Reminder –

Fitbit is there on my wrist 24/7 reminding me to make better choices – whether it be move more or eat less.

Tap To Know –

Three quick taps at any time of day gets me my current heart rate. This is useful mid-treadmill when I want to see if I am pushing too hard.

Great Workout Tracking

Look at all the info Fitbit collected on my walk today!

Above is heart rate and which zones you are in during your work out. The very low dips – the first one is where I stretch after doing my slow warm up 2 mins, then there are 2 drink breaks in there.

Above shows calorie burn, and the impact of his exercise on my day.

Resting Heart Rate

Fitbit tracks my resting heart rate. You can see it has dropped significantly since I started my journey to fitness on 29 December. You can also see it went back up a little – I had a cold which I was fighting at that time.

What I Don’t Love About Fitbit –

Fitbit Can’t Go Swimming

I have always loved the pool – swimming and aqua aerobics are my first two choices of exercise, even above walking and kayaking. However Fitbit is unable to join me there – which means all the information I rely on when I exercise, like heart rate and calories burned is also unavailable to me.

Fitbit Needs Regular Cleaning

Not that cleaning is a problem for this germophobe, but whenever I do it clean it – usually once a day, twice if necessary – I worry that I might accidentally murder it. Fitbit is splash proof but not water proof.

Fitbit Needs To Be Placed Correctly

In order to measure your heart rate, Fitbit has to be in the right place. Sometimes I have had trouble putting it in the right place or I have bumped it slightly and there goes my heart rate measurements, sometimes for hours because I did not know it wasn’t measuring it. I wish it would beep or flash when it wasn’t picking up my heart rate so I could adjust it.

Fitbit Took Some Getting Used To

I found sleeping with it on extremely weird to begin with. However, I stuck with it and I got used to it, and I consider the data gained VERY useful – I’ll talk more about the data in another post.

Overall –

I love my Fitbit, and I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get moving. Just remember what I said about lessons learned in my Main Goal post.

exercise, Fitbit, health, Making Choices

My Main Goal For 2016

15 Comments Posted on January 8, 2016January 8, 2016 by Snoskred

I have a few things I would like to achieve this year. There is one major goal, though – and it is –

Eat Less, Move More.

This is a pretty simple goal. It needs to happen. My weight has been quietly creeping up to a place I am not a fan of. At the start of January, I weighed in at 95.2kg – (209.88 pounds) – if I let things continue this way, I’d soon be over 100kgs.

The Other Half and I bought ourselves the Fitbit Charge HR for Christmas. We got them on special for $124 each. This little gadget has changed my life in a good way – I will do a post all about it later this month once I have been using it a little longer. Here is a quick look at the dashboard, which you will see in more detail in my upcoming post. :)

As a part of the Fitbit thing, I’m also tracking my food intake. I was doing it with the inbuilt Fitbit food logging software, but I have now switched to MyFitnessPal. You can find me here – MyFitnessPal & Fitbit.

We bought the Fitbits on Tuesday, so I weigh in on Tuesday mornings and in the first week I lost 1.3kg (2.86 pounds).

Of course one of the very first things we did was go out for a long walk, during which I managed to pinch a nerve in my foot, making it difficult to get my 10,000 steps a day for that first week. In fact for two days I had to rest and limp about – then I injured it again and had to take another rest day. That has been quite frustrating. However even on a rest day I managed 6468 steps which is pretty decent.

I know I have a couple of readers who have set themselves the same goal and at least one thinking about buying themselves a Fitbit, so here are my lessons learned after one week.

Start Out Slow.

As soon as you get that Fitbit, you’ll want to get moving. However if you do that, you will not have a baseline to know how many steps you would usually do in a day. So my advice the first day is – do what you would do on a regular day.

Be Careful

An injury will hinder your progress and frustrate you, so rather than go all out, ramp up your exercise slowly. If you are not doing 10,000 steps to begin with, aim to add a thousand steps each day.

