Posted by Trish Milburn Feb 15 2011, 12:01 am in calories, exercise, food diary, goals, progress, Trish Milburn, weight loss
Recently, Tawny blogged here about the FitBit. I’d been eyeballing one of these handy little gadgets for about a year and recently bought one. I had to wait a few days after receiving it to set it up because my husband was installing a new hard drive on my computer. But last Monday, I set it up and have been wearing it and tracking my progress ever since. I thought I’d chronicle the first week with my new best friend.
Steps
My goal is 10,000 steps each day. During this first week, my highest daily count was 14,298. I’m walking between 4 and 5 miles a day. There were two days where the count didn’t hit 10,000, but I’m pretty sure I met that 10,000-step goal on those days. The first one was the day I set it up. I had to charge it for a couple of hours, and since there was a snowstorm coming and I had to run errands before it arrived, there were two hours of steps not tracked. Those steps plus the 8,934 I did track that day lead me to believe that I hit my goal. The other day was Saturday when the FitBit tracked 9,852 steps. I discovered that it resets automatically at midnight. Well, I didn’t go to bed until after midnight, so I’m pretty sure I got in another 148 steps.
Calories Burned
I love the feature that tells me how many calories I’ve burned each day, the up-to-the-minute tally accessible at any point throughout the day by pushing the button on the FitBit. Same with steps, how far I’ve walked (miles) and how active I am. My highest calorie burn was 2,286 last Monday. I shoot for 2,184 each day.
Sleep
I wear the FitBit to bed too, and a stretchy wristband. It tracks how long it took me to fall asleep, how many times I woke up, and how long I was asleep versus how long I was in bed. I’ve ranged between 95 and 97 percent sleep efficiency.
Awareness
Like Tawny mentioned in her post, I’m aware of how far I am away from my daily goals and tend to push toward them even more if I’m lagging late in the evening. I’m also still tracking my calories and weight, and all of this daily awareness of my eating and exercise is really paying off. I lost 1.6 pounds last week. It might have been more, but I had an off day where I gained a couple of pounds after making the bad choice of eating some quesadillas, chips and cheese dip. Ugh. There were also a couple of days where I gained .2 pound, which might have been due to what I ate or normal fluctuations.
Still, overall, I’m very happy with how the month is going. Even with a few ups, I’m down a total of 6.2 pounds in half a month. If I’m down 10 pounds at the end of the month, I will be thrilled. I’ve discovered that this concentrated awareness and tracking is what really works for me. It illustrates how important it is to find the method that works for you in helping you reach your health, fitness and weight loss goals.
Posted by Trish Milburn Feb 8 2011, 12:37 am in calories, exercise, fitness, food diary, goals, portion control, Trish Milburn, weight loss
It’s February, Punxatawny Phil didn’t see his shadow, I have a new FitBit, and I rededicated my efforts to tracking my calories and getting a certain amount of exercise each day, no excuses. I’m determined to have a fabulous February. As the final hours of January faded away, I could literally feel my mood lift. [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Aug 24 2010, 12:01 am in 10 Healthy Guidelines, eating healthy, exercise, food diary, Trish Milburn
I’m not sure exactly why other than just being fatigued and very busy (and perhaps a good dose of heat-induced laziness), but I’ve not done well with my eating/exercise regimen since returning from Florida. I actually did much better at the conference than I’ve done since. But that’s why I love Mondays, because it offers [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Jun 28 2010, 6:36 am in eating healthy, exercise, food diary, inspiration, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, motivation, portion control
I’m tired of how much I’m struggling in my efforts to lose weight. I want to make some progress. I am not willing to fail at my attempt to reach a healthy weight and leave obesity behind forever, but I also am very aware of how my Weight Watchers (WW) weigh ins have gone the [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler May 1 2010, 7:01 am in breakfast, cooking, eating healthy, food diary, Michelle Butler, recipes, tracking
I’ve learned so much about myself since I started this journey to becoming and staying a healthy writer 17 months ago. One of these lessons was how important a healthy, filling breakfast was to my weight loss attempts. I have kept most of my trackers or food diaries since the beginning of January 2009. Whenever [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Feb 15 2010, 6:01 am in bad habits, eating healthy, exercise, Expectations, food diary, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, tracking
I’ve noticed an alarming trend the past few weeks. The amount of calories, or points for Weight Watchers followers, I’m eating daily is increasing while the amount of exercise I am doing daily is decreasing. This is not a formula for continued success with weight loss. I’m not sure why this is happening. I’m in [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Jan 8 2010, 6:01 am in calories, eating healthy, eating out, food diary, guest blogger, portion control, walking
By Sara Reinke As we head into the new year, armed with resolutions to lose weight, it seems there is no end to the wealth of information available to help us achieve our goals. Just turn on your television and you’ll find them—advertisements featuring workout DVDs promising cardiovascular “boot camps” to toughen you up, prepaid [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Dec 1 2009, 6:01 am in eating healthy, food diary, weight loss
Struggle is a part of most things we do to improve ourselves and our lives, and that’s definitely been true for me the past couple of weeks with my weight-loss/healthy living efforts. As I have before and may have to again, I’m in a bit of a starting over spot. For the past two weeks, [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Nov 20 2009, 5:54 am in food, food diary, guest blogger
By Tami Brothers I’m a list type of girl. Don’t believe me? Just check out my post over at the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales blog last week where I blogged about how I found a series of books that feed this silly quirk of mine (Did you see the part about me charting the [...]