Work It Out

It is useful to figure out how many steps you get from things you do regularly. For example, if I need to run to the shops, it will be 2,000 steps or so. A shower is usually 200-300 steps – I keep mine on, you don’t have to, of course. Why is this important?

Step Budget

If you know that you have to do grocery shopping tomorrow, and you know that is going to be around 2,000 steps, you might want to cut back on your other activities.

For example – I like to get on the treadmill and do a walk but I will always stop around 8,000 steps because I know the rest of my daily doings (dinner, cleaning, etc) will be around 2,000 steps. On the day you see pictured above, we discovered we did not have an essential dinner ingredient, so off to the shops we went – and I went way over on my steps for that day.

Not that going over 10,000 steps is a major problem, but at this stage with the injury I really want to try and stick to 10,000 -11,000 a day.

Sleep Is Interesting

Sleep stats, that is. Above you see one of my best nights of sleep since getting the Fitbit. Interestingly, I had stayed up late reading a truly great book. When I did go to sleep, I was out solidly for 4 hours. I woke up so refreshed the next morning.

This sleep was less good but it seems like this is a more normal sleep for me.

Fitbit Thoughts

Why does it seem like this is going to work well for me? Putting this little tracking band on my wrist has inspired me to get moving and watch my food intake. Is it because, in a world where everything can be tracked, tracking the human body tells us more about ourselves? I haven’t logged food to this extent before and I am finding it to suit my Aspie, slightly OCD nature.

Saying It Out Loud

The major reason I am posting this here is to hold myself accountable. There is always the danger I could become complacent and fall off the eat less, move more wagon. I’ll update here once a month.

Over To You

Did you make any goals for 2016? Do you fitbit or myfitnesspal? :)

2016 Goal, exercise, health, Making Choices, moving forward

Recent PINCHme Samples

4 Comments Posted on December 7, 2015December 4, 2015 by Snoskred

In December of 2014 I wrote about PINCHme samples – I also wrote this post about how *not* to sample – AKA don’t be stingy. Today I am giving you an update on recent samples I have received.

Over winter 2015 things went very quiet at PINCHme with not many samples released at all. They picked back up again in late September. The first sample they sent me was by far the least stingy and most awesome sample ever – a full sized Mitchum Clinical Deodorant.. when I next visited the shops I made sure to look for it on the shelf and was quite taken aback when I saw this –

I’ve been using it every second day since I got it and I have to say, it is pretty amazing. It smells wonderful, too. How does one use a 48 hour antiperspirant when one showers every day, one thought? I tested it out, still having my daily shower as usual on the second day and then *not* putting anything on and fate made sure I tried this on the hottest day we’ve had thus far – 35 degrees, no sweat, no smells.

It feels weird, not putting anything on after a shower, but I have got used to it. You only need to use the tiniest amount of this stuff – one click of the dial at the bottom per armpit. I’ve been using it every second day for over a month now and I still have over half a container left. Normally I would go through one roll on per month.

I knew I’d heard things about aluminium in antiperspirants so when I checked the ingredients I was a little unsure, but I did some research into that and it is all urban myths as far as I can see. I will definitely be buying this one.

Good job on not being stingy, Mitchum! In fact you did such a good job of not being stingy you have won two customers, I bought a similar product for The Other Half when I saw them on special recently.

So here we have some Dynamo clothes washing liquid – I gave this a legit trial with some clothes which were stained that have been awaiting stain removal. It removed almost all the stains. I’m keeping the second packet for more stains, and will consider purchasing a small amount of this to keep on hand. One small negative – our front load washer does not have anything to stop the liquid running right into the machine, so the detergent went right in.

There is also a Schick Quattro razor. I’m not a user of razors very often – I prefer waxing – plus I am unlikely to use anything with 4 blades as a regular thing, but I’ll give it a try. Anything more than two blades reminds me of this little ad from The D Generation

There is a Chux magic eraser – now I just have to find something to use that on! – and some Fancy Feast which the cats were big fans of. They would be even greater fans if only I would follow these feeding instructions –

Grumpy is 5kg, so that would be 7.5 pouches a day. This would be an increase of 7 pouches a day as the kitties get half a pouch/tin of wet food each morning. At 1.42 per pouch, this would cost me $10.65 a day in cat food! Unless I could find it on special somewhere..

If I followed these instructions, Grumpy would soon be 10kg, in which case I would have to feed her 15 pouches. Exponential growth! If I showed these feeding instructions to my vet, who recently told us our kitties need to watch their weight, she would probably fall on the floor laughing. It makes me wonder – is anyone out there actually reading and following those instructions? That would be very bad. :/

I find PINCHme free samples to be interesting, I always love receiving mail and sometimes the samples are a source of great products we end up loving and buying. We are still using Fairy Platinum dishwasher tablets and we love them, I am a big fan of the Mitchum deodorant..

Samples are usually released @PINCHme on Tuesdays at mid-day. They sell out very quickly, so you want to be logged in at 11:58am and ready to go. Sometimes they have surprise samples on other days, as well.

You can sign up for PINCHme here and I do not receive anything for sending you there, sadly. They ought to have a decent referral program. They do have one but it is linked to the samples which usually sell out within minutes, plus there is some blather about having to be logged in when you refer someone.

FYI the usual statements apply – nobody paid me to write this post, I do receive free samples from PINCHme but they are samples anyone can receive if they are a member and they sign in at the right time to claim a sample.

customer feedback, exercise, kitties, PINCHme

Trouble Brewing @ Lumosity

41 Comments Posted on September 7, 2015September 6, 2015 by Snoskred

I may need some kind of intervention, because I can’t stop playing this game on Lumosity. I’ve been a member there since 2012 and I enjoy the brain training. I can tell you that it has improved my brain, in particular my maths and memory.

So what is Trouble Brewing all about? Making coffee. It is a divided attention time management game. It helps with multi-tasking and in general I was already pretty good at that to begin with considering that was what I did 6 hours a day 4-5 days a week in my last job. But this game has me challenged and pushing myself continually to get to the next level.

To begin with, it is all fun and games and relatively easy because the coffee making machine and the orders are all on the same page.

As you progress, the order screen and the coffee machine screen separate a little. You’ll have a couple of machines on the order screen, then a screen with more machines. Like this –

But when you reach level 9, a terrible happens. You now have one order screen in the middle, and two separate coffee machine screens. Like this –

The order screen

Cafe screen one

Cafe screen two – you can see the coffee level indicator is telling me that cups are nearly full on the other screen. Each level you have to fill more orders but the time does not increase – at least it hasn’t yet. 40 cups in two minutes on level 9.. that is a lot of orders to fill in two minutes!

At the end of the game you get to see your score and your top 5 scores.

As I write this on the 16th of August, I am stuck on level 9. It is my hope that one day soon all the stars will align and the moon will smile on me and I’ll do everything in exactly the right way in order to pass this level and move to level 10.

Update – 05/09/2015

FINALLY!!!!! This is the day the stars aligned and the moon loved me enough to let me complete all 40 orders in 2 minutes. I’m still having trouble believing I finally got past level 9.

Playing this game so much has made me better at the other divided attention *and* memory games because this game uses memory to remember what orders need to be filled. This week I got top scores in Train of Thought and Star Search, plus a memory game where items wash up on a beach and you have to pick ones you have not picked on previous waves. I’m thinking it might be worth focusing in on one particular game for a week at a time and seeing how much I can improve.

Obviously Lumosity have not paid me anything to say this – in fact I have paid them in order to play the games. Nearly two years ago I bought the family plan – it runs out in November, then it is every man for themselves. You can likely find free brain training games on the web, if you look for them. I love the convenience, record keeping, encouragement, and the happy and positive vibe of Lumosity. I’m not sure how much the basic plan costs over there but I know I’ll be signing up for it again.

Over to you –

Do you brain train? :)

exercise, Gaming, Lumosity, time management

Don’t worry, it is dead.

3 Comments Posted on March 20, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

So, here’s a quick and somewhat hilarious arachnid story.. without images because I don’t want to see pictures of an eight legged creature and neither do you. :) I’m putting it behind a read more for the arachnophobes. :) Click through to read it.

Continue reading →

exercise, Home, kitties, potential disaster, spider

Update Week

4 Comments Posted on December 15, 2014June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

What I’m Doing – Exercising

There has been a significant addition to my living space. You might remember how it was before – my living space.

I recently got the all clear from the lung specialist to get back into exercise and while I have a elliptical here already, I did not want to start with that. It has been a year since I have done any significant exercise and jumping onto the elliptical right away would be the best way to get myself injured. So I borrowed this treadmill from my parents – it was gathering dust at their place anyway.

I started out easy but within a relatively short time I was walking 5kms a day and I felt like I had to limit myself to that, because I could easily have walked for hours of an evening while watching tv..

This past week, I cranked up the pace a little and it went like this – Sunday 5km – Monday 6km – Tuesday 7km -Wednesday 8km – Thursday 9km – Friday 10km. Over the space of 6 days I walked 45km. By Friday I had a super awesome blister on my right ankle so I took the weekend off from walking, but I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

What I’m Thinking – Positives

River posted some thoughts yesterday which got me thinking.

I try to write positive letters or emails to companies and people fairly regularly and I wonder if maybe this is something which could work as a linkup, maybe once a month or so. I’ll ruminate some more on this and probably launch something in January. It would be a monthly link up thing, I think.

I think it would be something amazing to start a movement of positive feedback. We all are quick to complain when things are wrong, but how many of us send a note to the companies that make products we trust, use daily, and rely on?

The Inlinkz thing I use for the Shoe Sundays is pretty simple to use, and I can leave them open forever, so maybe I’ll do one and see if people want to link up with their positive company feedback, and whether or not they get a response as well.

What I’m Considering – Checking In

I try to visit the blogs I read and leave comments as often as I can however you may have noticed a drop off in my comments lately – first of all, check your spam bin because I might be in there – here’s how to check your spam bin on WordPress, scroll down to please note – and second of all, I was commented out by the end of November.

I’m planning a January visiting blogs spree, and I’m going to try leaving a comment as well as leaving an actual note if possible, via an email address or contact form. This is harder than you might suspect. The amount of people blogging without an email address or contact me form is way higher than it should be. :(

If you are wanting to know how to put your email address out in the open without attracting significant spam, try writing it like this – snoskred {at} gmail {dot} com <-- that one will reach me, by the way.

What I’m Obsessed With – Moonbase Inc

The Other Half was trying to talk me out of playing Candy Crush Saga, which I had only recently tried out and I got stuck on this one level, I can’t beat it no matter what I do. It is *infuriating* which is not what a game should be, in my opinion. :( And it keeps telling me to buy boosts so I can win the level and I flat out refuse to do that.

So he showed me this neat little Moonbase Inc game, which is completely free, you can play on your Android tablet or phone. I have it on both. :) It is that awesome. I would actually pay for this game.

About Snoskred, exercise, Gaming, General Chit-chat, power of positive thought

Making Changes

Leave a comment Posted on December 18, 2012May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Change is never an easy thing to accomplish.

“Experts” say that you must do something 21 times in order to change a habit. I have found in general it can be slightly higher than 21 times. But if you focus on it and keep trying, you will get there. You will make changes.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a teevee show on MTV, oddly enough. And watching it, I realise that if someone had done this for me when I had just finished high school, I would be an entirely different person now, and I certainly would not have the weight struggles I have now.

The name of the show I am not a huge fan of – it is called I Used To Be Fat. Some of the people on the show were not what I would consider to be “fat” just larger than your average stick thin teen. But after finishing high school they were given personal trainers and access to more healthy food – a target of weight loss – and a calendar which told them how many days to going to college. You can watch episodes via that link, by the way. I recommend Jordan, that was my favourite one.

What happened with these people – with *one* exception – was absolutely inspirational to me. It kicked me into gear and made me go to the gym every.single.day for an entire week. Even when I didn’t want to, or it was super late at night, or I felt unwell. I still went.

It got me doing exercise at home on top of the gym work. It showed me exercises I could add into my day. It is the thing that makes me say – after doing a shift at work and finishing at 11pm – I am going to the gym NOW.

But there was one person who did not succeed on the show. Tanner – epic fail dude! The reason he did not succeed is because he was not making the changes for himself – he was making them for his girlfriend, who had absolutely no care or compassion for him and after seeing how much time he was spending at the gym instead of with her, she dumped him. Which sent him into a spiral of not doing well. Then just as he was getting back on track, she un-dumped him, causing him to focus on her instead of exercise and healthy eating.

You have to want it.

You have to want it for yourself

Not because you think you need to do it, or because someone else said so, or because you feel bad when you eat something unhealthy or because you don’t like how you look in your clothes.

You have to wake up one morning and say “I value myself enough to eat decently and make sure I get some exercise”. And then you have to commit to it, and kick your own butt if you don’t do it – not by guilting yourself, but by making sure you do it the next time.

But most of all, you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. You have to keep going even when life tries to derail your train. If you eat something bad you can’t endlessly guilt yourself over it. You say done can’t be undone make a better choice next time – and then follow through.

You have to challenge yourself.

And with that said, I am challenging myself. It started with trying to run on the treadmill which I would only do if nobody else was in the gym in case things went terribly wrong (like I fell off, or couldn’t keep up, or something)

I managed it twice with nobody else there – walk for 2 mins, run for 60 seconds, walk for 2 mins, run for 60 seconds, walk for 2 mins, run for 60 seconds.

And then I had done it a couple of times so I thought things went ok, I’m giving up on caring what other people might think, I know at least I won’t fall over and I know I can do it. So I did it with people in the gym, and it went ok.

And I have kept going with it. Every day for the past 4 days, I have done 15-20 mins on the elliptical, and then 9 mins on the treadmill with a cool down.

Then today I discovered Couch to 5k.

And it looks pretty much like what I am doing already, only I am doing it in a smaller way. So my plan over the next few weeks is to extend the amount of times I do the running (eg 4x, 5x, etc) and slowly work my way up to the 20 minute thingy, and then work on it from there.

It might take a bit longer than 9 weeks for me. We’ll see. It’d be nice to be that kind of fit..

challenges, exercise, life lessons

Goals

Leave a comment Posted on December 7, 2012May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

For the past week my goal has been to make it to the gym every. single. day. I have managed it.

My second goal was 100 sit-ups each day. Done. I tend to do them in sets of 10 with a rest until I get to 50.

I also had a mini goal in the back of my head – that if I ever found myself alone at the gym, I would do 3x 1 minute sprints on the treadmill in a 10 minute walk/run.

I am not a treadmill fan – I find it difficult and it usually hurts my shins way more than it should. But I still wanted to have a crack at it, though not with anyone else around in case things go horribly wrong. Like I fall off the treadmill, or something.

And yet every time I would go there – later and later each time as my shifts at work ended later – I would find more and more people! This was quite surprising to me – there is a large group of late night gym attendees.

But tonight – Friday at just after 10pm – I arrived to find the carpark completely empty. YAY! At last, I had the place to myself.

And I did it. I managed the sprints.. MORE YAY!

challenges, exercise

Summer Menu – New Items Week 3 – Lite N Easy

3 Comments Posted on December 5, 2012May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

A couple of interesting new things this week..

BLT Burger (Bacon,Baby Leaf Salad and Mayonnaise on a Ciabatta Bread Roll)

This was lovely. I always enjoy the bacon it is high quality with little or no fat attached.

Salt N Pepper Chicken.

This was not what I was expecting however.. epic win thanks to the water chestnuts. I do not think this was breast chicken but the sauce was pretty tasty.

I just wish they would switch out the white rice for something more interesting – like the gorgeous fried rice in the Sweet N Sour chicken, or the rice with veg in the Chicken Tikka Masala, or maybe brown rice, or a wild rice. Would order this again.

Beef Rissoles with Walnut & Apple Coleslaw

Stunning. STUNNING! I was stunned. I had to sit there and meditate on the awesomeness of this for the next 2 hours. The coleslaw was great. There was baby spinach.

The beef is excellent quality, very little fat or gristle in there if any at all. And it is sooo tasty. I don’t eat much in the way of red meat but if I could have this for every meal, forever, I would. Loved it. And this makes me think I will try more of the red meat options in the future.

Roast Chicken

I have a sad about this. :( The star of this meal should be the chicken and it was not particularly awesome. I am not sure what part of the chicken it was but I don’t know where I would find it on your usual roast chicken. There was some dark meat, no bones at all. It was quite odd.

The peas and potatoes and gravy were quite awesome. The cheesy cauliflower was also quite friendly. Not sure about the stuffing, never have been a great fan of that. But you know something, if Lite N Easy wanted to make a peas, roast potatoes, pumpkin and gravy dinner, I would put my hand up to order it regularly.

Thai Green Chicken Curry

This was very tasty. Not something I would usually eat though I have tried the Lean Cuisine Thai curries before.

Other Updates.

I am giving up completely on the scales.

I know for a fact I am losing centimetres and inches in various places. I can see my body shape changing. Clothes are fitting better – and some of the smaller underwear I bought in the US last year but then had to put away because it did not fit very well are back in the regular underwear rotation. My trusty Slazenger shorts which have been with me through fat and thinner are telling me we are headed back to thinner.

And yet the scales refuse to budge one iota. The new scales I bought to replace the potentially faulty scales are extremely inaccurate. If I stand half a centimetre forward, I get a different reading to the reading I got half a centimetre back. If I lean forward to look down, the needle moves upward to a higher weight!

But on the other hand, I think I might need to double check on the status of my thyroid just to make sure nothing is wrong. On the other hand to that, do I really want to get a blood test, probably not.

I’m making an effort to get to the gym as many days as possible this week because I have gone back to sleeping not as well as I would like. I’m down to only one cup of coffee per day so I am not sure what is causing the insomnia.

exercise, lite n easy

The Things We Don’t Do

1 Comment Posted on August 16, 2011May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

I just got back from the gym – my first visit in a few months. I think the last time I was there regularly was end of May, then I got an evil flu which came with some very nasty bronchitis. After I got better I tried going back but ended up with another flu and frankly got scared to risk going again during the winter months – what with the wet hair from sweating and then having a shower when I got home, I generally was spending too much time with wet hair and I felt I was risking pneumonia again..

I had pneumonia in 2003 – it was awful, absolutely dreadful. And it made me quit smoking, which was *fan-freaking-tastic* thank you very much!

I’ve wanted to go back but.. time passed, we started the chicken coop project, we got the chickens, we got gardening, and really I was doing a fair bit of exercise on my own. On the other hand, I was winter eating, which is not optimal.

Color me shocked when I arrived there today to weigh in and get measured to find out that I had actually lost 4kg since my last gym visit and 2cm off each thigh and upper arms! Plus, 4cm off my chest. Must be all that painting, digging, and chooky chores.

But this is not enough, for two reasons.

1. Hawaii in November

2. I am one of those sick and twisted people who actually *enjoys* a workout.

Ok three. I really would like to get a Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress while I am in Hawaii. And I would like to get it in a much smaller size than I am right now.

Oh and maybe a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes. Or Manolos. Or just an awful lot of $20 shoes from Clarks Bostonian and the other shoe discount store.

These things are so incredibly cheap in Hawaii that even I could afford them.

Exercise is not enough, either. I need to eat better. Realistically I am pretty good with eating. I have cut back to one sugar in each coffee. I never, ever drink soft drinks anymore since becoming addicted to the mineral watery goodness (I love to throw in a few chopped up fresh strawberries, it is soo good!) and I eat pretty well. But portion size is an issue for me. When I eat, I eat too much in one sitting. I should break up my main meals into smaller meals.

So I wrote this post to remind myself why I should go to the gym because once I get there I enjoy it, and I come home buzzed for the rest of the day. I want to go 3x a week between now and Hawaii.

exercise, shopping, travel